[BUG] Phantom 'Generating...' state - UI stuck after task completion, 0 tokens consumed

[ThatDragonOverThere]

Description

After completing a task, Claude Code gets stuck in a phantom "Generating..." state. The UI shows it's working but consumes 0 tokens indefinitely.

Reproduction

1. Work on a multi-step implementation task
2. Claude completes all tasks and outputs a summary
3. Status shows "Churned for Xm Ys" (in my case: 22m 13s)
4. Then UI switches to "Generating... (esc to interrupt · 8m 22s · ↓ 0 tokens)"
5. Token counter stays at 0, no progress is made
6. User must press Esc to interrupt

Evidence from Session

● V9.57 Implementation Complete!
  [... detailed summary of completed work ...]

✻ Churned for 22m 13s

✶ Generating… (esc to interrupt · 8m 22s · ↓ 0 tokens)

The "↓ 0 tokens" indicates nothing is actually being generated despite the UI claiming it is.

Expected Behavior

After completing a task and outputting a summary, Claude Code should:

• Return to the input prompt, OR
• Actually generate content if there's more to do

It should NOT hang in a "Generating..." state indefinitely with 0 token consumption.

Environment

• Claude Code CLI on Windows
• Model: claude-opus-4-5-20251101
• Session involved multi-step implementation with ~5 tasks

Impact

• Wastes user time waiting for "generation" that never happens
• Forces user to manually interrupt
• Unclear if any work was lost or if session state is corrupted after interrupt

[ThatDragonOverThere]

Update: This has happened multiple times this morning (Jan 22, 2026). Appears to be consistently reproducible after completing multi-step tasks with TodoWrite tracking.

[ThatDragonOverThere]

Additional detail: When I manually typed a message asking "Are you done?", Claude immediately responded confirming all tasks were complete.

This confirms Claude had actually finished - it just didn't transition the UI back to the input prompt. The "Generating... 0 tokens" state was purely a UI hang, not Claude actually doing work.

The work was done ~30 minutes before the UI acknowledged it.

[github-actions]

Found 3 possible duplicate issues:

1. [BUG] Edit/Write tools complete but UI stays stuck on spinner until ESC pressed #15519
2. [BUG] Session hangs at 0 tokens after background task completes with --dangerously-skip-permissions #20048
3. [BUG] #19999

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🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[ThatDragonOverThere]

Correction to previous comment:

The flow is:

1. Claude completes task, outputs summary
2. Shows "Churned for 22m 13s"
3. UI gets stuck on "Generating... (8m 22s · ↓ 0 tokens)" - doing nothing
4. User must press Esc to interrupt the phantom state
5. User types "Are you done?"
6. Claude immediately confirms it was done

So the interrupt (Esc) was required to break out. Claude was finished but the UI wouldn't return to the input prompt without manual intervention.

This has happened multiple times today in the same session - not a one-off.

[ThatDragonOverThere]

Another reproduction (same session, different task):

✻ Churned for 12m 49s

✢ Moonwalking… (esc to interrupt · 2m 31s · ↓ 0 tokens)

This time the spinner said "Moonwalking..." instead of "Generating..." but same behavior:

• Task complete, summary output
• UI stuck in phantom spinner state with 0 tokens
• User must interrupt to continue
• Claude immediately confirms done when asked

Additional symptom: Some output appears duplicated during the hang (table rows repeated, agent completion message shown twice). Possible UI render issue during the stuck state.

This is now the 3rd+ reproduction today in the same session.

[ThatDragonOverThere]

Continues to reproduce consistently. Every completed task today is hitting this bug. User reports it "keeps happening" - this is now a blocking UX issue requiring Esc interrupt after every task completion.

[ThatDragonOverThere]

Reproduction #4+ (same session):

✻ Worked for 28m 8s

❯ are you done?

This time the spinner text was "Worked for" (past tense - task was done) but UI still didn't return to input prompt. User had to manually type to break the state.

Pattern now confirmed:

• Happens after EVERY task completion this session
• Different spinner text each time ("Churned", "Moonwalking", "Worked", "Generating")
• Always requires user intervention to continue
• Claude immediately responds when prompted, confirming work was done

[d7laungani]

i have the same issue

[ThatDragonOverThere]

Reproduction #5:

After a 2h 22m task, user asked "Are you done?" and got:

❯ Are you done?

* Topsy-turvying… (esc to interrupt · thin

Note the truncated output ("thin" cut off). UI is stuck again with a whimsical spinner ("Topsy-turvying").

This bug is now affecting 100% of task completions in this session, including after very long-running tasks (2+ hours).