Cowork issues on macOS — page 2
Issues the maintainers labelled both platform:macos and area:cowork.
728 issues · 140 open · 588 resolved (81%) · first seen Jan 15, 2026
Is this getting better or worse?
This class of problem is converging. 226 new reports in the last 90 days vs 478 in the 90 before — -53%. The open backlog peaked at 195 in 2026-04 and sits at 140 today.
Derived by counting each matching issue from its creation date until it closed. First-party
computation over the anthropics/claude-code tracker — the trend is not published
anywhere upstream.
Which builds report this
269 of these reports name the Claude Code build they were running, spanning 94 releases. Heaviest reporters:
- Claude Code v2.1.111
- Claude Code v2.1.92
- Claude Code v2.1.81
- Claude Code v2.1.229
- Claude Code v2.1.177
- Claude Code v2.1.87
- Claude Code v2.1.202
- Claude Code v2.1.121
Report volume, not a defect count: an issue can mention a build without that build having caused the failure. Versions come from the version string in the bug-report template, matched against real published tags.
Do these get fixed?
Median time to close is 33 days across 588 closures. Of the 588 closures with a recorded reason, 19% were closed as completed and 477 as not-planned or duplicate. The most recent completed fix landed in 2026-08.
Workarounds reported by the community
220 of these issues post a workaround someone says worked. The highest-engagement ones:
- [BUG] Cowork Can't add private GitHub marketplace
- …ll org-internal plugin distribution through Cowork. The CLI workaround works but leaves teammates unable to install without terminal tooling.
Found in the thread of #28125 · still open - [FEATURE] Model switching for existing Cowork tasks within Projects
- …des instead of fearing them. Alternative Solutions The only workaround I have found is manually copying persona instructions and key decisions into a brand-new task. This loses the live conversation history and the per-t…
Found in the description of #49649 · still open - [BUG] Cowork (Not Claude Code) 1M context window unavailable on Max 5x — regression from March 20
- …ks has been broken since March 19 19:33 UTC. No client-side workaround exists. This requires a server-side fix.
Found in the thread of #37413 · still open - [BUG] Cowork: Global instructions silently revert to older version after saving
- …s who maintain detailed instruction sets. The only reliable workaround is to put all instructions in a file in the mounted folder, which bypasses entirely. Related issues: 27941, 20637, 24578, 29929, 30329, PR 29077 (unm…
Found in the description of #40175 · still open - [BUG] Cowork — "Additional allowed domains" allowlist non-functional
- …the sandbox proxy. Would appreciate any update on a fix or workaround short of enabling "All domains". --- Note: English is not my first language. This comment was written with the assistance of an AI(Claude.ai).
Found in the thread of #38984 · still open
Excerpts are quoted from the linked issue so you can judge relevance before opening it. Threads that only ask for a workaround, or report that there is none, are excluded. These are community suggestions, not official guidance from Anthropic — read the full thread before applying one.
Matching issues 101–200
Ranked by community engagement (reactions weighted over comments). Listing the top 300 of 728 matches; the statistics above cover all 728.
- [BUG] 1.3036.0: CoWork sessions crash with "Claude Code process exited with code 1" on first message — terminal CLI works fine
- Cowork: Claude Code process exited with code 1 — Failed to create bridge sockets after 5 attempts (all tasks, after VM auto-update to 2.1.111)
- [BUG] 1.3036.0 (cf521c): Cowork sessions crash with "exited with code 1" — Claude Code and chat unaffected
- [BUG] Cowork stuck on 'Authenticating' — OAuth exchange hangs with no response (macOS, M3)
- Co-work teammate silently stalls when agent calls AskUserQuestion
- [FEATURE] Propagate Cowork/Claude session trace context (prompt.id) into MCP tool calls via _meta (SEP-414)
- [BUG] Cowork removes Claude for PowerPoint add-in after each session
- [BUG] Claude Code process exited with code 1
- Failed to create bridge sockets after 5 attempts
- [BUG] Cowork "Failed to create bridge sockets after 5 attempts" after update to 1.3036.0 (cf521c) — macOS Sonoma 14.6.1
- [Bug] Ultraplan agent has wrong git state, gets confused
- [BUG] Cowork stuck on “Starting session” for days, and “Working through a complex response…” for 42+ minutes (macOS)
- [BUG] Scheduled task sessions no longer auto-prefix date in session title (regression since ~April 3, 2026)
- Dispatch messages show as read but never execute after rate limit (macOS, v1.1.9493)
- [BUG] Dispatch: messages processed but responses never render/delivered (macOS, read receipt only)
- [BUG] Marketplace plugins fail to load skills in Cowork -- zip upload of same plugin works fine
- [BUG] Claude Desktop Cowork: "Check your Claude in Chrome account" error persists despite correct account, working native messaging, and active socket connection
- [BUG] Cowork forces claude-opus-4-6[1m] (1M context) causing instant rate limit errors on Max plan
- [BUG] Cowork (macOS): scheduled-task storage root is global and ignores the creating project; its reserved path permanently blocks mounting the containing folder
