Codex Desktop: Computer Use approval denied via MCP elicitation for Chrome in a new thread, and no approval prompt appears

What version of the Codex App are you using (From “About Codex” dialog)?

26.417.41555 (1858)

What subscription do you have?

Pro

What platform is your computer?

macOS, Codex Desktop

What issue are you seeing?

Computer Use cannot control Google Chrome and immediately fails with:

Computer Use approval denied via MCP elicitation for app 'com.google.Chrome'.

No usable approval prompt appears in Codex, and macOS does not show a Google Chrome entry under Privacy & Security -> Automation.

Accessibility permission for Codex is already enabled. I also enabled the other relevant permissions I could find, but the approval flow for Chrome never appears.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

1. Open Codex Desktop on macOS.
2. Start a thread and ask @Computer Use to inspect or control Google Chrome.
3. Keep Google Chrome running.
4. The tool call fails immediately with:

Computer Use approval denied via MCP elicitation for app 'com.google.Chrome'.

1. No approval prompt appears in Codex, and no Chrome entry appears in macOS Automation settings.

What is the expected behavior?

Codex Desktop should trigger a usable approval flow for Computer Use to access/control Google Chrome, or preserve/recover that approval state correctly.

Additional information

• Codex config shows the bundled Computer Use plugin is enabled.
• In local session logs, the failed thread records only the immediate denial.
• In older logs from a previously working setup, I can see approval/permission-notification related entries, but in the failing runs there is no visible approval request being triggered.
• This looks related to issue #18522, but in my case I observed the same symptom on April 22, 2026 with Codex Desktop 26.417.41555 (1858).

Local evidence

Codex config:

• ~/.codex/config.toml has:

``toml
[plugins."computer-use@openai-bundled"]
enabled = true
``

Relevant local files/logs:

• Session log:

~/.codex/sessions/2026/04/22/rollout-2026-04-22T17-33-01-019db489-2c7c-7652-a049-7179473f9d0c.jsonl

• Desktop logs:

~/Library/Logs/com.openai.codex/2026/04/22/...
~/Library/Logs/com.openai.codex/2026/04/17/...

Observed behavior:

• failing runs: immediate denial, no visible approval request
• earlier working logs: approval / permission-notification events existed