claude-code - 💡(How to fix) Fix [BUG] Session history shows empty — extension writes session files but never updates history.jsonl [1 participants]

Diagnostic findings

Session data IS being written to disk

~/.claude/projects/bbd-automation/4f584612-a4fa-4068-926e-bbc02d8b0ee1.jsonl (89KB) ~/.claude/projects/-bbd-automation/c09db1db-49c5-4428-9cb6-56357aadd4a1.jsonl (112KB) ~/.claude/projects/bbd-automation/d49dfd02-af32-47e4-a05c-ba7e72493e2a.jsonl (114KB) ... (14 session files total across projects)

Session index is stale and incomplete

~/.claude/history.jsonl:

• Total entries: 26 (all valid JSON, no corruption)
• Last modified: 2026-04-01 (3 weeks ago, stopped updating)
• Entries for analytics-tests-status-report project: 0
• Sessions in index: 7 out of 14 on disk (50% missing)
• Current active session (54b5bcb1): NOT in index
• File is writable, no lock held by any process
• Has com.apple.provenance xattr (macOS provenance flag)

Extension logs show no response to session list requests

From Claude VSCode.log:

13:59:51.943 [info] Received message from webview: {"type":"request","requestId":"hyjnmwdl6m","request":{"type":"list_sessions_request"}} (no response logged — session list presumably returns empty)

13:59:53.479 [info] Received message from webview: {"type":"request","requestId":"rgi6asz6s5s","request":{"type":"list_remote_sessions"}} 13:59:53.567 [info] Keychain read failed, trying file fallback 13:59:53.567 [warning] No OAuth token available for teleport 13:59:53.568 [error] Error processing client request: Error: Failed to connect to remote server

The list_remote_sessions failure is expected (Bedrock auth, no Anthropic OAuth token). The list_sessions_request (local) fires but produces no visible response in the log.

No extension globalStorage directory

~/Library/Application Support/Code/User/globalStorage/anthropic.claude-code/ → Does not exist

TL;DR

The issue can be fixed by investigating and resolving the failure to update the history.jsonl file, which is causing the session history UI to show no past conversations.

Guidance

• Investigate why the history.jsonl file is not being updated: check for any errors or exceptions in the extension's code that might be preventing the update.
• Verify that the list_sessions_request is being handled correctly: check the extension's logs for any errors or warnings related to this request.
• Check the file system permissions: ensure that the extension has write access to the ~/.claude/history.jsonl file.
• Test the CLI (claude --resume) to see if it also fails to update the history.jsonl file: this can help determine if the issue is specific to the VSCode extension or a more general problem.

Example

No code example is provided as the issue is related to the extension's behavior and not a specific code snippet.

Notes

The issue seems to be related to the extension's failure to update the history.jsonl file, which is causing the session history UI to show no past conversations. The fact that the CLI also relies on this file and shows the same stale data suggests that the issue might be more general than just the VSCode extension.

Recommendation

Apply a workaround by manually updating the history.jsonl file or investigating the extension's code to resolve the issue, as the root cause is not clearly identified.