Codex Windows app leaves at least 5 running processes after exit every time
Resolved 💬 4 comments Opened Mar 8, 2026 by bLightZP Closed Jun 22, 2026
💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (github-actions[bot], contributor)
responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.
What version of the Codex App are you using (From “About Codex” dialog)?
26.305.950
What subscription do you have?
Plus
What platform is your computer?
Windows 10 (fully patched)
What issue are you seeing?
Each time I run and close the Windows Codex App, it leaves at least 4 codex.exe background processes running and 1 conhost.exe process running.
Here is a screenshot of me just running codex, closing, running codex a 2nd time and closing, as you can see, at least 10 processes remaining:
<img width="1244" height="209" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/02808b26-77a0-4526-83a9-7a730ebf0d38" />
What steps can reproduce the bug?
- Run Codex
- Close Codex
- Check Windows task manager
What is the expected behavior?
All processes related to codex closing.
Additional information
_No response_
4 Comments
Potential duplicates detected. Please review them and close your issue if it is a duplicate.
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@etraut-openai Hey! It looks like all related issues were closed as duplicates of each other, so there’s no single canonical issue left open to track this.
It seems like there might not be a single canonical issue left to track the problem. Could you please reopen one of them (or create a new canonical issue) and link the rest to it? Otherwise it’s hard to track the problem.
Thanks!
This is how it looks like after closing the app according to Process Explorer:
<img width="219" height="114" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/790fd9cf-a248-4b2c-bae6-710ecc3f1823" />
There is a
pwsh.exechild process with no special arguments which somehow keeps those other processes around. Killing that particularpwsh.exewill also terminate the other processes.<img width="543" height="641" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/44c5f408-1fb6-44d9-948f-1e58b9535db1" />
While these "zombies" are around, starting a new instance of the Codex Windows app will create a new set of processes that will also result in a new set of such orphans.
edit: The lingering
pwsh.exeis not affected by the "Integrated terminal shell" setting within the app. If I set it toWSL, there will still be apwsh.exethat keeps the other processes around.Has the same issue, Codex 26.325.31654 (Plus Subscription)
Windows 11 (23H2)