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Rank, 14 days: 65 on the Claude Code sheet
18 people reported

All time, since Sep 23, including 5 thumbs-up on GitHub.

Leftover session processes pile up

“Over a few days this exhausts RAM and pushes the machine deep into swap.”

Is this your bug? What gets counted gets fixed. Pile on.

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I hit this bug: rapsheet.dev/sheets/claude-code/themes/223/file
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No install. No account. Public and anonymous. The link asks your agent for one report, nothing else. What it sends

Growing. 2 reports and thumbs-up in the last 7 days and 1 the week before, down from 7 a week at the late-October peak.

4 bugs in this theme

  1. Idle sessions keep processes aliveHas a workaround7 people
  2. Idle sessions pin CPU coreNo workaround yet5 people
  3. Orphan Claude processes left runningHas a workaround4 people
  4. Desktop memory and process buildupNo workaround yet2 people

What's included

  • VS Code extension spawns an extra process per window at startup that is never stopped
  • Old process stays alive after /clear or loading a session from history
  • Desktop app keeps a claude process plus its MCP servers alive for every idle session, filling RAM and swap
  • Idle session processes on Windows desktop each hold one core at 100% for hours after their turns end
  • Leftover processes still receive cross-session messages and act on them

Not included

  • CPU spin after the config or project .claude directory is deleted
  • Extension host or renderer out-of-memory crashes when opening large sessions
  • Hangs on stalled network streams

Original reports13, newest first

  1. macOS desktop: idle Claude Code session processes each use ~1 CPU core (system time, lock/yield spin) and are never reaped — v2.1.309#107009
  2. macOS desktop: idle sessions keep CLI + MCP processes alive indefinitely (86 claude procs, 26 GB swap)#104888
  3. Claude Desktop Code on Windows 11 suddenly consumes excessive RAM and spawns multiple background processes#104385
  4. macOS Desktop: idle Code sessions keep their whole MCP server set alive — ~90 idle sessions exhausted 42 GB swap on a 32 GB Mac#103693
  5. Windows desktop: after a few days the app leaves dozens of hidden PowerShell and console processes running, the PC runs out of memory, and every session waits minutes on simple commands#103349
  6. Windows: idle SDK-mode session busy-spins main thread (~0.4–0.9 core, 20k–46k I/O ops/s) after first hook or turn#103340
  7. Desktop (Windows): a session and its linked sessions each keep a claude.exe process at 100% of one core after their turns end; quit warns a task is active#102621
  8. Windows: idle Claude Code session processes pin one thread at 100% CPU for hours (desktop app)#102245
  9. Windows Desktop: idle/closed Code sessions keep their MCP servers alive — 121 node processes, ~10 GB RAM (regression of #58915?)#101376
  10. #98639
Show all 13Show only the newest 10
  1. Desktop app: Claude Code background processes keep running after sessions end and push macOS into ~45 GB swap, hanging the Mac overnight#97862
  2. [Windows] VS Code extension still leaks orphan claude.exe processes in 2.1.281 (one per window at startup, plus /clear and loading from history)#96746
  3. Windows: claude.exe session processes accumulate and are never terminated, causing high RAM/disk usage over a work day#96299

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