Claude Code agents can hard-lock on 401 errors even when auth token stays valid
Developers running headless Claude Code instances on Linux have documented a recurring authentication failure where agents return HTTP 401 errors despite the underlying OAuth token remaining fully valid. Testing confirmed that raw API calls using the identical token succeed with HTTP 200 at the very moment a wedged instance rejects requests, pointing to a server-side session identity issue rather than a token problem. Across 412 sessions and 153 distinct 401 events logged between June 13–28, 2026, not a single instance recovered without a full process restart. Existing Claude Code fixes for token refresh and stale configuration, present since versions 2.1.117 and 2.1.178, did not prevent the latch. The key operational takeaway is that external token-validity probes are structurally blind to this failure mode, and recovery can only be confirmed by observing a successful response from the affected instance itself.
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