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Codex Issues / #20983

Codex App Repeated compacting

Open 💬 3 comments Opened May 4, 2026 by VaidLabs
💡 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)?

Version 26.429.30905 (2345)

What subscription do you have?

Pro

What platform is your computer?

Darwin 25.4.0 arm64 arm

What issue are you seeing?

Using 5.5 Extra high. Chat will compact from 100% to 83% while working on a task, then fill back up to 100% and compact to 83% and keep passing the task but never completing like it is in a compacting loop just burning tokens and passing information that no doubt is degrading due to the multiple compacts that have taken place.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

simply working on a large task.

What is the expected behavior?

_No response_

Additional information

_No response_

View original on GitHub ↗

3 Comments

github-actions[bot] contributor · 3 months ago

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

  • #19401
  • #20830

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ebarti · 1 month ago

Reproduced another severe variant on 2026-07-17.

Observed behavior

  • A long-running Codex App task contained many browser annotations, images, tool results, and repository instructions.
  • The mobile client displayed more than a dozen consecutive Context compacted events while the task remained active.
  • There was almost no meaningful progress visible between compactions; the task repeatedly returned to preparation/review status rather than converging.
  • In this session, the post-compaction handoff still required reloading several complete skill and repository instruction files, which immediately added substantial context again.
  • The mobile timeline retained every internal compaction marker, making the conversation effectively unreadable.

Impact

  • Apparent compaction thrashing and unnecessary token usage.
  • Increasing risk of summary-of-summary fidelity loss.
  • The user cannot distinguish real progress from context-management churn.
  • The active task becomes difficult to trust or continue.

Expected behavior

  • A compaction should create substantial headroom so the next ordinary tool call does not immediately trigger another compaction.
  • Repeated compaction without substantive progress should be detected and stopped with an explicit recovery path.
  • The App should offer a checkpoint/handoff into a fresh thread.
  • Mobile should coalesce or hide internal compaction events rather than render a wall of identical timeline entries.

I am not attaching the screenshot because it contains a local machine name. A sanitized screenshot can be provided if needed.

zhiqiangxu · 28 days ago

I also met this issue:

<img width="181" height="198" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/09cb56c8-a545-459d-8311-0f19109ded1c" />

As a result, codex is making little progress in coding.