Multi Line Statusline

Box drawing characters showing as garbage or question marks

Ensure terminal has UTF-8 encoding enabled. Set: export LANG=en_US.UTF-8. Test with: echo -e '┌│└'. Verify encoding: locale charmap (should be UTF-8). If not supported, modify script to use ASCII alternatives: TOP_LEFT='+', VSEP='|', BOT_LEFT='+'.

Second line overwriting first line or display corruption

Terminal may not support multi-line statuslines properly. Check Claude Code configuration for multi-line support or use single-line statusline instead. Verify terminal supports ANSI escape sequences: echo -e '\033[0m'. Test multi-line output: echo -e 'Line 1\nLine 2'. If issues persist, consider single-line statusline format.

Memory usage always showing 0.0 MB

Memory monitoring may not be available in your Claude Code version. This field is optional - statusline works without it. Check if system.memoryUsage field exists: echo '$input' | jq .system.memoryUsage. If null, memory display is automatically hidden. Verify memory calculation: awk '{printf "%.1f", $0/1024/1024}' (converts bytes to MB).

Lines not aligned or wrapped incorrectly

Terminal window may be too narrow. Resize to at least 80 characters wide or simplify displayed information. Check terminal width: tput cols (should be >= 80). Consider reducing information displayed or using shorter directory paths. Test with: echo -e '┌ Model │ Directory\n└ Tokens │ Cost'.

Git status not displaying or showing incorrect branch

Verify git command is available: command -v git. Check if in git repository: git rev-parse --git-dir (should return .git path). Verify branch detection: git symbolic-ref --short HEAD. Check git status: git status --porcelain (empty = clean, non-empty = dirty). Ensure workdir is correct: echo '$input' | jq .workspace.current_dir.

Token count or cost showing as 0 or incorrect values

Check JSON field names: echo '$input' | jq .cost.total_lines_added (tokens), echo '$input' | jq .cost.total_cost_usd (cost). Verify jq extraction: echo '$input' | jq -r '.cost.total_cost_usd // 0'. Check awk formatting: echo '0.01234' | awk '{printf "%.3f", $0}' (should return 0.012). Verify thousands separator: printf "%'d" 12345 (should return 12,345).

Colors not displaying or showing as escape codes

Verify terminal supports ANSI colors: echo -e '\033[38;5;111mTest\033[0m' (should show colored text). Check 256-color mode: tput colors (should be >= 256). Test color codes: echo -e '\033[38;5;111mBlue\033[0m' (should show blue text). If not supported, remove color codes or use basic 8-color ANSI codes.

Directory path too long or not displaying correctly

Check directory extraction: echo '$input' | jq .workspace.current_dir. Verify HOME replacement: sed "s|$HOME|~|" (replaces /home/user with ~). Test path shortening: dirname=$(basename "$dir") (shows only directory name). Consider truncating long paths: echo "${dir:0:30}..." (limits to 30 characters).