[BUG] Something keeps installing old version of Claude every day or so

[brennancheung]

Environment:

• Windows 10 Pro
• WSL2 (Ubuntu 20)

I was on the latest version last night. When I launched Claude today it was back to an old version. I see the following message:

It looks like your version of Claude Code (1.0.15) needs an update.
A newer version (1.0.24 or higher) is required to continue.

To update, please run:
    claude update

This will ensure you have access to the latest features and improvements.

So I perform the update...

➜  ~ claude update
Current version: 1.0.15
Checking for updates...
New version available: 1.0.34 (current: 1.0.15)
Installing update...
Using global installation update method...
Successfully updated from 1.0.15 to version 1.0.34

But when I launch claude it still says I'm on 1.0.15.

So I manually delete it and re-install:

➜  ~ which claude
/home/brennan/.bun/bin/claude
➜  ~ cd ~/.bun/bin/
➜  ~/.bun/bin ll claude
lrwxrwxrwx 1 brennan brennan 59 Jun 23 17:15 claude -> /home/brennan/node_modules/@anthropic-ai/claude-code/cli.js
➜  ~/.bun/bin rm -rf ~/node_modules/@anthropic-ai
➜  ~/.bun/bin rm claude
➜  ~/.bun/bin which claude
claude not found
➜  ~/.bun/bin npm i -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code

changed 3 packages in 2s

2 packages are looking for funding
  run `npm fund` for details
➜  ~/.bun/bin which claude
/home/brennan/.local/bin/claude
➜  ~/.bun/bin claude -v
1.0.34 (Claude Code)

Everything is fine for a day or so but then it will keep reverting me back to v1.0.15 every time and I have to repeat this whole process every few days.

Expected behaviors:

1. claude update should actually update it
2. I should not be reverted to an old version periodically every few days

Also, why does it say the latest version is 1.0.24 in one spot, but in another it says 1.0.34?

The claude update process has never worked I need to always upgrade manually by deleting the node_modules package and re-installing with npm i. I'm not sure what keeps installing the old version.

I'm not sure why it keeps going with the .bun version either when that's not where the manual installed version goes to. Maybe there is a clue there?

Any help, guidance, or suggestions on what to look for would be greatly appreciated.

[mateussp97]

Same error here

[wolffiex]

Thanks for this report. Probably what is happening here is that you are running the global version but the local version is updating. If you do ~/.claude/local/claude --version is it the latest? If so, you want an alias in your config that maps claude to that command

[asx8678]

i got same error

[ja-martinez]

I don't think claude update command works well when using package managers that are not npm. I used pnpm to install it and claude update did not work and I had to update it manually with pnpm.

I think that maybe you have multiple versions of claude on your path variable and the bun one is before the npm one. When you have the issue you could check which -a claude.

Have you tried running bun remove -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code? The reverting may be caused by bun reinstalling it.

This is all I can think of, hope it helps.

[weklund]

I had this. The migrate installer created multiple versions and didn't clean up. Manually set the alias resolved it for me.

[brennancheung]

@ja-martinez I discovered it was indeed registered in bun and ran the remove command you mentioned. I haven't seen the old version overwrite the new version yet so fingers crossed.

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