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Codex Issues / #24027

Codex desktop app renders white blocks / clipped UI on Intel MacBook Pro 2019 Retina display

Open 💬 7 comments Opened May 22, 2026 by yuqilin
💡 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?

Codex 26.519.31651

What operating system are you using?

macOS on MacBook Pro 2019, Intel CPU, built-in Retina display.
No external monitor connected.

What happened?

The Codex desktop app renders incorrectly on this Intel Mac. The issue affects multiple pages:

  • New chat: a large white block / ghosted overlay appears below the composer.
  • Plugins: plugin cards are clipped, partially blank, and text appears cut off.
  • The same account and app flow displays normally on an Apple Silicon Mac.

This looks like a Retina / device scale factor / compositor rendering issue rather than a plugin data issue.

Steps to reproduce

  1. Open Codex desktop app on MacBook Pro 2019 Intel.
  2. Go to New chat.
  3. Observe the composer area below the input box.
  4. Go to Plugins.
  5. Observe clipped/blank plugin cards.

Expected behavior

New chat composer and Plugins page should render normally, like they do on Apple Silicon Mac.

Actual behavior

White blocks / ghosted overlays appear below the New chat input box. Plugins page content is clipped and partially blank.

Things already tried

  • Quit and restarted Codex.
  • Cleared Codex UI caches:
  • ~/Library/Application Support/Codex/GPUCache
  • ~/Library/Application Support/Codex/DawnGraphiteCache
  • ~/Library/Application Support/Codex/Cache
  • ~/Library/Application Support/Codex/Code Cache
  • ~/Library/Application Support/Codex/DawnWebGPUCache
  • Reset app shell data:
  • ~/Library/Application Support/Codex
  • ~/Library/Caches/com.openai.codex
  • ~/Library/Preferences/com.openai.codex.plist
  • Tried without external monitor.
  • Tried enabling macOS Reduce transparency.
  • Tried multiple display resolutions:
  • 2304 x 1440
  • 2048 x 1280
  • 1650 x 1050
  • 1536 x 960
  • 1792 x 1120 default
  • Tried launch flags:
  • --disable-gpu
  • --disable-gpu-compositing
  • --disable-features=Metal
  • --disable-blink-features=CSSBackdropFilter
  • --disable-features=CSSBackdropFilter
  • --high-dpi-support=1 --force-device-scale-factor=2
  • --force-device-scale-factor=1.5
  • --force-device-scale-factor=1.75
  • --force-device-scale-factor=1

Important observation

--force-device-scale-factor=1 makes Plugins and New chat render correctly, but the entire app becomes blurry on the Retina display.

--high-dpi-support=1 --force-device-scale-factor=2 keeps the app sharp, but both Plugins and New chat show the white block / clipped UI issue.

1.5 and 1.75 improve Plugins, but New chat still shows the white block and text is somewhat blurry.

This suggests a device scale factor / Retina compositor / layout issue on Intel Mac.

Screenshots

I have screenshots showing:

  • New chat with the white block / ghosted overlay below the composer.
  • Plugins page with clipped/blank content.
  • The same UI displaying normally on an Apple Silicon Mac.
  • Reproduction across multiple macOS display resolutions.

I can attach these screenshots in a follow-up comment if needed.

View original on GitHub ↗

7 Comments

github-actions[bot] contributor · 1 month ago

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

  • #24023

Powered by Codex Action

yuqilin · 1 month ago

<img width="3490" height="2074" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/f3bfaee1-91f9-4f6e-af39-6fdeffd013e1" />

<img width="1783" height="1040" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/4b1ec7be-d0bb-447b-954e-7a9b25d5962d" />

germandavid85 · 1 month ago

Possible workaround that may help others hitting this Intel Mac / Retina rendering corruption:

"/Applications/Codex.app/Contents/MacOS/Codex" \
  --disable-gpu-compositing \
  --disable-accelerated-2d-canvas

On my affected MacBookPro16,1 with Codex 26.519.41501, this fixes the broken New Chat / Plugins rendering. Full --disable-gpu did not work for me; Codex failed to launch with GPU access not allowed, so the narrower compositor flags seem more useful.

klkim · 1 month ago

Additional reproduction on a newer build:

  • Codex Desktop: 26.519.41501 (CFBundleVersion 3044)
  • macOS: 26.5 (25F71)
  • Architecture: x86_64 / Intel Mac
  • Screen: New chat / initial composer screen

Observed behavior:

When the window/app is enlarged, the composer area expands vertically and the lower content below it becomes hidden/covered. In the attached user screenshots, the normal initial screen shows the connector cards below the composer. After enlarging, the composer becomes much taller, a white/ghosted block extends below it, and the Slack/Gmail/Drive connector cards are no longer visible. The input controls remain visible, but the lower section is effectively clipped/occluded.

This appears to be the same family of Retina/device-scale/compositor layout issue described here: New chat content is affected, not only Plugins. The current screenshot also shows Korean locale text, but the symptom looks layout/scale-related rather than locale-specific.

niphor · 1 month ago

Possible workaround: adding--disable-skia-graphite
it works for me.

I think this is an issue with Metal Driver or the Webkit engine.
I found that in Chrome, using WebGL hardware acceleration can also cause high GPU usage.

yuqilin · 1 month ago

@niphor Thanks for the suggestion. I confirmed that --disable-skia-graphite works on my affected MacBook Pro 2019 Intel as well.

open -na /Applications/Codex.app --args --disable-skia-graphite

This fixes both issues for me:

  • New chat composer no longer shows the white/ghosted block.
  • Plugins page renders normally.

It also avoids the blurry UI caused by --force-device-scale-factor=1, so this is currently the best workaround on my machine.

yuqilin · 1 month ago

@germandavid85 Thanks for sharing this workaround. I tested it as well:

"/Applications/Codex.app/Contents/MacOS/Codex" \
  --disable-gpu-compositing \
  --disable-accelerated-2d-canvas

It changes the behavior, but on my machine it causes color corruption: the New chat composer turns bright cyan/blue.

So for my MacBook Pro 2019 Intel, --disable-skia-graphite works better than disabling GPU compositing / accelerated 2D canvas.