[BUG] Deleted artifacts are re-armed as watches at every session start, emitting a permanent notice per artifact
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?
Environment
Claude desktop app (Code tab), version 1.52386.3
Windows 11 Home, 10.0.26200
Long-running session, resumed many times
Summary
When a session has published an artifact that is later deleted, the session keeps trying to re-open a live watch on it at every startup. Each attempt fails with "no such artifact for this account," and each failure surfaces a Claude Code notice to the user.
The failure is permanent and unrecoverable by definition — the artifact is gone — but it is retried indefinitely, once per artifact, every time the session starts. In my case that is 4 notices at every single startup, and there is no way to clear them from inside the session.
Steps to reproduce
In a session, publish one or more artifacts.
Delete those artifacts (Artifact action: "delete", or from the artifact gallery).
Resume or restart that same session.
Observe one "Claude Code notice" per deleted artifact, every time.
Expected
A re-arm that fails because the artifact does not exist should drop that artifact from the session's watch list permanently. It cannot ever succeed, so it should not be retried — and it should certainly not notify the user about it again on every startup.
Actual
It is retried at every startup, forever, and notifies every time.
Evidence
Artifact action: "status" in the affected session:
No artifact watch is connected in this session; 4 artifacts with watch activity
but no live connection:
the live subscription failed to arm at 2026-09-11T20:07:52.404Z — no such artifact
for this account (it was deleted, or it has not been shared with the user). Nothing
will notify this session about this artifact; there is nothing to retry unless the
artifact is shared with the user again.
- (…3 more, identical, timestamps .406Z / .418Z / .429Z)
Note that the status message itself says "there is nothing to retry" — yet it is retried at the next startup anyway. The status text and the actual behavior disagree.
Why the user cannot fix it
Every available lever was tried and none applies:
Artifact action: "unwatch" only stops a live watch. These are failed re-arms, not live watches, so it returns: No active watch for <url> in this session — nothing to stop. This is arguably the core bug: unwatch is the documented way to stop a watch, but it cannot clear exactly the records that are causing the problem.
No setting suppresses it. Nothing in user or project settings.json.
No live artifact to displace the records. Artifact action: "list" returns "No published artifacts yet" — the account has none at all.
The only workaround is starting a new session, because the list is session-local. That means losing a long session's context to silence a cosmetic message about artifacts that no longer exist.
Suggested fix
When a re-arm fails with "no such artifact for this account," treat it as terminal: remove it from the session's watch list and never retry or notify again. Optionally, also let unwatch clear a non-live watch record, so there is a user-accessible escape hatch when this class of bug recurs.
Impact
Cosmetic but persistent and unfixable by the user. It trains people to ignore Claude Code notices, which is bad for the notices that actually matter.
What Should Happen?
Suggested fix
When a re-arm fails with "no such artifact for this account," treat it as terminal: remove it from the session's watch list and never retry or notify again. Optionally, also let unwatch clear a non-live watch record, so there is a user-accessible escape hatch when this class of bug recurs.
Error Messages/Logs
4 Claude Code notices
Artifact comment monitor for Artifact · fab2838f didn't resume: it couldn't restart in this session. Publish the Artifact again to turn automatic replies back on.
Artifact comment monitor for Artifact · 49fd3a47 didn't resume: it couldn't restart in this session. Publish the Artifact again to turn automatic replies back on.
Artifact comment monitor for Artifact · 12622814 didn't resume: it couldn't restart in this session. Publish the Artifact again to turn automatic replies back on.
Artifact comment monitor for Artifact · 4500b943 didn't resume: it couldn't restart in this session. Publish the Artifact again to turn automatic replies back on.Steps to Reproduce
Steps to reproduce
In a session, publish one or more artifacts.
Delete those artifacts (Artifact action: "delete", or from the artifact gallery).
Resume or restart that same session.
Observe one "Claude Code notice" per deleted artifact, every time.
Claude Model
Opus
Is this a regression?
I don't know
Last Working Version
_No response_
Claude Code Version
Claude Code 2.1.266
Platform
Anthropic API
Operating System
Windows
Terminal/Shell
PowerShell
Additional Information
_No response_