Preflight Checklist
What's Wrong?
Bug: Claude Desktop blank/white window on Windows — likely WinSock root cause
Frequency: Multiple times per day
OS: Windows 11
Recovery: Kill all Claude processes via Task Manager, relaunch
Description:
Claude Desktop (and Cowork) repeatedly shows a blank/white window, requiring a full process kill to recover. This happens after minimize, focus switch, or any period where the window is not in the foreground.
Suspected root cause: WinSock handle exhaustion / unresponsive state
Electron uses Chromium's network stack which sits on top of WinSock. WinSock handles can enter a broken state where they neither deliver data nor close cleanly — the renderer then waits indefinitely for a response that never arrives, resulting in the blank window.
This would explain why:
- The issue appears almost exclusively on Windows (Linux/macOS use POSIX sockets — epoll/kqueue — which don't have this problem)
- The process is still alive and consuming CPU/RAM (Claude is working in the background)
- A full process kill + relaunch fixes it (resets the socket state)
- Simply refocusing or resizing does not fix it
Suggested fix:
Use I/O Completion Ports (IOCP) consistently for Chromium's network layer on Windows, or implement socket health checks with automatic reconnection instead of waiting indefinitely.
netsh winsock reset + reboot also clears the condition, further supporting WinSock as root cause.
Related issues: #25929, #21803, #3592, #2230
What Should Happen?
Bug: Claude Desktop blank/white window on Windows — likely WinSock root cause
Frequency: Multiple times per day
OS: Windows 11
Recovery: Kill all Claude processes via Task Manager, relaunch
Description:
Claude Desktop (and Cowork) repeatedly shows a blank/white window, requiring a full process kill to recover. This happens after minimize, focus switch, or any period where the window is not in the foreground.
Suspected root cause: WinSock handle exhaustion / unresponsive state
Electron uses Chromium's network stack which sits on top of WinSock. WinSock handles can enter a broken state where they neither deliver data nor close cleanly — the renderer then waits indefinitely for a response that never arrives, resulting in the blank window.
This would explain why:
- The issue appears almost exclusively on Windows (Linux/macOS use POSIX sockets — epoll/kqueue — which don't have this problem)
- The process is still alive and consuming CPU/RAM (Claude is working in the background)
- A full process kill + relaunch fixes it (resets the socket state)
- Simply refocusing or resizing does not fix it
Suggested fix:
Use I/O Completion Ports (IOCP) consistently for Chromium's network layer on Windows, or implement socket health checks with automatic reconnection instead of waiting indefinitely.
netsh winsock reset + reboot also clears the condition, further supporting WinSock as root cause.
Related issues: #25929, #21803, #3592, #2230
Error Messages/Logs
Steps to Reproduce
Using clode intensivly, and than do nothing for 2-3 hours. when coming back--> blank screen
Claude Model
None
Is this a regression?
No, this never worked
Last Working Version
No response
Claude Code Version
2.1.78
Platform
Anthropic API
Operating System
Windows
Terminal/Shell
Terminal.app (macOS)
Additional Information
No response
Preflight Checklist
What's Wrong?
Bug: Claude Desktop blank/white window on Windows — likely WinSock root cause
Frequency: Multiple times per day
OS: Windows 11
Recovery: Kill all Claude processes via Task Manager, relaunch
Description:
Claude Desktop (and Cowork) repeatedly shows a blank/white window, requiring a full process kill to recover. This happens after minimize, focus switch, or any period where the window is not in the foreground.
Suspected root cause: WinSock handle exhaustion / unresponsive state
Electron uses Chromium's network stack which sits on top of WinSock. WinSock handles can enter a broken state where they neither deliver data nor close cleanly — the renderer then waits indefinitely for a response that never arrives, resulting in the blank window.
This would explain why:
Suggested fix:
Use I/O Completion Ports (IOCP) consistently for Chromium's network layer on Windows, or implement socket health checks with automatic reconnection instead of waiting indefinitely.
netsh winsock reset+ reboot also clears the condition, further supporting WinSock as root cause.Related issues: #25929, #21803, #3592, #2230
What Should Happen?
Bug: Claude Desktop blank/white window on Windows — likely WinSock root cause
Frequency: Multiple times per day
OS: Windows 11
Recovery: Kill all Claude processes via Task Manager, relaunch
Description:
Claude Desktop (and Cowork) repeatedly shows a blank/white window, requiring a full process kill to recover. This happens after minimize, focus switch, or any period where the window is not in the foreground.
Suspected root cause: WinSock handle exhaustion / unresponsive state
Electron uses Chromium's network stack which sits on top of WinSock. WinSock handles can enter a broken state where they neither deliver data nor close cleanly — the renderer then waits indefinitely for a response that never arrives, resulting in the blank window.
This would explain why:
Suggested fix:
Use I/O Completion Ports (IOCP) consistently for Chromium's network layer on Windows, or implement socket health checks with automatic reconnection instead of waiting indefinitely.
netsh winsock reset+ reboot also clears the condition, further supporting WinSock as root cause.Related issues: #25929, #21803, #3592, #2230
Error Messages/Logs
Steps to Reproduce
Using clode intensivly, and than do nothing for 2-3 hours. when coming back--> blank screen
Claude Model
None
Is this a regression?
No, this never worked
Last Working Version
No response
Claude Code Version
2.1.78
Platform
Anthropic API
Operating System
Windows
Terminal/Shell
Terminal.app (macOS)
Additional Information
No response