Claude Code has a crippling terminal flickering bug that crashes IDEs and causes uncontrollable scrolling. With 700+ combined upvotes since March 2025, Anthropic still has not shipped a fix.

Claude Code's Terminal Flickering: 700+ Upvotes, 9 Months, Still Broken

Claude Code has a terminal rendering issue so severe it can crash your entire IDE, make your system unusable, and potentially trigger seizures in photosensitive users. This bug has been documented since March 2025. It has accumulated over 1000 combined upvotes across multiple issues. And as of December 2025, it remains unfixed.

The Scale of This Disaster

Issue #3648 documenting terminal scrolling going completely haywire has 282 thumbs-up reactions. Issue #1913 has 181 thumbs-up. Issue #769 from April 2025 has 168 thumbs-up. There are at least a dozen more duplicates scattered across the repository, all describing the same fundamental problem.

Over 1000 developers screaming about the same bug is not a fringe issue - it is a systemic failure.

One developer actually instrumented what Claude Code does to terminals. The findings from issue #9935 are genuinely shocking: 4,000 to 6,700 scroll events per second. The root cause is that Claude Code performs a full terminal redraw on every chunk of streaming output rather than doing incremental updates like any sensible terminal application.

What Users Experience

See it in action: The [original bug report] includes a video showing the terminal turning into a strobe light during normal use.

In VS Code and Cursor, the terminal starts flickering, gets progressively worse, then the entire editor freezes and crashes after 10 to 20 minutes - taking all unsaved work with it.

In standalone terminals, you get the strobe light effect without the crashes. Old conversation history flashes mixed with new output. The scrollbar jumps erratically. Typing while Claude thinks is an exercise in frustration.

The terminal starts scrolling superfast by itself and often you cannot stop it unless you kill the terminal tab and restart Claude. Other times when you are trying to type your prompt you have to repeatedly scroll down to find where you are typing.

Some users report the bug spawning up to seven parallel Claude Code processes, each consuming CPU while the terminal flickers endlessly with no response.

The Accessibility Problem

The original bug report explicitly flagged this as an accessibility concern. Rapid screen flashing is a known trigger for photosensitive epilepsy. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines warn against content flashing more than three times per second. Claude Code flashes thousands of times per second.

Anthropic markets itself as deeply committed to AI safety, yet they have shipped a product with a known accessibility hazard for nine months.

Why This Should Be Easy To Fix

This is not some deep architectural problem. The fix is conceptually simple: stop redrawing the entire terminal buffer on every update. Use cursor positioning to update only what changed. This is basic terminal programming understood since the 1970s.

If the fancy visual interface is too complex to render incrementally, simplify it. Give users a plain text mode that works over a pretty interface that crashes their IDE.

How To Survive Until They Fix It

Based on community findings, here are the best workarounds:

For Mac users, ditch the IDE terminal entirely. Use a simple standalone bash terminal like the native Terminal.app or iTerm2. The flickering still happens but at least it will not crash your entire development environment.

Reduce terminal scrollback to 500 lines or less in your terminal settings. This does not fix the bug but reduces the severity.

Use /clear frequently between prompts to reset the buffer. This delays but does not prevent the eventual meltdown.

Avoid VS Code and Cursor integrated terminals completely for Claude Code sessions. External terminals handle the abuse better.

Keep sessions short. If you are doing heavy agentic work with subagents, expect the flickering to get worse. Restart before it crashes.

Disable GPU acceleration and smooth scrolling in your terminal if those options exist.

The bottom line: nine months, 700+ upvotes, 6,700 scroll events per second, zero fix. Use workarounds, stay patient, and maybe add your upvote to the pile.

[#3648 - Terminal Scrolling Uncontrollably] - 282 upvotes, the most upvoted flickering issue
[#1913 - Terminal Flickering] - 181 upvotes
[#769 - In-progress Call causes Screen Flickering] - 168 upvotes, the original comprehensive report from April 2025
[#9935 - Excessive scroll events causing UI jitter] - Deep technical analysis showing 6,700 scrolls per second
[#10794 - Critical: Terminal Flickering Causes Complete VSCode Crashes] - Documents complete IDE crashes on macOS
[#9658 - Multiple Claude Code instances spawning] - Documents runaway process spawning
[#7276 - VS Code Terminal Flickering and Crash During Long Conversations] - VS Code crash reports
[#392 - Flickering display] - One of the earliest reports from March 2025