Gemini Agent Infinite Restart Loop (Exit Code 41) on macOS M4 Pro / Sequoia

[filipovicsava]

What happened?

The Gemini Code Assist Agent fails to initialize and enters an infinite restart loop on macOS with M4 Pro architecture. While the standard chat works, the "Expanded Access" (Agent) mode crashes immediately with invalid_grant and Exit Code 41.

Crucial Observation: The same account works perfectly on Windows. Manually running the agent server from the terminal bypasses the issue, suggesting a child-process spawning or interactive consent handling bug in the extension's binary for Apple Silicon.

Environment

• OS: macOS 15.7.4
• Hardware: MacBook Pro (M4 Pro Chip)
• VS Code Version: 1.112.0
• Extension Version: v2.75.0
• gcloud SDK Version: Google Cloud SDK 561.0.0

Steps to Reproduce

1. Enable "Expanded Access" (Agent) in Gemini settings.
2. Watch the "Gemini Code Assist - Agent" output log.
3. The process crashes, restarts, and causes high CPU usage/fan activity.

Logs:
Starting background process... Background process started with PID 65211 (node:65211) [DEP0040] DeprecationWarning: The punycodemodule is deprecated. Please use a userland alternative instead. (UseCode Helper (Plugin) --trace-deprecation ... to show where the warning was created) Ignore file not found: /.geminiignore, continue without it. Ignore file not found: /.aiexclude, continue without it. [WARN] Skipping unreadable directory: /Library/Trial (EPERM: operation not permitted, scandir '/Library/Trial') [WARN] Skipping unreadable directory: /dev/fd (EBADF: bad file descriptor, lstat '/dev/fd/11') [WARN] Skipping unreadable directory: /Library/Application Support/com.apple.TCC (EPERM: operation not permitted, scandir '/Library/Application Support/com.apple.TCC') [WARN] Skipping unreadable directory: /Library/Caches/com.apple.amsengagementd.classicdatavault (EPERM: operation not permitted, scandir '/Library/Caches/com.apple.amsengagementd.classicdatavault') [WARN] Skipping unreadable directory: /Library/Caches/com.apple.aneuserd (EPERM: operation not permitted, scandir '/Library/Caches/com.apple.aneuserd') [WARN] Skipping unreadable directory: /Library/Caches/com.apple.aned (EPERM: operation not permitted, scandir '/Library/Caches/com.apple.aned') [WARN] Skipping unreadable directory: /Library/Caches/com.apple.iconservices.store (EACCES: permission denied, scandir '/Library/Caches/com.apple.iconservices.store') Ignore file not found: /.geminiignore, continue without it. Ignore file not found: /.aiexclude, continue without it. Ignore file not found: /.geminiignore, continue without it. Ignore file not found: /.aiexclude, continue without it. Ignore file not found: /.geminiignore, continue without it. Ignore file not found: /.aiexclude, continue without it. Hook registry initialized with 0 hook entries Hook system initialized successfully [STARTUP] StartupProfiler.flush() called with 1 phases [STARTUP] Recording metric for phase: discover_tools duration: 487.664333 [INFO] 2026-03-18 23:35:08.516 PM -- [Config] Using CCPA Auth: Cached credentials are not valid: invalid_grant [ERROR] 2026-03-18 23:35:08.673 PM -- [CoreAgent] Error during startup: Interactive consent could not be obtained. Please run Gemini CLI in an interactive terminal to authenticate, or use NO_BROWSER=true for manual authentication. { "exitCode": 41, "stack": "Error: Interactive consent could not be obtained.\nPlease run Gemini CLI in an interactive terminal to authenticate, or use NO_BROWSER=true for manual authentication.\n at getConsentForOauth (file:///Users/savafilipovic/.vscode/extensions/google.geminicodeassist-2.75.0/agent/a2a-server.mjs:322349:13)\n at initOauthClient (file:///Users/savafilipovic/.vscode/extensions/google.geminicodeassist-2.75.0/agent/a2a-server.mjs:322515:31)\n at process.processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:105:5)\n at async createCodeAssistContentGenerator (file:///Users/savafilipovic/.vscode/extensions/google.geminicodeassist-2.75.0/agent/a2a-server.mjs:334212:24)\n at async file:///Users/savafilipovic/.vscode/extensions/google.geminicodeassist-2.75.0/agent/a2a-server.mjs:334449:42\n at async createContentGenerator (file:///Users/savafilipovic/.vscode/extensions/google.geminicodeassist-2.75.0/agent/a2a-server.mjs:334428:21)\n at async Config.refreshAuth (file:///Users/savafilipovic/.vscode/extensions/google.geminicodeassist-2.75.0/agent/a2a-server.mjs:406151:29)\n at async refreshAuthentication (file:///Users/savafilipovic/.vscode/extensions/google.geminicodeassist-2.75.0/agent/a2a-server.mjs:407780:5)\n at async loadConfig (file:///Users/savafilipovic/.vscode/extensions/google.geminicodeassist-2.75.0/agent/a2a-server.mjs:407713:3)\n at async createApp (file:///Users/savafilipovic/.vscode/extensions/google.geminicodeassist-2.75.0/agent/a2a-server.mjs:410011:21)" } Process exited with code 1 and signal null Process exited for restart, attempting to restart...

