Codex VS Code – Tasks never load, sidebar stuck on infinite spinner (regression)
What version of the IDE extension are you using?
Codex – OpenAI’s coding agent (VS Code extension)
What subscription do you have?
Chatgpt PLUS
Which IDE are you using?
VS code
What platform is your computer?
Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.22621.0 x64
What issue are you seeing?
Description
Codex extension loads correctly and registers commands, but the Codex sidebar never finishes loading and no tasks are shown. The sidebar remains stuck on an infinite spinner. No errors are shown in the Output panel.
This previously worked on the same machine and account. The issue appeared recently and persists even after a full Windows reinstall.
Symptoms
Codex commands are available in Command Palette (e.g. Explain, Generate, etc.)
Codex sidebar shows infinite loading spinner
No tasks are displayed
Output → Codex is empty (no logs)
No “Sign in” action is available (auth appears implicit)
ChatGPT webview opens and user is logged in successfully, but Codex remains stuck
What steps can reproduce the bug?
Steps to Reproduce
Install Codex – OpenAI’s coding agent extension
Open any workspace (including an empty folder)
Ensure user is logged in to ChatGPT (browser + VS Code ChatGPT webview)
Click Codex icon in the Activity Bar
Expected Result
Codex sidebar finishes loading
Tasks are displayed and usable
Actual Result
Sidebar remains in infinite loading state
No tasks appear
No error messages or logs
Troubleshooting Already Performed
Full Windows 11 reinstall
Reinstall VS Code and Codex
Tested stable and pre-release Codex versions
Cleared VS Code globalStorage and workspaceStorage
Disabled WSL usage via settings and environment variables
Tested with WSL enabled and disabled
Verified network connectivity to api.openai.com
Logged out and logged back into ChatGPT (Google login)
Opened ChatGPT webview inside VS Code before Codex
Tested on empty workspace
None of the above resolved the issue.
Additional Notes
This appears to be a backend / feature-flag / account rollout regression: the Codex agent never reaches a READY state, but fails silently with no diagnostics. Since it previously worked on the same environment, this does not appear to be a local configuration issue.
What is the expected behavior?
codex should show tasks
Additional information
_No response_
8 Comments
Which version of the extension are you using?
You mentioned that this was a regression. Do you know which version this first appeared? Can you confirm that if you downgrade the problem goes away? This will help us determine if it's a code regression or some other configuration change on your system that caused the problem.
I'm using version 0.5.72
Marco
Il 07/02/2026 23:15, Eric Traut ha scritto:
Also occurring here, same version (5.72) on windows with the VS Code extension. It tends to not update the UI to stream new data. I also seemed to notice some performance issues as well when there are a lot of code edits/plans in a chat inside the extension. Rolling back to 4.71 seemed to have cleared the issues. I would recommend anyone that has the same issues right now to roll back to the release version instead of preview.
I’m on Linux Ubuntu 24 here (with code-server). Anything >= 0.5.69 (including 0.5.72) has the same issue; I had to use CLI instead.
For me, if I work on multiple projects in parallel then yeah, it breaks. If in the same repo with multiple chats its a bit laggy but still loads and renders.
Resolved as of 0.5.74 for Linux Ubuntu 24 code-server
I was facing the same issue in VS Code where the Codex sidebar/chat panel was getting stuck on the logo/loading screen after opening. In my case, the issue was most likely caused by a conflict with another AI-related VS Code extension.
After checking my extensions, I disabled other AI assistant extensions, especially Amazon Q, and then restarted VS Code. After disabling that conflicting extension, the Codex chat panel started working properly again.
Possible fix:
Open VS Code Extensions panel.
Disable other AI/chat assistant extensions temporarily, such as Amazon Q or similar tools.
Restart VS Code.
Open the Codex sidebar/chat panel again.
This worked for me, so the issue may be related to an extension conflict rather than Codex itself. It may be helpful to test Codex with only the required extension enabled.
Same problem here. And unless codex on vscode start showing the loading log, we'll have no choice but to switch to Claude, even though I like codex better