diff --git a/src/servers/api/chat/claude-sessions.ts b/src/servers/api/chat/claude-sessions.ts
index 9bbb8891..d33404fb 100644
--- a/src/servers/api/chat/claude-sessions.ts
+++ b/src/servers/api/chat/claude-sessions.ts
@@ -744,10 +744,17 @@ export async function pidsHoldingFile(who: ChatIdentity, path: string): Promise<
   const proc = Bun.spawn(argv, { stdout: 'pipe', stderr: 'ignore' });
   const out = await new Response(proc.stdout).text();
   await proc.exited;
+  // The platform's OWN pids are removed, always.
+  //
+  // Not defensive programming for its own sake: a leaked descriptor made the server a holder of a job's
+  // output file, and the next Pause `SIGSTOP`ped the whole platform through this list. The leak is fixed,
+  // and this is the guard that means the next one cannot do the same thing. Nothing that manages a job
+  // should ever be able to name the process doing the managing.
+  const self = new Set([process.pid, process.ppid]);
   return out
     .split(/\s+/)
     .map((token) => Number(token.replace(/\D/g, '')))
-    .filter((n) => Number.isInteger(n) && n > 1);
+    .filter((n) => Number.isInteger(n) && n > 1 && !self.has(n));
 }
 
 /**
diff --git a/src/servers/api/chat/task-restart.ts b/src/servers/api/chat/task-restart.ts
index e945df50..f3971ca1 100644
--- a/src/servers/api/chat/task-restart.ts
+++ b/src/servers/api/chat/task-restart.ts
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-import { openSync } from 'node:fs';
+import { closeSync, openSync } from 'node:fs';
 import { basename, dirname, join } from 'node:path';
 import { runAsArgv } from '../../os-user';
 import { readTextAs } from '../../read-as-user';
@@ -170,9 +170,19 @@ export async function restartBackgroundTask(
 
   // Appended, never truncated: the log view is reading this file, and a restart is a new chapter in a job's
   // life rather than a new job.
+  // The fd is CLOSED immediately after the spawn, and that one line is load-bearing.
+  //
+  // Leaving it open made the platform a holder of the job's output file — and `pidsHoldingFile` asks
+  // `fuser` who holds it. So the next Pause sent `SIGSTOP` to the platform itself: eleven threads
+  // stopped, port 9000 still listening with connections queueing behind it and nobody accepting. The
+  // server was not down, it was frozen, which looks identical from outside and is why it took a terminal
+  // to see. `kill -CONT` brought it back untouched.
+  //
+  // The child gets its own duplicate of the descriptor at spawn, so closing here costs it nothing.
   const fd = openSync(output, 'a');
   const argv = who.osUser ? runAsArgv(who.osUser, ['sh', '-c', command]) : ['sh', '-c', command];
   const proc = Bun.spawn(argv, { cwd, stdout: fd, stderr: fd, stdin: 'ignore' });
+  closeSync(fd);
   restarted.set(taskId, { proc });
 
   void proc.exited.then((code) => {