Fixing Claude Code installation problems

Who this is for and what you will be able to do

If claude is not found after installing, the installer cannot download the program, or sign-in keeps failing, the cause is usually one of a few things. This guide walks through them by error message and symptom. By the end you should be able to tell whether the problem is PATH, the network, proxy certificates, an older leftover install, or the login state, and fix it ^[1].

Check where claude was installed

The native installer places the launcher at ~/.local/bin/claude on macOS and Linux, and at %USERPROFILE%\.local\bin\claude.exe on Windows. If the installer output says Native installation exists but ~/.local/bin is not in your PATH., the program is installed and only the folder is missing from PATH. The installer prints the fix but does not change PATH for you ^[1].

First confirm the file is there:

ls -la ~/.local/bin/claude

If the file is listed, check PATH. If the following command prints nothing, the folder is not in PATH:

echo $PATH | tr ':' '\n' | grep -Fx "$HOME/.local/bin"

On macOS, which uses Zsh by default, add the folder with echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc and then run source ~/.zshrc ^[1]. On Linux Bash the file is ~/.bashrc. On macOS Bash it is ~/.bash_profile, because Terminal starts Bash as a login shell, which reads only the first existing file among ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login and ~/.profile ^[1].

Terminal windows that were already open keep the old PATH. A terminal inside an editor takes its PATH from the editor, so open a new window or restart the editor. Then run claude --version to check ^[1].

If you installed only the VS Code extension, note that the extension keeps its own private copy of the CLI for its chat panel and does not add claude to PATH. Use a standalone install to run claude in a terminal ^[1].

Network and proxy problems

The installer downloads from downloads.claude.ai. To test whether it is reachable, run:

curl -sI https://downloads.claude.ai/claude-code-releases/latest

A 200 status on the first line means the server was reached. A 403 usually means a proxy or network filter is blocking the host, or Claude Code is not available in your region. A 5xx usually means a temporary service problem, so wait a few minutes and retry ^[1]. If the output says App unavailable in region, Claude Code is not available in your country, and the docs link to the supported-countries list ^[1].

Behind a corporate proxy, set HTTP_PROXY and HTTPS_PROXY to the proxy address before running the installer. If you do not know the address, ask your IT team ^[1].

Certificate errors

A corporate proxy that inspects TLS traffic can cause certificate errors during install and later in Claude Code. The docs say to make the install script's curl and Claude Code both trust the proxy's CA: on macOS and Linux, set CURL_CA_BUNDLE and NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS to the same PEM file, which should hold the public root certificates together with the proxy's full CA chain ^[1].

Several versions installed at once

Multiple installs can cause version mismatches. List every claude on PATH with which -a claude. Also check ~/.claude/local/, a legacy local npm install from older versions, and the global npm list. The docs recommend keeping only the native install. To remove the others, use npm uninstall -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code for npm, brew uninstall --cask claude-code for Homebrew, or winget uninstall Anthropic.ClaudeCode for WinGet ^[1].

If Homebrew says Cask 'claude-code' is unavailable: No Cask with this name exists, the local cask index is out of date. Run brew update and then install again ^[1].

Common Windows errors

On Windows, the most common mistake is copying the wrong install command. irm is not recognized in Command Prompt, so run irm https://claude.ai/install.ps1 | iex in PowerShell, or use curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.cmd -o install.cmd && install.cmd && del install.cmd in CMD ^[1]. PowerShell aliases curl to Invoke-WebRequest, which is why the macOS and Linux curl -fsSL form fails there ^[1].

If you see Claude Code does not support 32-bit Windows, you probably opened the Windows PowerShell (x86) entry. Run [Environment]::Is64BitOperatingSystem in that window. If it prints True, open the plain Windows PowerShell and install again ^[1].

Claude Code on Windows needs either Git for Windows, which provides bash, or PowerShell. If Git is installed but not found, set CLAUDE_CODE_GIT_BASH_PATH in the env block of settings.json. The file must be named bash.exe, sh.exe, bash or sh, or Claude Code ignores it and auto-detects Git Bash ^[1].

Low memory on Linux

The installer needs roughly 512 MB of free memory, and Claude Code itself requires at least 4 GB of RAM. An exit code of 137 during install usually means the out-of-memory mechanism ended the process. The docs suggest adding a 2 GB swap file:

sudo fallocate -l 2G /swapfile
sudo chmod 600 /swapfile
sudo mkswap /swapfile
sudo swapon /swapfile

Then run the install command again ^[1].

Other platform errors

• On macOS, dyld: Symbol not found or Abort trap: 6 means the system is too old for the binary. Claude Code requires macOS 13.0 or later ^[1].
• Illegal instruction can mean the CPU lacks the AVX instruction set. On a Linux VM, grep -m1 -ow avx /proc/cpuinfo printing nothing means AVX is not passed to the guest, and the docs say there is no native-binary workaround in that case ^[1].
• On WSL1, cannot execute binary file: Exec format error is resolved by converting the distribution to WSL2 with wsl --set-version <DistroName> 2 ^[1].

npm install failures

The npm package installs the native binary as a platform-specific optional dependency. If postinstall or that dependency was skipped, claude prints Error: claude native binary not installed. The docs suggest running node node_modules/@anthropic-ai/claude-code/install.cjs to finish the install ^[1].

Download interruptions and sign-in failures

If the connection drops during a download, Claude Code retries up to three attempts in total. A download that stays connected but does not finish within 10 minutes fails with Download timed out: exceeded the total deadline, and it is not retried, so run claude update again ^[1].

When sign-in fails and the cause is unclear, a clean re-authentication usually works. Run /logout inside Claude Code, close it, start it again with claude, and sign in from the beginning. If the browser does not open, press c to copy the OAuth URL and paste it into a browser yourself ^[1].

Next steps

If the steps above do not solve the problem, search the official installation troubleshooting page for the exact error text. It lists many more messages and their fixes ^[1].