[BUG] Claude Desktop crashes mid-session during active use, no quit event or system crash report, only a Crashpad dump

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet
• [x] This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs)
• [x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code

What's Wrong?

Title

[BUG] Claude Desktop crashes mid-session during active use, no quit event or system crash report, only a Crashpad dump

Environment

• App: Claude Desktop for macOS
• App version: 1.46388.3 (f1b512)
• macOS version: 26.5.1 (25F80)
• Hardware: Apple Silicon, M1 Pro

What's Wrong

Claude Desktop crashed while actively in use, mid-conversation, not on launch and not after a long idle period. There is no quit event in ~/Library/Logs/Claude/main.log around the crash time (no "Handling Quit AppleEvent" / "App termination approved" pair), and no system crash report was generated in ~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/. The only artifact is a Crashpad minidump.

In the minute before the crash, a child renderer process's memory roughly doubled (134MB to 313MB) per the periodic [process-memory] log entries, coinciding with several rapid successive messages sent to an active session (three messages sent within about 50 seconds). This may be relevant to reproducing it, but I can't confirm causation from the log alone.

Reproduction

Not reliably reproducible on demand. Occurred during normal use:

1. Active session open, sending messages in quick succession (roughly one every 15-30 seconds)
2. App terminated without warning, no dialog, no quit confirmation
3. App reopened on its own shortly after (unclear if user-initiated or automatic)

What should happen

Claude Desktop should not crash during normal message-sending activity, and if it does crash, it should generate a symbolicated crash report I can reference, rather than only a raw Crashpad dump.

Diagnostic data available

• Crashpad dump: 57b74e5d-fd31-49f4-be17-e93ced1d4cab.dmp (attached as zip, since .dmp may be blocked by upload filters)
• Crash timestamp: 2026-09-04 17:21 (local time)
• main.log excerpt from the minutes surrounding the crash is available on request - not pasting the full excerpt here since it contains local file paths and session identifiers I'd rather not post publicly. Happy to share directly with a maintainer if needed.

Additional notes

This is a different failure mode than the routine "quits and reopens" behavior some users see from the Sparkle auto-updater (ShipIt helper) - that pattern shows a clean quit event and no crash dump. This report is specifically about the version with no quit event and an actual Crashpad artifact.

What Should Happen?

What should happen

Claude Desktop should not crash during normal message-sending activity, and if it does crash, it should generate a symbolicated crash report I can reference, rather than only a raw Crashpad dump.

Error Messages/Logs

Diagnostic data available
Crashpad dump: 57b74e5d-fd31-49f4-be17-e93ced1d4cab.dmp (attached as zip, since .dmp may be blocked by upload filters)
Crash timestamp: 2026-09-04 17:21 (local time)
main.log excerpt from the minutes surrounding the crash is available on request - not pasting the full excerpt here since it contains local file paths and session identifiers I'd rather not post publicly. Happy to share directly with a maintainer if needed.

Steps to Reproduce

Reproduction

Not reliably reproducible on demand. Occurred during normal use:

Active session open, sending messages in quick succession (roughly one every 15-30 seconds)
App terminated without warning, no dialog, no quit confirmation
App reopened on its own shortly after (unclear if user-initiated or automatic)

Claude Model

None

Is this a regression?

Yes, this worked in a previous version

Last Working Version

_No response_

Claude Code Version

Claude 1.46388.3 (f1b512) 2026-09-04T14:20:14.000Z

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

macOS

Terminal/Shell

Terminal.app (macOS)

Additional Information

_No response_