stuck in "thinking" state in VS Code, unable to stop

Resolved 💬 7 comments Opened Mar 9, 2026 by sirsir23333 Closed Mar 11, 2026
💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (github-actions[bot], contributor) responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.

What version of the IDE extension are you using?

26.304.20706

What subscription do you have?

plus

Which IDE are you using?

VS Code

What platform is your computer?

macOS Darwin 25.4.0 arm64 arm

What issue are you seeing?

Codex in VS Code keeps displaying "thinking" and cannot be stopped. The stop button does not work, and the task remains stuck indefinitely. Restarting Codex, reloading the VS Code window, and reopening VS Code do not resolve the issue. The only workaround is send a steer message and stop the conversation, but the thinking status will still be there

<img width="603" height="784" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/ccf1e532-bc89-4aae-ad5f-ef86be5adf91" />

What steps can reproduce the bug?

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Open VS Code with the Codex extension enabled.

Open a project workspace.

Ask Codex to analyze a reference project (for example, a zip file or a larger codebase) and inspect the implementation of important functions.

After starting the analysis, Codex enters a persistent "thinking" state.

Clicking the stop button does not stop the task. (Only happens to me sometimes)

What is the expected behavior?

odex should either:

finish the task normally, or

allow the current task to be stopped immediately when clicking the stop button.

Additional information

_No response_

View original on GitHub ↗

7 Comments

github-actions[bot] contributor · 4 months ago

Potential duplicates detected. Please review them and close your issue if it is a duplicate.

  • #14026
  • #13379
  • #13459
  • #12161

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deril2605 · 4 months ago

I have the same issue

riefkyhd · 4 months ago

me too

eviweb · 4 months ago

same here

openresearchtools · 4 months ago

Same applies to VS Code and native app on both Windows and MacOS. If codex crashes, those treads that were running when crash occured can't be resumed/ stopped/ restarted, stuck on thinking.

gpeal contributor · 4 months ago

A fix is rolling out in pre-release now and will be fully released later today (March 11)