Repository navigation
[BUG] Claude Desktop history entries render blank when session metadata is missing cliSessionId #56172
Description
Preflight Checklist
- I have searched existing issues and this specific failure mode does not appear to be documented yet
- This is a single bug report
- I am using a current Claude Desktop / Claude Code install
What's Wrong?
Claude Desktop can show old Code/Cowork sessions in the history picker, but clicking one opens a blank conversation pane or an indefinite loading state when the Desktop metadata file exists but is missing cliSessionId.
This is different from the already-reported cases where all metadata is missing after a migration, or where MSIX leaves files stuck as .json.tmp. In this case the local_<uuid>.json metadata file is present and readable, so the picker entry appears, but Desktop has no bridge to the actual CLI transcript JSONL.
Observed local architecture:
Important
Recovery toolkit: I've published a diagnostic and repair toolkit that covers this and five related Windows session-recovery cases - https://github.com/BasedGPT/claude-code-session-recovery
python tools/diagnose.py is read-only. It identifies which failure mode a given install is in and prints the next command. Covers missing cliSessionId (this issue), conversation history missing from disk, duplicate metadata pointing at the same transcript, junction/path-alias splits, metadata wiped by Desktop updates, and a couple of cosmetic-only states. Windows only.
Activity
github-actions commentedon Jun 2, 2026
Closing for now — inactive for too long. Please open a new issue if this is still relevant.
github-actions commentedon Aug 5, 2026
This issue has been automatically locked since it was closed and has not had any activity for 7 days. If you're experiencing a similar issue, please file a new issue and reference this one if it's relevant.