TUI hangs on black screen at boot (OpenTUI) since v1.17.0 — Ubuntu/Wayland, all terminals, no plugins #32361

Summary

Since v1.17.0, the TUI hangs on a black screen at boot and never renders. It emits the terminal-capability query sequence and then freezes silently — the backend/logger never even starts. v1.16.2 is the last working version on my machine; v1.17.0 is the first broken one.

This is not terminal-specific, not plugin-related, and not fixable via any documented env var (details below). Looks like a regression in the OpenTUI boot path.

Related but different: #14433 (closed) is about missing plugin dependencies; my case reproduces with --pure (no plugins at all).

Environment

• OS: Zorin OS 18.1 (Ubuntu 24.04 "noble" base), kernel 6.17.0-35
• Session: Wayland
• Terminals tested: GNOME Terminal 3.52 / VTE 0.76.0 and Ghostty v1.3.1 (snap) — both hang
• Node v25.8.1, npm 11.11.0, glibc 2.39
• Install method: npm i -g opencode-ai

Steps to reproduce

1. npm i -g [email protected] (or any 1.17.x)
2. Run opencode in any project, in any terminal
3. → black screen, frozen, no keyboard response, no error

Expected vs actual

• Expected: TUI renders the prompt UI (as 1.16.2 does)
• Actual: black screen; the process is alive (sleeping in ep_poll, ~18 threads, ~260 MB RSS, no child process) but never renders and never logs anything

Bisection

Tested with a non-responding pty (timeout 8 script -qec "opencode" /tmp/x.raw </dev/null): 1.16.x renders the full UI even when the pty answers no queries; 1.17.x only emits the queries and stops. The same hang reproduces in real GNOME Terminal and real Ghostty.

What I ruled out

• Terminal: hangs in both GNOME Terminal (VTE) and Ghostty (implements the kitty protocols) → not just "terminal doesn't answer a query"
• Plugins: opencode --pure (no plugins) also hangs
• Env vars: tried all of OPENTUI_NOTIFICATIONS, OPENTUI_NOTIFICATION_PROTOCOL, OPENTUI_GRAPHICS, OPENTUI_FORCE_WCWIDTH, OPENTUI_FORCE_EXPLICIT_WIDTH, OPENTUI_FORCE_UNICODE, OPENTUI_FORCE_NOZWJ, OPENCODE_TERMINAL, and TERM=xterm — all still hang
• DB / state: backend runs fine via opencode run (headless) and opencode serve; only the TUI hangs

Diagnostic detail

With --print-logs --log-level DEBUG, stderr stays empty and ~/.local/share/opencode/log/opencode.log is not written — the hang happens before logging initializes. The only bytes the TUI emits before freezing are the capability queries:

]10;? ]11;? [>0q [?1016$p [?2027$p [?2031$p [?1004$p [?2004$p [?2026$p ]99;i=opentui-notifications:p=? ]1337;Capabilities ]66;w=1; ]66;s=2; [>4;1m ]4;0;?

Workaround

Pin to 1.16.2 and disable auto-update:

npm i -g [email protected]
# opencode.json: "autoupdate": false

Happy to provide an strace/thread dump if useful.