claude-code - 💡(How to fix) Fix [BUG] Claude Code crashes with "exited with code 1" on multi-user macOS due to shared /tmp/claude-settings-<hash>.json [1 participants]

Preflight Checklist

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

What's Wrong?

Starting a Claude Code session in the Claude Desktop app fails instantly. The Desktop app shows "Claude Code process exited with code 1" and the session never produces a response. This happens on macOS machines with more than one local user account: one user can use Claude Code fine, but any other user on the same Mac gets the crash on every session start.

What Should Happen?

Each user on a multi-user Mac should be able to start a Claude Code session independently, regardless of which user previously ran the app.

Error Messages/Logs

From ~/Library/Logs/Claude/main.log:                      
  [error] Session local_... query error: Claude Code process exited with code 1 
      at sIr.getProcessExitError (/Applications/Claude.app/Contents/Resources/ap
  p.asar/.vite/build/index.js:390:8041)                                         
      at ChildProcess._handle.onexit (node:internal/child_process:294:12)       
  main.log captures only the exit code, not the child's stderr. I wrapped the   
  claude binary with a shim that captured stderr. The real error is:            
  Error processing settings: EACCES: permission denied, open                    
  '/tmp/claude-settings-44136fa355b3678a.json'                                  
  The file 44136fa355b3678a is the SHA-256 prefix of {} (empty settings). That  
  path was already owned by the other user on the machine (mode 644, sticky bit
  on /tmp blocks overwrite by anyone else).

Steps to Reproduce

1. On a Mac with two local user accounts (A and B), log in as user A.
2. Open the Claude Desktop app and start a new Claude Code session in any
   directory. Let it succeed — this creates /tmp/claude-settings-<hash>.json owned by A.
3. Log out, log in as user B.
4. Open the Claude Desktop app and start a new Claude Code session. It fails
   instantly with "Claude Code process exited with code 1".
5. Confirm with: ls -la /tmp/claude-settings-* — the file is owned by A, mode 644, and user B can't overwrite because /tmp has the sticky bit.

Workaround: sudo rm /tmp/claude-settings-44136fa355b3678a.json (or sudo chmod 666 on it).

Claude Model

Opus

Is this a regression?

Yes, this worked in a previous version

Last Working Version

No response

Claude Code Version

2.1.111 (Claude Code)

Platform

Other

Operating System

macOS

Terminal/Shell

Other

Additional Information

• The settings blob is hashed for the filename, so any two users whose settings serialize identically (e.g., both {}) will collide on the same path
  in /tmp. Empty settings is the common case.
  • The claude binary already receives TMPDIR=/var/folders/.../T/ in its env,
    which is per-user on macOS. Writing to $TMPDIR (or ~/Library/Application
    Support/Claude/) instead of hard-coded /tmp would eliminate the collision
    entirely.
  • Separately: the Desktop app should capture the child process's stderr into
    main.log (or surface it in the UI). Right now only the exit code is logged, which makes this bug un-diagnosable without patching the binary. I only found the root cause by replacing claude.app/Contents/MacOS/claude with a bash shim that tee'd stderr to a file.
  • Same Mac evidence: /tmp also contains claude-501/ and claude-503/ directories (per-UID), so the app already uses per-user paths for some things — just not for this settings file. The inconsistency is likely the source of
    the regression.

This happened was using the Desktop App, not the API or Terminal