Fails to start after MacOS reboot

[wichert]

Issue Description

After a reboot MacOS can restore existing windows via the "Reopen windows when logging back in" toggle. This consistently fails for Ghostty: after a restart and logging in Ghostty is restarted and I see the correct number of windows and tabs, but each tab shows a "failed to initialize" error.

Expected Behavior

Ideally same behavior as the standard MacOS terminal: windows and tabs recreated with the same CWD and scrollback buffer.

Actual Behavior

Windows and tabs are recreated, but show an error.

Reproduction Steps

1. Open Ghostty
2. Open a few tabs
3. Restart MacOS, with the "Reopen windows when logging back in" toggle enabled
4. Login after the restart

Ghostty Logs

No response

Ghostty Version

Ghostty 1.1.3

Version
  - version: 1.1.3
  - channel: stable
Build Config
  - Zig version: 0.13.0
  - build mode : builtin.OptimizeMode.ReleaseFast
  - app runtime: apprt.Runtime.none
  - font engine: font.main.Backend.coretext
  - renderer   : renderer.Metal
  - libxev     : main.Backend.kqueue

OS Version Information

MacOS 15.6 (24G84)

(Linux only) Display Server

None

(Linux only) Desktop Environment/Window Manager

No response

Minimal Ghostty Configuration

theme = dark:iTerm2 Tango Dark,light:iTerm2 Tango Light

Additional Relevant Configuration

No response

I acknowledge that:

• I have reviewed the FAQ and confirm that my issue is NOT among them.
• I have searched the Ghostty repository (both open and closed Discussions and Issues) and confirm this is not a duplicate of an existing issue or discussion.
• I have checked the "Preview" tab on all text fields to ensure that everything looks right, and have wrapped all configuration and code in code blocks with a group of three backticks (```) on separate lines.

[taylrfnt]

Are there no error messages or log entries to share? Does this only happen when windows attempt to re-open, or does it persist when you fully quit Ghostty after this issue and reopen it manually?

[wichert]

Fully quitting Ghostty and restarting it works normally. I will see if I can capture log messages if I try this again. I'm afraid that will be in two weeks - I'm just heading out for a short holiday.

[taylrfnt]

Sure. Instrumenting this failure might be difficult given the host is rebooting.

I'd mostly like to see the "failed to initialize" error in its native context to see if it identifies what serving it - Ghostty or a macOS pop up.

[wichert]

I just got this again after a reboot to upgrade to macOs 15.6.1:

[wichert]

A few other notes:

• opening a new window does not work: nothing happens
• opening Settings does work
• "Reload Configuration" has no visible effect
• "Show All Tabs" does work
• About does work

I'm guessing that means the UI parts work, but the terminal components failed?

[wichert]

@taylrfnt Do you need more information from me?

[mitchellh]

This is super interesting. We've been trying to chase down a very similar issue that I very much suspect is the same where a couple people have reported this same problem after waking up their Macs from sleep, sometimes. The reason I think it's related is because I think it's somehow related to Metal APIs directly after a boot-like event.

One person also noticed that this impacted all Metal-using applications, except the other ones crashed. Ghostty survived but showed this error message, which makes some sense since we have pretty robust error handling in our renderer layer.

What we really need to chase this down is a reliably reproduction (for maintainers or someone able to fix it), and probably some kind of debug logs or new logs given to get us the error code or where exactly this failure is happening. We currently have no idea.

[wichert]

This happened again this week. My laptop did a software update macOS Tahoe 26.1 overnight with the lid closed. After opening the laptop again this morning and logging in I was greeted with the "Oh, no" error.

[wichert]

Is there a debug build I can use, or a way to enable extra debug logging? With the macOS 16.2 release I have a good chance to trigger this again.

[taylrfnt]

Sorry for the delay. Debug builds for macOS are on the releases page, or you can build your own following the instructions for building from source.