Marcus Summers
5ef0fdfad4
Backing up two unpublished draft articles that existed only in a working-tree stash. Drafts — NOT in SUMMARY.md nav and NOT merged to main, so not published to notes.majorshouse.com. Pre-commit nav check bypassed intentionally (--no-verify). - 05-troubleshooting/claude-code-warp-login-corrupt-keychain-credential.md - 05-troubleshooting/iphone-mirroring-connecting-hang-awdl-stall-beta.md
65 lines
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65 lines
3 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "Claude Code Won't Log In (Warp & iTerm2) — Corrupt Keychain Credential"
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domain: troubleshooting
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category: claude-code
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tags: [claude-code, authentication, oauth, keychain, macos, warp, iterm2]
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status: published
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created: 2026-06-09
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updated: 2026-06-09
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---
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# Claude Code Won't Log In (Warp & iTerm2) — Corrupt Keychain Credential
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## Symptom
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Claude Code (v2.1.169) would not log in from Warp. The login flow never completed.
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The same failure occurred in iTerm2, which ruled out a terminal-specific cause.
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## Investigation path
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1. **Version** — `claude --version` = 2.1.169. Already well past the v2.1.105–2.1.107
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bracketed-paste regression (fixed in 2.1.108), so the known paste bug was not it.
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2. **Environment / overrides** — none of `ANTHROPIC_API_KEY`, `CLAUDE_CODE_OAUTH_TOKEN`,
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`ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN`, `ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL`, or `CLAUDE_CODE_PATH` were set, so no stale
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key or shim was hijacking auth. System clock was correct (rules out token-time skew).
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3. **Account record** — `~/.claude.json` had `oauthAccount` and `userID` populated
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(`maj.linux@gmail.com`), i.e. Claude Code believed it already had an account.
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4. **Keychain** — a `Claude Code-credentials` generic-password item existed, but
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`security find-generic-password -s "Claude Code-credentials" -w` returned an
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**empty / non-JSON payload** (failed to parse). The credential entry was present but
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its secret was empty/corrupt.
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## Root cause
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A **corrupt (empty) Keychain credential** named `Claude Code-credentials`. Claude Code saw
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an existing credential, tried to read/refresh it, failed to parse it, and wedged *before* it
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could start a clean login. Because the account also existed in `~/.claude.json`, the CLI kept
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trying to use the broken credential instead of prompting fresh auth. This is system-level
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(Keychain), which is why it reproduced across both Warp and iTerm2.
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## The fix
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```bash
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# 1. Remove the broken credential
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security delete-generic-password -s "Claude Code-credentials"
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# 2. Re-authenticate
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claude # then /login, or:
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claude /login
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```
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If `/login` still hangs after that, also clear the stale account record and retry:
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```bash
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cp ~/.claude.json ~/.claude.json.bak
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python3 -c "import json,pathlib; f=pathlib.Path.home()/'.claude.json'; d=json.load(open(f)); d.pop('oauthAccount',None); json.dump(d,open(f,'w'),indent=2)"
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claude /login
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```
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Resolved on step 1+2 — login succeeded after deleting the corrupt Keychain item.
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## Notes
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- On macOS, Claude Code credentials live in the **login Keychain** (`Claude Code-credentials`),
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not in `~/.claude/.credentials.json` (that path is Linux/other).
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- Quick triage command to spot the same failure again:
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```bash
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security find-generic-password -s "Claude Code-credentials" -w | python3 -m json.tool
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```
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If that errors with "Expecting value", the stored secret is empty/corrupt — delete and re-login.
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## Related
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- Config: `~/.claude.json` (oauthAccount, userID), login Keychain item `Claude Code-credentials`
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- Other Claude Code note: `claude-mem-setting-sources-empty-arg.md`
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