macOS: windows randomly opening with a size of roughly 16px by 64px #10304

taistejlaiho · 2026-01-13T11:28:37Z

taistejlaiho
Jan 13, 2026

Issue Description

I downloaded the latest tip version at c90f47f to experiment with the new working directory inheritance options from #1392. However, with this version, terminal windows seemingly randomly open at a size of about 16x64 pixels instead of the normal configured size.

I made a screen recording (YT) of this happening.

The logs pasted below document the following situation: starting Ghostty (opens up a single window), open up a window (comes up normal size), open up a second window (comes up tiny). I've added a few line breaks between the log output of each of these actions. (The logs are not from the screen recording session; I only realized you can capture logs after recording it.)

The issue seems to be some combination of native macOS titlebar style and specified width and height. I tested this with those being the only three settings I had in my config file, but if I removed any one of the lines, the issue no longer occurred.

Before upgrading, I was using the tip version that was current at Nov 25, where this did not occur.

Expected Behavior

All windows open at the size configured with window-width and window-height.

Actual Behavior

Some windows, in a way that I can't reliably figure out, open in full size and others at the abnormally small size. Sometimes the first window I open after starting Ghostty is minuscule, sometimes normal. Any of the subsequently opened (with Cmd-N) windows can also be either, possibly but not necessarily affected by resizing the last open window.

Reproduction Steps

Open Ghostty.
Open multiple windows.
The windows will either open at the right size or they won't.

Ghostty Logs

Timestamp                       Thread     Type        Activity             PID    TTL  
2026-01-13 13:20:39.645878+0200 0x1279206  Info        0x0                  5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:default] ghostty version=1.3.0-main+c90f47f11
2026-01-13 13:20:39.646348+0200 0x1279206  Info        0x0                  5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:default] ghostty build optimize=ReleaseFast
2026-01-13 13:20:39.646367+0200 0x1279206  Info        0x0                  5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:default] runtime=.none
2026-01-13 13:20:39.646381+0200 0x1279206  Info        0x0                  5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:default] font_backend=.coretext
2026-01-13 13:20:39.646394+0200 0x1279206  Info        0x0                  5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:default] renderer=renderer.generic.Renderer(renderer.Metal)
2026-01-13 13:20:39.646406+0200 0x1279206  Info        0x0                  5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:default] libxev default backend=kqueue
2026-01-13 13:20:39.651506+0200 0x1279206  Info        0x0                  5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:os_locale] os_locale: detected system locale=en_FI.UTF-8
2026-01-13 13:20:39.651621+0200 0x1279206  Info        0x0                  5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:os_locale] os_locale: setlocale after unset lang result=C
2026-01-13 13:20:39.651646+0200 0x1279206  Error       0x0                  5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:os_locale] os_locale: setlocale failed with LANG and system default. Falling back to en_US.UTF-8
2026-01-13 13:20:39.651734+0200 0x1279206  Info        0x0                  5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:os_locale] os_locale: setlocale default result=en_US.UTF-8
2026-01-13 13:20:39.652736+0200 0x127920f  Info        0x0                  5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:sentry] sentry: sentry envelope does not contain crash, discarding
2026-01-13 13:20:39.745493+0200 0x1279206  Info        0x0                  5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:default] reading configuration file path=/Users/jarkko/Library/Application Support/com.mitchellh.ghostty/config
2026-01-13 13:20:39.745627+0200 0x1279206  Info        0x0                  5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:default] reading configuration file path=/Users/jarkko/Library/Application Support/com.mitchellh.ghostty/config
2026-01-13 13:20:39.745681+0200 0x1279206  Error       0x0                  5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:config] config: both config files `/Users/jarkko/Library/Application Support/com.mitchellh.ghostty/config` and `/Users/jarkko/Library/Application Support/com.mitchellh.ghostty/config` exist.
2026-01-13 13:20:39.745702+0200 0x1279206  Error       0x0                  5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:config] config: loading them both in that order
2026-01-13 13:20:39.745808+0200 0x1279206  Info        0x0                  5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:config] config: default shell src=passwd value=/usr/local/bin/bash
2026-01-13 13:20:39.745828+0200 0x1279206  Info        0x0                  5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:config] config: default working directory src=passwd value=/Users/jarkko
2026-01-13 13:20:39.898347+0200 0x1279206  Debug       0x0                  5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:AppDelegate] application will restore window state
2026-01-13 13:20:39.984185+0200 0x1279206  Info        0x0                  5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:ghostty] known but unimplemented action action=40
2026-01-13 13:20:39.997819+0200 0x1279206  Info        0x0                  5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:io_exec] io_exec: found Ghostty resources dir: /Applications/Ghostty.app/Contents/Resources/ghostty
2026-01-13 13:20:39.997962+0200 0x1279206  Info        0x0                  5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:io_exec] io_exec: shell integration automatically injected shell=.bash
2026-01-13 13:20:39.998125+0200 0x1279206  Info        0x0                  5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:ghostty] known but unimplemented action action=22
2026-01-13 13:20:40.001759+0200 0x1279226  Info        0x0                  5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:io_exec] io_exec: started subcommand path=/usr/bin/login pid=5166
2026-01-13 13:20:40.092257+0200 0x1279206  Info        0x0                  5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:ghostty] config reload notification
2026-01-13 13:20:40.092978+0200 0x1279206  Info        0x0                  5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:ghostty] config change notification
2026-01-13 13:20:40.093172+0200 0x1279206  Info        0x0                  5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:ghostty] config change notification
2026-01-13 13:20:40.128843+0200 0x1279206  Info        0x0                  5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:ghostty] config reload notification
2026-01-13 13:20:40.129482+0200 0x1279206  Info        0x0                  5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:ghostty] config change notification
2026-01-13 13:20:41.691949+0200 0x1279206  Debug       0x0                  5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:AppDelegate] application will save window state