Manual Workaround (Proof of Bug)
The agent starts successfully only if manually executed from the terminal using:
cd ~/.vscode/extensions/google.geminicodeassist-2.75.0/agent && export USE_CCPA=true && node a2a-server.mjs --login

This proves the issue is in how the extension host attempts to launch the background process and handle OAuth consent on this specific macOS/Hardware combo.

Attempted Fixes (All Failed)

• Reinstalling gcloud SDK (tar.gz and Brew).
• Moving the workspace out of ~/Documents (TCC bypass).
• Clearing macOS Keychain and manually adding vsc-google-cloud-auth entry.
• Using VS Code Insiders (identical failure).

What did you expect to happen?

/

Client information

Client Information

Run gemini to enter the interactive CLI, then run the /about command.

> /about
# paste output here

Login information

No response

Anything else we need to know?

No response

[lectrical]

Hello, specific to this part of the error I also had on Windows via Vscode the same restart loop of Gemini code assist in agent mode.

[INFO] 2026-03-23 21:35:57.192 PM -- [Config] Using CCPA Auth:
Cached credentials are not valid: invalid_grant
[ERROR] 2026-03-23 21:35:57.543 PM -- [CoreAgent] Error during startup: Interactive consent could not be obtained.
Please run Gemini CLI in an interactive terminal to authenticate, or use NO_BROWSER=true for manual authentication.
{
  "exitCode": 41,
  "stack": "Error: Interactive consent could not be obtained.\nPlease run Gemini CLI in an interactive terminal to authenticate, or use NO_BROWSER=true for manual authentication.\n    at getConsentForOauth 

It turned out to be a file in C:\Users\username\.gemini aka %USERPROFILE%\.gemini called oauth_creds.json causing the problem. I renamed it to oauth_creds.json.old and started Vscode again which launched the gemini code assist agent and it generated a new oauth_creds.json which stopped the crash cycle and the agent mode worked. I saw this instead.

[INFO] 2026-03-23 21:46:25.481 PM -- [Config] Using CCPA Auth:
Failed to load credentials from C:\Users\username\.gemini\oauth_creds.json: ENOENT: no such file or directory, open 'C:\Users\username\.gemini\oauth_creds.json'
Loaded cached credentials.

Perhaps it's the same issue for you, Possibly a ~/.gemini/oauth_creds.json

[Nicolasking007]

[STARTUP] StartupProfiler.flush() called with 1 phases [STARTUP] Recording metric for phase: discover_tools duration: 797.0149580000001 [INFO] 2026-03-27 22:45:08.269 PM -- [Config] Using CCPA Auth: Cached credentials are not valid: invalid_grant [ERROR] 2026-03-27 22:45:09.293 PM -- [CoreAgent] Error during startup: Interactive consent could not be obtained. Please run Gemini CLI in an interactive terminal to authenticate, or use NO_BROWSER=true for manual authentication. { "exitCode": 41, "stack": "Error: Interactive consent could not be obtained.\nPlease run Gemini CLI in an interactive terminal to authenticate, or use NO_BROWSER=true for manual authentication.\n at getConsentForOauth (file:///Users/

Environment

• OS: macOS 15.7.4
• Hardware: Mac mini (M4 Pro Chip)
• VS Code Version: 1.113.0
• Extension Version: v2.75.0

[devr0306]

Triage Summary

This is a valid and critical bug affecting macOS M4 users. The infinite restart loop caused by invalid_grant and the failure to obtain interactive consent in the background process needs to be addressed, potentially by better surfacing the authentication requirement in the extension host.

[Elounia]

Can confirm this behavior on Windows too. My Agent mode was stuck in an infinite loop with devlogs mentioning COMPUTE_ADC failed and was trying to hit the GCP metadata server (169.254.169.254).

For me it was the exact same culprit, a corrupted oauth_creds.json file in %USERPROFILE%.gemini. Because the local token was invalid (invalid_grant), the auth flow fell back to the metadata server and crashed headfirst.

Deleting oauth_creds.json and restarting VS Code forced a fresh token generation and instantly fixed the Agent mode. Thanks for pointing in the right direction, I was really scratching my head on this one.