- [BUG] Cowork: all tasks fail with retry loop then ECONNRESET — fails across networks incl. phone hotspot, survived clean reinstall, worked hours earlier same day (macOS 15.7.3, M3)
- [BUG] Cowork (macOS Desktop 1.9659.1): chat UI enters persistent broken state until app restart — messages stuck as ghost bubbles, AskUserQuestion never renders and is auto-denied (one confirmed trigger: webview connectivity loss)
- [BUG] Desktop + Bedrock: Haiku 4.5 sent as bare model ID (not inference profile) on Scheduled Task follow-ups → intermittent 400 "invalid model identifier"
- [BUG] Cowork mode: sub-agent spawning completely broken — "Prompt is too long" at 0 tokens for all models
- [BUG] Cowork tab missing in Mac desktop app on latest build, personal account
- [BUG] Cowork: "Failed to create bridge sockets after 5 attempts" on every session — macOS 26.4.1, Desktop 1.3036.0
- [Cowork] "Always allow" permission prompts not persisting — reads and writes — v1.1617.0
- Ultraplan remote session offers 'implement here' but cannot push code
- [BUG] Cowork/Code session auth fails after March 25 outage - "sign-in expired" loop on macOS 26.3.1
- [BUG] Connectors don't work when running scheduled tasks
- [BUG] Cowork workspace VM never completes guest_vsock_connect on Intel Mac after Aug 18 bundle update; error message incorrectly blames VPN
- [Bug] Claude Cowork fails to start on macOS arm64: Missing Claude Code binary and SSL protocol error
- [BUG] Dispatch stuck on "Asleep" / "Can't reach your desktop" — all local troubleshooting exhausted
- [BUG] Cowork: Session init fails to mount scheduled task config folder outside project mount after macOS Desktop upgrade
- [BUG]
- [BUG] Cowork: Orphaned Artifact backing folder causes unrecoverable virtiofs mount error in all project sessions
- [BUG] Dispatch non-functional since 29 March incident — messages marked "Read" but no response delivered, reproducible on desktop directly (Max plan)
- [Bug] Ultraplan: Session creation failed during initialization
- [BUG] Claude Code process exited with code 1
- allowedMcpServers cannot include Claude.ai Cowork connectors — name format conflict with schema validation
- [BUG] Claude Desktop crashes on launch when Cowork or Claude Code loads — chat works — since macOS Tahoe 26.3.1 update, persists through clean reinstall and OS upgrade to 26.4.1
- Model behavior degradation: factual fabrication, context loss, document access failures — claude-sonnet-4-6, Cowork v1.2581.0 (Mac, April 2026)
- [BUG] CRITICAL: P0 .skill file "Save and Replace" silently fails. Claude Cowork packages the skill from the host-mounted path (which had the OLD files), not from the VM working copy where the edits actually lived causes cascading scheduled task failures.
- [BUG] Cowork plugins installed via marketplace are immediately removed as NOT_AVAILABLE on next sync — skills never load
- [BUG] Cowork returns 403 on macOS 26.3.1 but works on macOS 26.3
- Cowork tab fails to start when macOS home directory is on external SSD
- [BUG] AskUserQuestion tool call fires but cards don't render — v1.1.5749
- Cowork & Claude Code deliver MCP App tool results with Messages-API image shape; widget stuck on "Waiting for results…"
- [BUG] Cowork: trusted-folder validation rejects Shared Drive root AND first-level folders after app update; depth-2 folders pass
- [BUG] Claude Desktop 1.15962.1 (macOS) — 69s main-thread freeze on every launch after [buddy] bridge started, persists through full reset + reinstall
- Claude Desktop local-agent (Cowork) sessions leak claude-code node processes (never exit at session end) — GBs of RAM + MCP port exhaustion
- [BUG]
- [BUG] Cowork sandbox fails to start on macOS after June 10 app update: "Workspace unavailable... Download failed"
- [BUG] Cowork code crashes
- [BUG] Dispatch conductor session grows unbounded with no rotation/compaction, forcing premium 1M-context billing
- [BUG] Cowork — account enrolled in two A/B variants (`testfoo` + `0526`) causing skill misfires + connector failure; `ENABLE_TOOL_SEARCH` mismatch
- [BUG] Claude Desktop macOS — Helper crash loop in c-ares (`ares_dns_rr_get_ttl`) — false "Endpoint Security blocked Q6L2SF6YDW" dialog (1.8555.2 + 1.9255.0)
- [BUG] Claude Desktop: Local Agent Mode (LocalMcpServerManager) leaks a duplicate set of local MCP servers — pool is app-lifetime-scoped, not session-scoped
- /ultrareview: free run consumed when cloud session crashes from upstream rate limiting
- [BUG] Cowork agent-mode spawns duplicate MCP server processes, breaking MCP Apps that share state between iframe and agent transports
- [BUG] Claude desktop freezes on MacOS user profile when opening Cowork, Claude Code, or General Settings
- [BUG] Cowork 3P Gateway — Model picker ignores version and display name
- [BUG] [Bug] Cowork RPC mount error on every conversation - virtiofs fails to mount artifact path despite directory existing
- [BUG] Remote MCP tool calls dropped at 60s client-side despite ▎ server responding in <10ms
- [BUG] Cowork not working and responding with Claude Code process exited with code 1
- [BUG] Cowork: "Failed to create bridge sockets after 5 attempts" on every session since 1.3036.0 (macOS 26.3.1)
- [BUG] Code 1
- [BUG] Claude 1.3036.0 (cf521c) 2026-04-16T16:17:33.000Z - CoWork returning "Claude Code process exited with code 1" for any interaction.
