Codex on Windows intermittently aborts child processes as if Ctrl+C was pressed

Open 💬 0 comments Opened May 12, 2026 by brownt12684

What version of Codex CLI is running?

codex-cli 0.128.0

What subscription do you have?

Enterprise

Which model were you using?

gpt-5.4

What platform is your computer?

Windows

What terminal emulator and version are you using (if applicable)?

powershell

What issue are you seeing?

Environment:

  • Windows
  • PowerShell
  • Repo/workdir: C:\Users\Travis\stack-orchestrator

Problem:
Codex’s local command runner intermittently aborts child processes as if Ctrl+C was pressed, even when I did not interrupt anything.

Observed behavior:

  • Long-running or medium-running subprocesses get terminated unexpectedly.
  • In Codex this shows up as tool calls returning aborted.
  • From the user side it feels like Codex “just closes” or exits like Ctrl+C was pressed.
  • The behavior is consistent with a Windows console control event / process-group teardown.
  • Short commands usually still work fine.

Commands most affected:

  • uv run ...
  • .venv\Scripts\python.exe -m unittest ...
  • longer Python invocations in general
  • npm start
  • Electron / other long-lived child processes
  • nested PowerShell launch flows

Commands that usually still work:

  • short file reads
  • node --check ...
  • PowerShell parse checks
  • short one-shot shell commands

Concrete symptoms seen:

  • Codex tool output says aborted
  • Long-running validation commands die mid-run
  • It behaves like an inherited console/process-group cancel on Windows
  • In related app logs/processes, the behavior matches Ctrl+C-style termination rather than a normal app exception

Impact:

  • Makes it unreliable to run test suites or keep local servers/GUI processes alive from inside Codex
  • Forced a workaround where long-lived processes had to be launched detached and validated manually
  • Prevented trustworthy end-to-end validation from within Codex even when syntax-level checks passed

Reproduction pattern:

  1. Start Codex on Windows in PowerShell
  2. Run one or more medium/long subprocess commands such as:
  • uv run --project ...
  • .venv\Scripts\python.exe -m unittest ...
  • npm start

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Uploaded thread: 019deb36-d269-7100-90dd-89b785f6e2d6

  1. Start Codex on Windows in PowerShell
  2. Run one or more medium/long subprocess commands such as:
  • uv run --project ...
  • .venv\Scripts\python.exe -m unittest ...
  • npm start

What is the expected behavior?

  • Codex can launch child processes and they keep running until:
  • the command finishes normally
  • the command fails normally
  • or you explicitly interrupt/cancel it

Additional information

_No response_

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