claude-code - 💡(How to fix) Fix Cowork Cloud: persistent useradd failed exit status 12 — cannot create sessions for days [3 comments, 2 participants]

Environment

• Claude Code version: 2.1.92
• Platform: macOS (Darwin 25.4.0, ARM64)
• Plan: Max (Pro)
• Entrypoint: Claude Desktop
• Account: [email protected]

Problem

Cowork Cloud scheduled tasks have been completely non-functional for several days (since approximately April 9-10, 2026).

Error

RPC error: ensure user: useradd failed: exit status 12: useradd: cannot create directory /sessions/happy-friendly-clarke

Impact

1. All 28 previously created scheduled tasks have disappeared — list_scheduled_tasks returns empty
2. Cannot create new scheduled tasks — same RPC error on any attempt
3. Local Cowork sessions also affected — the error now occurs when trying to run any Cowork operation that requires a cloud session

What I've tried

• Waiting several days — the issue persists and has not self-resolved
• Retrying at different times of day — same error consistently
• The error is 100% reproducible on every attempt

Expected behavior

Cowork Cloud should be able to create session directories and execute scheduled tasks normally.

Analysis

Exit code 12 from useradd means "cannot create home directory." This suggests a server-side disk space or filesystem issue on the node(s) assigned to my account. The session name format (happy-friendly-clarke) indicates randomized container/sandbox allocation that consistently fails at the directory creation step.

Severity

Critical blocker — I rely on Cowork Cloud for 28 automated business tasks (CRM monitoring, email triage, daily reports, data backups) that have all been down for multiple days with no workaround available.