Buzz Term hangs the entire app on Windows (0.5.5) - banner flashes, then Application Hang; blank panel after relaunch
- Dominant language
- Rust
- Stars
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- Merged PRs (30d)
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Description
## Environment
- Buzz Desktop **0.5.5.0** (arrived via auto-update from 0.5.4 today)
- Windows 11 Pro, build 26200
- Self-hosted relay (`deploy/compose` bundle), Let's Encrypt TLS
## What happened
Opened Buzz Term from the channel workspace for the first time:
1. The Term banner/wordmark flashed briefly, with what looked like a local shell prompt.
2. The entire app immediately stopped responding (not just the Term panel).
3. Windows Event Log recorded an **Application Hang** for `buzz-desktop.exe` 0.5.5.0 at that moment: *"The program buzz-desktop.exe version 0.5.5.0 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed."*
4. After relaunching, the Term panel renders permanently blank. The rest of the app works normally.
## Expected
Either a working shell on Windows (ConPTY + PowerShell/cmd), or a graceful "not supported on this platform yet" state. A failed shell spawn should never hang the UI thread or take down the whole app.
## Possibly relevant
PR #4347's shell resolution chain (`$SHELL` env var → passwd database → `/bin/sh`) appears to have no valid candidate on a stock Windows install — none of those exist here. The Application Hang (rather than a crash/panic) suggests the failure path blocks the main thread while the frontend waits on a PTY that never materializes.
Happy to provide more diagnostics — though note the desktop currently writes no log files on Windows, so Event Log was the only artifact available.
Contributor guide
Research direction
Start by reviewing PR #4347's shell resolution chain and the Windows desktop Term/PTY launch path; reproduce the first-launch case on stock Windows 11. Done means Term either opens a working ConPTY shell or shows a graceful unsupported/error state, without hanging the UI or remaining blank after relaunch.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- powershell, rust
- Domain
- desktop, operating-systems
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 4/5
- Estimated time
- 3-5 days
- Activity status
- Quiet
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 52/100