Computer Use unavailable when Codex is updated under a different macOS user

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

• #18803
• #19251

Powered by Codex Action

Potential duplicates detected. Please review them and close your issue if it is a duplicate. macOS desktop shows "Computer Use plugin unavailable" even though bundled computer-use plugin exists #18803 Windows app: Browser Use is packaged and feature-flagged but not exposed in UI or plugin marketplace #19251 _Powered by Codex Action_

They don't look as duplicates, because in my issue specific detail is "a different macOS user"

This is a useful distinct case from the broader "Computer Use unavailable" bucket because the app bundle and the active user's ~/.codex state can disagree after a different macOS user updates Codex.

The diagnostic split I would use here:

# app bundle source of truth
ls /Applications/Codex.app/Contents/Resources/plugins/openai-bundled/plugins/
cat /Applications/Codex.app/Contents/Resources/plugins/openai-bundled/.agents/plugins/marketplace.json

# active user's generated/cache state
ls ~/.codex/plugins/cache/openai-bundled/
cat ~/.codex/.tmp/bundled-marketplaces/openai-bundled/.agents/plugins/marketplace.json

# active runtime view
codex mcp list

If the bundle contains computer-use but the active user's cache or generated marketplace omits it, then the fix path is different from a normal TCC permissions reset. You need to repair/resync the active user's bundled marketplace/cache, then verify with a real runtime tool call such as computer-use/list_apps.

I wrote the broader Mac checklist here:
https://igorganapolsky.github.io/openclaw-mac-ai-workstation-setup/troubleshooting.html

I also added a paid $99 diagnostic for exactly this class of "is it TCC, bundle state, runtime routing, or cache sync?" failure:
https://igorganapolsky.github.io/openclaw-mac-ai-workstation-setup/speed-to-lead.html

This is the cleanest case of Symptom 5: an installer wrote to a per-user
Codex home while the runtime that's actually answering uses a different
$CODEX_HOME from your shell rc. The Computer Use plugin is in one home; the
running process is reading the other.

printenv | grep -i codex
ls -la ~/.codex ~/Library/Application\ Support/Codex 2>/dev/null
# Then pick one canonical CODEX_HOME, remove the other from every shell rc,
# and re-run codex plugin marketplace add /Applications/Codex.app/Contents/Resources/plugins/openai-bundled

Full walkthrough with the other 5 root causes that produce similar symptoms:
https://igorganapolsky.github.io/openclaw-mac-ai-workstation-setup/troubleshooting.html

Free script in the repo captures both homes + your env into a redacted bundle.
If you want the bundle reviewed and the root cause confirmed in writing, $19
quick read is on the same page.

Adding another data point that looks very close to this per-user bundled marketplace/cache sync failure.

Environment:

Codex app: 26.513.31313 (CFBundleVersion 2867)
Codex CLI: 0.131.0-alpha.9
macOS: 26.5 (25F71)
Architecture: arm64

Visible symptom:

Could not load this plugin right now.

This appears when trying to install/load Computer Use from the Codex app/plugin flow. Earlier, before repairing stale local helper bits, Computer Use also produced a version-mismatch style failure, but after aligning the helper version the underlying MCP helper works directly.

Local evidence, sanitized:

1. The installed app bundle contains Computer Use in the bundled marketplace/plugin set.

/Applications/Codex.app/Contents/Resources/plugins/openai-bundled/.agents/plugins/marketplace.json

That bundle-side marketplace includes:

browser
chrome
computer-use
latex

1. The active runtime bundled marketplace generated under the user Codex home only contains:

browser
latex

1. The desktop log shows the app generating a reduced runtime marketplace and then uninstalling Computer Use because it is not present in that generated marketplace:

[BundledPluginsMarketplace] bundled_plugins_runtime_marketplace_written pluginCount=2 pluginNames=["browser","latex"] targetMarketplaceRoot=~/.codex/.tmp/bundled-marketplaces/openai-bundled
[BundledPluginsMarketplace] bundled_plugin_uninstall_requested pluginId=computer-use@openai-bundled pluginName=computer-use reason=not_in_bundled_marketplace_plugin_names

1. The local MCP registry can still see a direct Computer Use MCP server entry:

codex mcp list
computer-use ... Status enabled ... Auth Unsupported

1. Direct manual MCP launch of the helper succeeds and returns the expected Computer Use tools, including:

list_apps
get_app_state
click
set_value
scroll
press_key
type_text

A direct list_apps MCP call also succeeds and returns running macOS apps. So in this case the helper binary itself appears functional, and this does not look primarily like Screen Recording / Accessibility permission failure.

Current working hypothesis:

The Codex app startup/reconciler is generating or trusting a reduced per-user bundled marketplace that excludes computer-use, even though the installed app bundle includes it. Because computer-use is absent from the generated runtime marketplace, the app then garbage-collects / disables it and the UI install path ends with Could not load this plugin right now.

This also resembles #21936, where the bundle-side marketplace contains additional bundled plugins but the active runtime marketplace/cache only exposes a subset, and the UI install path fails even after manual repair attempts.

I have avoided posting full logs because they contain local user paths, but the key log lines above are exact except for path sanitization.