Codex Desktop: blank overlay covers Plugins and Skills at certain window widths/display scaling on macOS
What version of the Codex App are you using (From “About Codex” dialog)?
Unknown from the UI. Local logs show:
- Codex app-server:
0.128.0-alpha.1 - Runtime bundle observed in logs earlier:
26.430.10722 - Packaged desktop app on macOS (
buildFlavor=prod,platform=darwin) - Bundled Node reported in logs:
v24.14.0
What subscription do you have?
Unknown.
What platform is your computer?
macOS 26.3.1 (a), build 25D771280a, Intel Mac with:
- Intel UHD Graphics 630
- AMD Radeon Pro 5500M
What issue are you seeing?
On the Codex Desktop Plugins and Skills pages, a large blank dark rectangle overlays the list at certain wide window sizes / display scaling configurations.
The rectangle appears in front of the plugin/skill list and extends all the way to the bottom of the list. It looks like an empty modal/panel/overlay column, but it cannot be dismissed with Escape, clicking outside, tab switching, back navigation, or restarting.
This appears to be a responsive layout or display-scaling bug rather than plugin data failing to load:
plugin/listandskills/listcomplete successfully in local logs.- The same issue appears on both
PluginsandSkills. - Narrowing the Codex window makes the rectangle disappear.
- Widening the window makes it reappear.
- Pressing
Ctrl+-several times, effectively zooming out, removes the rectangle on both pages. - The
Skillspage has to be made much smaller / more zoomed out than thePluginspage before the rectangle disappears. - Moving the Codex app window to a second display makes the blank rectangle disappear entirely.
What steps can reproduce the bug?
- Open Codex Desktop on macOS on the affected primary display.
- Navigate to
Plugins. - Use a sufficiently wide Codex window.
- Observe a large blank rectangle overlaying the plugin list.
- Switch to
Skills. - Observe the same class of blank rectangle overlaying the skills list.
- Narrow the window substantially, or press
Ctrl+-several times. - Observe the blank rectangle disappears.
- Widen the window again.
- Observe the blank rectangle returns.
- Move the same Codex window to a second display.
- Observe the blank rectangle no longer appears.
What is the expected behavior?
The Plugins and Skills pages should render their lists without an empty overlay/panel covering content at any supported window size, zoom level, display scale, or monitor.
What did you try locally?
Tried without success:
- Escape
- Clicking outside the blank rectangle
- Switching between
PluginsandSkills - Back navigation and returning to the page
- Quitting/reopening Codex
- Renaming/clearing Electron render/cache state:
GPUCacheDawnGraphiteCacheDawnWebGPUCacheSession Storage
The following workarounds do help:
- Make the Codex window narrower.
- Press
Ctrl+-several times to zoom out. - Move the window to a second display.
Local log evidence
plugin/list and skills/list requests are succeeding, for example:
response_routed ... method=skills/list ... errorCode=null
response_routed ... method=plugin/list ... errorCode=null
There are also repeated startup errors that may or may not be related:
unsupported feature enablement `workspace_dependencies`: currently supported features are apps, memories, plugins, remote_control, tool_search, tool_suggest, tool_call_mcp_elicitation
Earlier logs also showed:
ResizeObserver loop completed with undelivered notifications.
That seems consistent with a layout measurement/resize loop or responsive breakpoint issue.
Additional notes
The strongest reproduction clue is that the issue is tied to effective viewport/display scaling:
- Smaller window: fixed
- Zoomed out: fixed
- Second display: fixed
- Wider window on primary display: broken
This suggests the empty rectangle may be a right-side details/preview/filter panel, sticky layer, or responsive column that is being rendered above the scrollable list when a particular width/device-pixel-ratio breakpoint is hit.
This issue has 4 comments on GitHub. Read the full discussion on GitHub ↗