2026-01-13 13:20:53.232508+0200 0x1279206  Info        0x2e4259a            5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:ghostty] known but unimplemented action action=40
2026-01-13 13:20:53.235983+0200 0x1279206  Info        0x2e4259a            5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:io_exec] io_exec: found Ghostty resources dir: /Applications/Ghostty.app/Contents/Resources/ghostty
2026-01-13 13:20:53.236109+0200 0x1279206  Info        0x2e4259a            5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:io_exec] io_exec: shell integration automatically injected shell=.bash
2026-01-13 13:20:53.236228+0200 0x1279206  Info        0x2e4259a            5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:ghostty] known but unimplemented action action=22
2026-01-13 13:20:53.240390+0200 0x12793a8  Info        0x0                  5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:io_exec] io_exec: started subcommand path=/usr/bin/login pid=5214
2026-01-13 13:20:54.687284+0200 0x1279206  Debug       0x0                  5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:AppDelegate] application will save window state



2026-01-13 13:20:57.086976+0200 0x1279206  Info        0x2e428bc            5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:ghostty] known but unimplemented action action=40
2026-01-13 13:20:57.089935+0200 0x1279206  Info        0x2e428bc            5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:io_exec] io_exec: found Ghostty resources dir: /Applications/Ghostty.app/Contents/Resources/ghostty
2026-01-13 13:20:57.090109+0200 0x1279206  Info        0x2e428bc            5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:io_exec] io_exec: shell integration automatically injected shell=.bash
2026-01-13 13:20:57.090275+0200 0x1279206  Info        0x2e428bc            5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:ghostty] known but unimplemented action action=22
2026-01-13 13:20:57.095117+0200 0x1279453  Info        0x0                  5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:io_exec] io_exec: started subcommand path=/usr/bin/login pid=5259
2026-01-13 13:20:57.132315+0200 0x1279206  Error       0x2e428bc            5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:surface] surface: WARNING: very small terminal grid detected with padding set. Is your padding reasonable?
2026-01-13 13:20:57.132356+0200 0x1279206  Error       0x2e428bc            5165   0    ghostty: [com.mitchellh.ghostty:surface] surface: WARNING: very small terminal grid detected with padding set. Is your padding reasonable?

Ghostty Version

Ghostty 1.3.0-main+c90f47f11

Version
  - version: 1.3.0-main+c90f47f11
  - channel: tip
Build Config
  - Zig version   : 0.15.2
  - build mode    : .ReleaseFast
  - app runtime   : .none
  - font engine   : .coretext
  - renderer      : renderer.generic.Renderer(renderer.Metal)
  - libxev        : kqueue

OS Version Information

macOS 15.7.3 (2019 Intel MacBook Pro)

(Linux only) Display Server

None

(Linux only) Desktop Environment/Window Manager

No response

Minimal Ghostty Configuration

macos-titlebar-style = native
window-height = 40
window-width = 140

Additional Relevant Configuration

No response

I acknowledge that:

I have reviewed the FAQ and confirm that my issue is NOT among them.
I have searched the Ghostty repository (both open and closed Discussions and Issues) and confirm this is not a duplicate of an existing issue or discussion.
I have checked the "Preview" tab on all text fields to ensure that everything looks right, and have wrapped all configuration and code in code blocks with a group of three backticks (```) on separate lines.