claude-code - 💡(How to fix) Fix [BUG]Cowork: guest Claude Code exits with "Failed to create bridge sockets after 5 attempts" (code 1, ~1s after spawn) [2 comments, 3 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?

Summary

Every Cowork session on my machine fails the same way: the VM boots cleanly, the guest connects, SDK
installs, OAuth is approved, the Claude Code process spawns — then immediately exits with code 1 after ~1 second, emitting Error: Failed to create bridge sockets after 5 attempts on stderr. No user code
ever runs.

This has been 100% reproducible across ~12 session attempts today, all failing identically.

Environment

• Claude Desktop: 1.3036.0 (build cf521c, released 2026-04-16T16:17:33Z)
• Claude account email: [email protected]
• Claude Code (in VM / guest SDK): 2.1.111
• Claude Code (host, Homebrew): 2.1.92
• VM bundle: 5680b11bcdab215cccf07e0c0bd1bd9213b0c25d
• macOS: 26.3 (build 25D125)
• Hardware: Apple Silicon (M2, arm64)
• Kernel: Darwin 25.3.0

Reproduction

1. Open Claude Desktop.
2. Start any new Cowork session (any trusted folder; see "What I tried" below).
3. Session immediately errors with Claude Code process exited with code 1.

Relevant log excerpts

From ~/Library/Logs/Claude/cowork_vm_node.log — a typical failed session:

[VM:start] Beginning startup, bundlePath=.../vm_bundles/claudevm.bundle                                 
[VM:start] Bundle version: 5680b11bcdab215cccf07e0c0bd1bd9213b0c25d                                     
[VM:steps] vm_boot completed (176ms)                                                                    
[VM:steps] guest_vsock_connect completed (5550ms)                                                       
[VM:steps] guest_ready completed (402ms)                                                                
[VM:steps] install_ca_certificates completed (0ms)                                                      
[VM] API reachability: REACHABLE                                                                        
[VM:steps] sdk_install completed (0ms)                                                                  
[VM:start] Startup complete, total time: 7209ms                                                         
[Spawn:config] Creating spawn function for process=cool-magical-curie, isResume=false, mounts=7         
[Spawn:vm] OAuth token approved with MITM proxy                                                         
[Spawn:vm] Spawn succeeded in 50ms                                                                      
[vm-stderr 2e50647d] Error: Failed to create bridge sockets after 5 attempts                            
[Process:2e50647d...] Exited, code=1, signal=null, duration=1119ms, oom=false

Same Failed to create bridge sockets after 5 attempts error appears on every one of the ~12 session
attempts in the log today (session IDs: c99c2045, c37c1e7f, 84a0a66a, 373e9a91, c7c43b8e, 0995571f,
924937d0, 57e75560, c2ab895a, ed194367, a8d5711c, 2e50647d).

What I tried

• Cleared ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/{Cache,vm_bundles,sessions,local-agent-mode-sessions}
  and relaunched → same error, new session name.
• Changed localAgentModeTrustedFolders in claude_desktop_config.json from ~/Desktop/untitled folder (which had a space and was on a Desktop with iCloud sync history) to a clean local path
  ~/Documents/cowork → same error, new session name.

Failure mode is identical before and after both attempts.

Notes

• Host-side components all look healthy: VM boots in ~176ms, guest vsock connects, networking reaches
  CONNECTED, API is REACHABLE, SDK install completes, OAuth approval succeeds, process spawn succeeds in 50ms.
• The failure is strictly inside the guest Claude Code binary when it tries to set up its bridge
  sockets.
• Not a stale-install issue: Claude Desktop 1.3036.0 build cf521c was released 2026-04-16 — the same day as this report.
• Likely not the same root cause as #23991 / #24190 / #24483 / #24549 (those looked VM-provisioning
  related; my VM provisions fine).

What Should Happen?

should work

Error Messages/Logs

Steps to Reproduce

should work

Claude Model

None

Is this a regression?

Yes, this worked in a previous version

Last Working Version

No response

Claude Code Version

last

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

macOS

Terminal/Shell

Terminal.app (macOS)

Additional Information

No response