[Bug] Windows Desktop App (26.422.3464.0) white screen on startup due to workspace_dependencies loop

Open 💬 4 comments Opened Apr 27, 2026 by wangxw19

💡 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)?

26.422.3464.0

What subscription do you have?

ChatGPT Plus

What platform is your computer?

Windows 11 x64

What issue are you seeing?

App opens to a blank white window with the Codex >_ icon/spinner.
Multiple Codex.exe processes remain in the background after closing the window.

Checking the logs, the app is stuck in a loop trying to enable a feature that the runtime does not support:

unsupported feature enablement 'workspace_dependencies': currently supported features are apps, memories, plugins, tool_search, tool_suggest, tool_call_mcp_elicitation
method=experimentalFeature/enablement/set
Failed to sync experimental feature enablement

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Install the Codex App from the Microsoft Store.
Launch the application.
Observe the app getting stuck indefinitely on the initial loading screen (white screen with the cloud logo).

What is the expected behavior?

The app should finish loading and display the main chat/workspace interface successfully.

Additional information

Resetting the app via Windows Settings, reinstalling from the Store, and clearing the AppData/User data did not fix the issue.
It appears to be an internal frontend-backend feature flag mismatch (workspace_dependencies) in this specific Windows build.

View original on GitHub ↗

4 Comments

github-actions[bot] contributor · 4 months ago

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

#19415
#19437
#19685
#19682
#19220

Powered by Codex Action

Bl0ck154 · 4 months ago

Fresh Windows install here as well. Installed from the official ChatGPT site, which redirected to Microsoft Store. First launch never gets past the splash screen.

Confirmed this is not caused by username/path encoding or VPN:

Windows profile path is plain ASCII: C:\Users\username
VPN disabled
no prior Codex session/login state to migrate

Local logs match the same workspace_dependencies startup loop exactly:

window ready-to-show
unsupported feature enablement 'workspace_dependencies': currently supported features are apps, memories, plugins, tool_search, tool_suggest, tool_call_mcp_elicitation
Failed to sync experimental feature enablement

Observed package/build from local logs:
OpenAI.Codex_26.422.8496.0_x64__2p2nqsd0c76g0

So this still reproduces on a clean first-run install on a newer Store build too, not just 26.422.3464.0.

This looks like a shipped frontend/runtime mismatch in the Microsoft Store app, not a local machine configuration issue.

michaelvips · 3 months ago

Possible Windows fix: enable Developer Mode for runtime extraction failures

I ran into a similar Codex Desktop runtime installation failure on Windows.

The logs showed repeated primary runtime install failures like:

[primary-runtime-installer] Error installing primary runtime
Failed to extract primary runtime archive:
codex-primary-runtime/dependencies/node/node_modules/.pnpm/@napi-rs+canvas@0.1.100/node_modules/@napi-rs/canvas-win32-x64-msvc:
Can't create ... Invalid argument

[install-primary-runtime] primary_runtime_dependencies_diagnose_finished
bundleVersion=null installed=false problemCount=1

Wangnov · 3 months ago

One thing that may be worth trying is installing the latest Windows MSIX package directly, to rule out being stuck on an older Microsoft Store package.

There is an unofficial mirror here:

Project: https://github.com/Wangnov/codex-app-mirror
Latest Windows package: https://codexapp.agentsmirror.com/latest/win

This does not fix the underlying app bug if the issue is caused by runtime/state/rendering behavior, but it can help verify whether the problem still reproduces on the newest published MSIX.