Browser Use can list in-app tabs, but external navigation fails with failed to start codex app-server

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

• #19187
• #19298
• #19271

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Cross-linking a local workaround that fixed this same Windows Codex Desktop / Browser Use failed to start codex app-server: ... (os error 3) failure here: https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/19562#issuecomment-4356858649

On my machine, %LOCALAPPDATA%\OpenAI\Codex\bin was expected/on the Desktop path but missing. The helper binaries already existed at:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\OpenAI.Codex_2p2nqsd0c76g0\LocalCache\Local\OpenAI\Codex\bin

Creating a junction from the expected path to the packaged helper-bin path fixed Browser Use / in-app browser control:

$target = "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Packages\OpenAI.Codex_2p2nqsd0c76g0\LocalCache\Local\OpenAI\Codex\bin"
$link = "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\OpenAI\Codex\bin"

if (!(Test-Path $target)) { throw "Target not found: $target" }

New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force -Path (Split-Path $link) | Out-Null
if (!(Test-Path $link)) {
    New-Item -ItemType Junction -Path $link -Target $target
}

After adding the junction and retrying in Codex Desktop, Browser Use could attach to the selected in-app browser tab, navigate to external pages, read DOM snapshots, click links, and continue navigating.

This may not cover every Windows Browser Use failure, but it looks relevant when the IAB backend can initialize/list tabs and then navigation/DOM/screenshot work fails with failed to start codex app-server: ... (os error 3).

I can reproduce this on Windows Codex Desktop as well.

Moved from duplicate #20956.

Session/thread ID requested by the Codex feedback flow:
019df4f0-8b5e-7772-b5d1-48af5df910c7

Observed behavior:

• The in-app browser is open and can be manually navigated.
• Browser Use can read basic tab metadata:
• URL: https://dash.cloudflare.com/login?...
• title: Cloudflare Dashboard | Manage Your Account
• Browser Use fails for DOM/screenshot/CUA/navigation operations with:

failed to start codex app-server: The system cannot find the path specified. (os error 3)

Failing calls:

• tab.playwright.domSnapshot()
• tab.playwright.screenshot(...)
• tab.dom_cua.get_visible_dom()
• tab.goto(...)

Environment details observed:

• Windows
• Codex package path includes:

OpenAI.Codex_26.429.8261.0_x64__2p2nqsd0c76g0

• Codex runtime in logs:

0.128.0-alpha.1

• Browser Use plugin:

openai-bundled/browser-use/0.1.0-alpha1

• nodeRepl.homeDir is null
• nodeRepl.cwd is valid, but redacted here:

<user-home>\mystuff\personal\Projects\audora

This looks very similar to the HOME/path/app-server startup failure described here.

I can reproduce this on Windows with Codex Desktop OpenAI.Codex_26.429.8261.0_x64.

Same core behavior:

• Browser Use/IAB initializes.
• agent.browser.tabs.list() and agent.browser.tabs.selected() work.
• External navigation fails before opening the site with:

failed to start codex app-server: The system cannot find the path specified. (os error 3)
Additional observations from my run:

direct nodeRepl.fetch(...) to the Browser Use site_status endpoint fails with the same app-server error
nodeRepl.homeDir is null
process.env appears empty inside the Node REPL kernel
the main app-server process was already running and reported version 0.128.0-alpha.1 


Sources: [#19314](https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/19314), [#20872](https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/20872), [#20956](https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/20956), [#20206](https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/20206), [#20048](https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/20048).

Follow-up after updating Codex Desktop on Windows.

The app updated from the previously reported build to:

• Codex Desktop package/build: OpenAI.Codex_26.506.3741.0_x64__2p2nqsd0c76g0
• codex.exe --version: codex-cli 0.130.0-alpha.5
• Browser Use plugin: openai-bundled/browser-use/0.1.0-alpha2

The failure still reproduces, but the symptom changed.

With the new Browser Use skill instructions, setup now uses:

const { setupAtlasRuntime } = await import("<browser-use-plugin>/scripts/browser-client.mjs");
await setupAtlasRuntime({ globals: globalThis });
globalThis.browser = await agent.browsers.get("iab");

After running the new setup flow and trying to attach to/name the selected in-app browser session, the Node REPL kernel exits unexpectedly with:

Error: EPERM: operation not permitted, lstat 'C:\\Users\\<user>\\AppData'

So this no longer reaches the previous DOM/screenshot/navigation calls that failed with:

failed to start codex app-server: The system cannot find the path specified. (os error 3)

Additional observations after the update:

• nodeRepl.homeDir is still null
• nodeRepl.cwd is valid
• nodeRepl.tmpDir resolves under C:\\Users\\<user>\\AppData\\Local\\Temp
• Helper binaries now exist under %LOCALAPPDATA%\\OpenAI\\Codex\\bin
• The sandbox log shows node_repl being launched from %LOCALAPPDATA%\\OpenAI\\Codex\\bin

This may indicate the original missing-helper-path issue is partially fixed in the newer build/plugin, but Browser Use on Windows is still blocked by a home/AppData permission or path-resolution problem. The %LOCALAPPDATA%\\OpenAI\\Codex\\bin junction workaround mentioned above may not apply here anymore because that directory now exists and is being used.

No project-specific paths or account details are needed to reproduce this; the relevant sanitized path pattern is:

C:\\Users\\<user>\\AppData

Closing as a duplicate of #19187.