AlmaLinux 9 local VS Code: remote compact task times out waiting for child process to exit

Summary

Codex in local VS Code on AlmaLinux 9.7 repeatedly fails with:

Error running remote compact task: timeout waiting for child process to exit

This reproduces in a brand-new thread, not only when resuming an old one.

Environment

• OS: AlmaLinux 9.7
• Kernel: 5.14.0-611.35.1.el9_7.x86_64
• VS Code: 1.109.5
• Extension build in use when the failure occurred: openai.chatgpt@26.325.21211
• Codex CLI in that extension: codex-cli 0.117.0-alpha.24

What I already ruled out

• Repo is on native XFS, not a VMware shared folder.
• Non-interactive shell startup was cleaned up; bash -lc true is fast.
• Custom chatgpt.cliExecutable was removed.
• Experimental LSP MCP bridge was disabled.
• Manual codex-lsp-mcp config was removed.
• Stale mcp-lsp-proxy / stdio-to-uds helper processes were cleaned up.
• The issue still reproduces after those changes.

Relevant log evidence

Compaction failure in a new-thread run:

• Codex.1.log:1401

The key line is:

codex_core::compact_remote: remote compaction failed ... compact_error=timeout waiting for child process to exit

At the same time the extension is also logging unsupported IDE-path errors:

• repeated open-in-target not supported in extension
• repeated local-environments is not supported in the extension

Examples:

• Codex.1.log:1360
• Codex.log:1918

Process state at failure time

Only one codex app-server was running. There were no extra leaked MCP/LSP helper processes left after cleanup, so this no longer looks like a local process-tree leak.

Repro sketch

1. Open local VS Code inside the AlmaLinux VM.
2. Open the Codex panel.
3. Start a new thread.
4. Use Codex normally until the panel reports: Error running remote compact task: timeout waiting for child process to exit.

Attachments available

I have a local bundle with:

• full Codex*.log files
• current VS Code user settings
• current Codex config
• environment summary

I can attach that bundle separately if useful.

codex-vscode-20260327-160502.tar.gz