Restart of application does not keep sessions

[CtrnactyJjr]

It keeps dimensions, windows, but does not keep its content. I saw it as primary key-feature.
Windows, PowerShell.

[matej21]

Hi, session persistence currently works on macOS, Linux, and WSL (via dtach, screen, or tmux). Native Windows PowerShell support is not available yet, though we may explore it in the future.

[matej21]

i've tried to implement it with psmux, you can track the progress here: #117

[reflexator]

So I understand it correctly: if I have Claude running in one application window and, for example, docker compose up running in another, then after closing and reopening the app, both should start running again?

If so, it’s not working for me right now, only the window layout is restored. I’m on Ubuntu 24.04 and using tmux.

[matej21]

Hey, thanks for the report! That sounds wrong — on Linux with tmux installed, the shell session inside each pane should survive an app restart (so things like claude or docker compose up keep running and you reconnect to them). The app doesn't re-launch commands, it just re-attaches to the existing tmux sessions.

A couple of things you can check to narrow it down:

1. Check the log — open ~/.config/okena/logs/ (newest file) and look for a line like:

   Session persistence enabled with Tmux
   

   If that line is missing, okena didn't detect tmux on startup and is falling back to "no persistence" mode. That can happen when okena is launched from a .desktop file / Snap / AppImage with a stripped PATH. As a quick test, try launching okena from a terminal (okena from your shell) and see if persistence works that way.

2. Check the Settings panel — Settings → Terminal → Session backend. It should be Auto or tmux. If it's set to None, that disables persistence.

3. Check if the tmux sessions survive — after closing okena, run tmux ls in any terminal. You should see sessions named tm-xxxxxxxx. If they're gone, something is killing the tmux server when okena exits (sometimes systemd does this on logout/session-cleanup, less commonly on app exit).

If you can share what you find (especially the log line and tmux ls output after closing okena), it'll be easy to pinpoint.