[BUG] Claude desktop app relaunch bug
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?
CLAUDE_APP_RELAUNCH_BUG_REPORT.md
What Should Happen?
Cannot restart desktop Claude since an error - another program is already using this file - keeps blocking it
CLAUDE_APP_RELAUNCH_BUG_REPORT.md
Error Messages/Logs
Steps to Reproduce
Steps to reproduce:
- On Windows 11, in the Claude Code desktop app (Code tab), start a
session and have Claude create a persistent background Monitor task
whose script polls WSL in a loop (e.g. a while true loop calling
wsl -d Ubuntu -- bash <script> every few minutes) — i.e. a
long-lived background task that repeatedly spawns wsl.exe children.
- Keep the session alive for a day or more; let the app be closed and
reopened at least once in between with the session resumed
(--continue-style resume in the app), so the session has both
current and previous-generation task state on disk under
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Temp\claude\<project>\<session>\tasks\.
- When the app prompts to relaunch for an update, first stop the
running background task (TaskStop) so the session shows no active
work, then accept the relaunch.
- Observed: the new app instance fails to start with an error that
another process is using a file it needs. It never recovers on
retry. Killing visible Claude processes was not attempted by us;
a Windows restart was the recovery both times.
- Reproduced independently on a second Windows 11 machine with the
same usage pattern (long-lived session + wsl.exe-polling background
tasks + app relaunch prompt) in the same week.
Claude Model
Other
Is this a regression?
Yes, this worked in a previous version
Last Working Version
Claude desktop 1.46388.4
Claude Code Version
Fable 5
Platform
Anthropic API
Operating System
Windows
Terminal/Shell
Terminal.app (macOS)
Additional Information
_No response_