Claude Code Not Working? A Checklist for Non-Coders

When Claude Code is not working, the fix is almost always one of five things: a service outage, a stuck session, a login problem, a usage limit, or an overfilled conversation. This checklist walks you from symptom to fix without requiring you to understand a single line of code.

I'm Evgeny, and I've watched dozens of non-programmers hit their first error and assume they broke something expensive. Spoiler: you almost never did. Errors in Claude Code come with recovery commands, and the order you check things in matters more than technical skill. Let's go in order.

How do I check if Claude Code is working at all?

Two diagnostics exist, and which one you use depends on whether Claude starts. If it starts, type /doctor inside the session — it checks your installation, settings, MCP servers, and context usage in one pass. If `claude` won't launch at all, run the doctor from your normal terminal instead. And before blaming your machine, check status.claude.com — if there's an outage, no amount of restarting helps.

claude doctor

How do I fix Claude Code when it's stuck?

First press Ctrl+C to cancel the current operation. If it stays frozen, close the terminal entirely — this feels drastic but is officially recommended, and you lose nothing: your conversation is saved on disk. If Claude is slow rather than frozen (fans spinning, laptop hot), run /compact to shrink the conversation, or restart with `claude --safe-mode` to check whether a plugin or extension is the culprit.

claude --resume

Why won't Claude Code let me log in?

"Not logged in", "OAuth token has expired", "Invalid API key" — all of these mean Claude can't prove who you are. The standard fix is /login. If the error comes back in the same session, run /logout first to fully clear the stored token, then /login again. One sneaky case: a leftover API key in your environment can silently override your subscription — run /status to see which credential is actually being used, because environment variables beat /login every time.

How do I keep Claude Code working without constant errors?

Three recurring annoyances have three boring fixes, and each one is a different symptom with a different command — so it's worth knowing them apart rather than treating every message as the same crisis.

"You've hit your session limit"

This means your plan's allowance ran out — it is not an error and nothing is broken. Run /usage to see exactly when the limit resets, then go make tea. The conversation is saved; come back after the reset with claude --continue and pick up where you left off.

"529 Overloaded"

This means the servers are busy for everyone, not just you. Because capacity is tracked per model, the fastest workaround is to run /model and switch to a different one. If they're all busy, wait a minute — Claude already retried several times before showing you this.

"Prompt is too long"

This means the conversation outgrew Claude's memory window. Run /compact to summarize the chat down to its essentials, or /clear to start fresh — the old chat stays available via /resume, so /clear loses nothing.

Search isn't finding files

If Claude reports it can't find files you know exist, the official fix is installing ripgrep for your platform — it's the search engine Claude Code relies on, and a missing copy makes searches come back empty. After installing it, restart the session and the search works normally.

What if there's no error, but the answers got worse?

This one fools everyone. Claude Code doesn't silently swap models on you — degraded answers usually mean conversation state. Check three things: /model (are you on the model you think?), /context (is the memory window nearly full?), and whether the chat is anchored to an earlier wrong attempt. The docs' best trick: instead of correcting Claude in-thread, press Esc twice or run /rewind to step back before the bad turn and rephrase. Correcting in place keeps the failure in memory, and it anchors later answers.

API Error: 500 Internal server error  -> server-side, retry in a minute
API Error: Repeated 529 Overloaded    -> capacity, switch model or wait
Request timed out                     -> retry; split huge tasks
Server is temporarily limiting...     -> brief throttle, not your quota

Save this page, and the next time Claude Code misbehaves, run the checklist top to bottom before panicking. In my experience, items one through four solve 90% of beginner cases — and the remaining 10% are exactly what /feedback was built for. You're not breaking anything. You're debugging, which means you're officially one of us now.