thedotmack/claude-mem · warning

[uninstall] Worker shutdown attempt failed:

Error message

[uninstall] Worker shutdown attempt failed:

What it means

runUninstallCommand tries to stop the claude-mem background worker service before cleanup. Any error thrown by that shutdown attempt (missing worker command, IPC failure, timeout) is caught and reported with this warning; the uninstall explicitly continues, leaving the worker possibly running. Follow-up warnings tell the user shutdown was not confirmed.

Solutions

1. Stop the worker manually: npx claude-mem worker stop (or kill the claude-mem worker process via ps/Task Manager).
2. Re-run uninstall after stopping the worker so cleanup sees no running processes.
3. If the worker is wedged, force-kill it (kill -9 <pid> / End Task) and re-run uninstall.
4. Check that the installed plugin files are intact — a corrupted install can break the stop command; reinstall then uninstall.

Example fix

// before (worker hung, graceful stop times out)
await stopWorker(); // throws timeout
// after (force kill fallback)
try { await stopWorker(); }
catch { execSync(`kill -9 $(pgrep -f claude-mem.*worker) || true`); }

const workerRunning = typeof Bun !== 'undefined'
  ? Bun.spawnSync(['pgrep', '-f', 'claude-mem.*worker']).exitCode === 0
  : false;
if (!workerRunning) console.log('Worker not running; skipping shutdown');

function isSpawnError(e: unknown): e is NodeJS.ErrnoException {
  return e instanceof Error && 'code' in e && ['ENOENT','EACCES','ETIMEDOUT'].includes((e as NodeJS.ErrnoException).code ?? '');
}

try {
  await stopWorker();
} catch (e) {
  console.warn(`Graceful stop failed (${isSpawnError(e) ? e.code : e}) — falling back to kill -9`);
  execSync('pkill -9 -f claude-mem.*worker || true');
}

When it happens

Trigger: The stopWorker path throws inside its try: worker binary/entry not found (moved or partially deleted install), the worker's control socket/HTTP endpoint is unreachable, the process ignores SIGTERM and the call times out, or a spawn failure (ENOENT/EACCES).

Common situations: Half-updated installs where the worker entrypoint changed; worker hung or wedged after a crash; port/socket conflicts; running uninstall in an environment (CI container) where the worker daemon can't be signalled; permission issues spawning the worker stop command.

Related errors

• Worker service did not confirm shutdown; continuing…
• Worker shutdown attempt failed
• Graceful shutdown deadline exceeded — proceeding
• Shutdown already in progress — ignoring re-entrant shutdown…
• Shutdown request returned error

AI-assisted analysis of thedotmack/claude-mem@d8bc9755e7 (2026-09-17). Data as JSON: /api/errors/e16670daaf0995c1. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at src/npx-cli/commands/uninstall.ts:280

      initialValue: false,
    });

    if (p.isCancel(shouldContinue) || !shouldContinue) {
      p.cancel('Uninstall cancelled.');
      return;
    }
  }

  const workerPort = SettingsDefaultsManager.get('CLAUDE_MEM_WORKER_PORT');
  try {
    const result = await shutdownWorkerAndWait(workerPort, 10000);
    if (result.workerWasRunning && result.stopped) {
      p.log.info('Worker service stopped.');
    } else if (result.workerWasRunning) {
      p.log.warn('Worker service did not confirm shutdown; continuing uninstall cleanup.');
    }
  } catch (error: unknown) {
    console.warn('[uninstall] Worker shutdown attempt failed:', error instanceof Error ? error.message : String(error));
  }

  // #2568 — server-runtime teardown. Gated on the installed/selected runtime so
  // the worker uninstall path is completely unchanged. The bundled Docker
  // compose stack lives under the marketplace dir; if it's present we treat the
  // stack as locally managed and instruct teardown (the actual `docker compose
  // down -v` is an operator/CI side effect, not run from this Node process).
  const selectedRuntime = readSelectedRuntime();
  if (selectedRuntime === 'server') {
    if (existsSync(join(marketplaceDirectory(), 'docker-compose.yml'))) {
      p.log.info(
        'Server runtime detected. Tear down the bundled stack with '
          + '`docker compose down -v --remove-orphans` (stops + removes pg + redis/valkey).',
      );
    } else {
      p.log.info('Server runtime detected (externally managed stack — leaving Docker/pg/redis untouched).');
    }
    clearServerRuntimeSettings(SERVER_RUNTIME_SETTINGS_KEYS);

View on GitHub (pinned to d8bc9755e7)