- Cowork broken on latest 1.3036.0 — "Failed to create bridge sockets" on all sessions
- [BUG] Cowork: Failed to create bridge sockets after 5 attempts on every task
- [BUG] Claude Desktop app - Filesystem connector not available in Cowork sessions
- [BUG] Cowork: New project with name matching selected context folder silently creates empty nested subfolder and mounts it instead of the context folder
- [BUG] Code and Cowork tabs missing after auto-update — Claude Desktop 1.2581.0, macOS, Max plan
- Cowork filesystem-type block ignores ST_RDONLY and host-side ACLs, breaking read-only cloud storage mounts
- Cowork: plugin install from UI does not persist after restart
- Cowork: marketplace sync plugins disappear after restart
- Cowork: personal marketplace plugin removed by RemotePluginManager sync on every cycle
- [BUG] iMessage Cowork connector read_imessages fails with chat.db authorization denied despite working from Claude Code CLI
- [BUG] Cowork: create_artifact / update_artifact / list_artifacts selectively removed from an otherwise fully healthy remote-devices bridge
- [BUG] Cowork: VM boots but guest_vsock_connect never completes on Intel Mac — "Direct-boot artifacts not present in bundle", 60s timeout
- [BUG] Cowork session reports zero connected folders while the project UI shows a folder as connected
- [BUG] Cowork scheduled tasks: WebFetch permission gate (PROVENANCE_REQUIRED) blocks unattended runs on parallel calls
- [BUG] No way to pin a non-default model on a cloud-run Cowork scheduled task
- Cowork sessions can no longer manage local scheduled tasks: scheduled-tasks MCP not exposed to (now remote-executing) desktop sessions, and the Scheduled folder is blocked as a protected location
- [BUG] Cowork: personal GitHub marketplace never updates — clone silently fails, runtime serves stale version despite correct metadata
- [BUG] Cowork macOS — MCP tools listed in session config but absent from active tool list (mcp__workspace__bash, cowork tools, all connectors)
- [BUG] Cowork VM fails to start — SDK download truncated at ~4 MB, checksum verification fails every attempt (macOS, Apple Silicon)
- [BUG][Desktop][macOS 26] Code tab kills entire app — rootfs.img redownload loop (disk-write jetsam); crashes even with all connectors disabled
- Claude Desktop 3P mode — inferenceCustomHeaders not applied to HTTP requests
- [BUG] Cowork UI shows zero projects/conversations after macOS major update + logout, while all local data files remain intact on disk
- [BUG] SANDBOX ERROR CODE ENOSPC: no space left on device,
- [BUG] Invalid API key · Fix external API key
- [BUG] [Cowork] Scheduled-task sandboxes cannot mount Drive folder; Drive writes blocked at canonical AND Library/CloudStorage paths
- [BUG] Cowork stuck on "Authenticating..." forever — Mac16,10 (M4 Mac mini 2024), macOS Tahoe 26.4.1
- Cowork default animated background causes ~275x idle GPU power draw on M4 Pro
- [BUG] Desktop Code/Cowork mode crashes instantly with OOM error — persists after fresh install, empty chats, confirmed not RAM-related (macOS Tahoe 26.4.1, v1.3036.0)
- [BUG] Cowork "Failed to create bridge sockets" — every spawn exits code 1, persists after full VM rebuild (v1.3036.0, macOS)
- Cowork: Failed to create bridge sockets after 5 attempts (v1.3036.0)
- [Bug] Claude Code process exits with code 1 in Cowork environment
- [BUG] Claude Cowork crashes with "exited with code 1" on first message — all sessions affected (new and existing), v1.3036.0 macOS
- [BUG] Claude Code process exited with code 1