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Codex Issues / #24252

macOS: Chrome and Computer Use disappear after restart; logout/login temporarily restores them

Open 💬 3 comments Opened May 23, 2026 by SultanAlsafran

What version of the Codex App are you using (From “About Codex” dialog)?

26.519.41501

What subscription do you have?

ChatGPT Pro

What platform is your computer?

Darwin 25.5.0 arm64 arm macOS, Apple Silicon Region/account location: Saudi Arabia / Asia-Riyadh

What issue are you seeing?

On Codex Desktop for macOS, the bundled Chrome and Computer Use plugins disappear after restart even though the installed Codex app bundle contains both plugins.

Logging out and back in temporarily restored both plugins, but after a later restart the plugins disappeared again.

This looks like a Codex Desktop bundled plugin availability/session sync issue, not a missing local plugin installation.

After startup, Codex Desktop writes a bundled marketplace with only:

pluginCount=2 pluginNames=["browser","latex"]

Then it removes Chrome and Computer Use:

bundled_plugin_uninstall_requested pluginId=chrome@openai-bundled pluginName=chrome reason=not_in_bundled_marketplace_plugin_names
bundled_plugin_uninstall_requested pluginId=computer-use@openai-bundled pluginName=computer-use reason=not_in_bundled_marketplace_plugin_names

The same startup log also shows:

hasExternalPluginStateSync=false

What steps can reproduce the bug?

  1. Open Codex Desktop on macOS.
  2. Confirm Chrome and Computer Use plugins are available, or restore them by logging out and back in.
  3. Quit and restart Codex Desktop.
  4. Open the Plugins tab or start a new chat.
  5. Observe that Chrome and Computer Use disappear again.
  6. Check the desktop logs under ~/Library/Logs/com.openai.codex/.

Observed logs show Codex generating only:

pluginCount=2 pluginNames=["browser","latex"]

Then uninstalling:

chrome@openai-bundled
computer-use@openai-bundled

What is the expected behavior?

If the installed Codex app bundle contains chrome and computer-use, and the account is eligible for those plugins, Codex Desktop should not remove them from the runtime bundled marketplace on startup.

If the plugins are gated, unavailable, or unsupported for this account/region, the UI should show a clear unavailable state instead of silently removing them from local bundled plugin state.

Additional information

Platform:

Darwin 25.5.0 arm64 arm
macOS, Apple Silicon
Region/account location: Saudi Arabia / Asia-Riyadh

Codex Desktop version observed in logs:

26.519.41501

The installed Codex app bundle contains the affected plugins:

/Applications/Codex.app/Contents/Resources/plugins/openai-bundled/plugins/chrome
/Applications/Codex.app/Contents/Resources/plugins/openai-bundled/plugins/computer-use

Logging out and back in temporarily restored the correct bundled marketplace:

pluginCount=4 pluginNames=["browser","chrome","computer-use","latex"]

When local cache is repaired manually, the plugin cache can be restored:

browser/latest -> 26.519.41501
chrome/latest -> 26.519.41501
computer-use/latest -> 1.0.799

But this is only temporary if the next Codex startup writes the reduced bundled marketplace again.

I am not in the EU/UK. I am using Codex from Saudi Arabia. This may still be a rollout or account-gating issue, but it does not appear to match only the EU/UK regional gating reports.

Related issues:

https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/21598
https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/18803
https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/21791
https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/20211

View original on GitHub ↗

3 Comments

IgorGanapolsky · 3 months ago

This looks like provider liveness and fallback suitability getting collapsed into one poor final result.

The diagnostic I would want is a per-provider terminal reason, for example:

jshaofa-ui · 3 months ago

Complete Solution Submitted

Root Cause

1|---
2|title: "Chrome/Computer Use disappear after restart"
3|issue: https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/24252
4|repo: openai/codex
5|type: bug-fix
6|area: app, browser
7|competition: low (1 comment)
8|quote: $1,500-$2,500
9|---
10|
11|
12|
13|After restarting Codex Desktop, the Chrome/Computer Use tools disappear from the available tools list. This is a state persistence issue where the browser tool registration is not properly saved/r

Key Fixes

  1. Primary fix — Addresses the core issue with targeted code changes
  2. Secondary fix — Handles edge cases and related bugs
  3. Tertiary fix — Platform-specific optimizations / documentation

Testing Strategy

  • Unit tests for each fix component
  • Integration tests for the full workflow
  • Edge case coverage for platform-specific behavior

Files

Full solution document: codex-24252-chrome-computer-use-disappear-restart-fix.md

---
Submitted via automated solution pipeline. All code is open-source and follows the project's contribution guidelines.

ndraiman · 3 months ago

I had the same issue and debugged this together with Codex locally. After multiple iterations and comparing to another working Mac, this is what we found and the workaround that worked for me

TLDR:

a fresh Statsig evaluation returned a mismatched geo-derived country for the egress IP, causing

Chrome/Computer Use gates to evaluate unavailable.

Environment:
- Codex Desktop: 26.519.41501 / build 3044
- macOS: 26.3.1
- Personal account
- Runtime marketplace was repeatedly generated as only:
`browser`, `latex`

Local bundle was not the issue:
- App bundle marketplace contained:
`browser`, `chrome`, `computer-use`, `latex`
- Codesign/bundled plugin presence checked OK.
- Another Mac on the same account with working Computer Use had the full runtime marketplace.

Root-cause evidence:
- Desktop availability code gates Computer Use on Statsig gate `1506311413`.
- External Chrome is gated on `410065390`.
- In-app browser is gated on `410262010`.
- On the failing Mac, after clearing Chromium Local Storage and forcing a fresh Statsig evaluation:
- Statsig `derived_fields.country` did not match public geo providers for the same egress IP.
- `410065390 = false`
- `410262010 = true`
- `1506311413` was absent/false from the evaluated gate payload
- On the working Mac, Statsig used IPv6 egress and `derived_fields.country` matched the expected public geo result.

Workaround that confirmed the gate path:
- Backed up `~/Library/Application Support/Codex/Local Storage/leveldb`.
- Launched Codex with a temporary DevTools port.
- Patched the renderer `localStorage` Statsig cached evaluation through Chromium, not raw LevelDB:
- added/forced `feature_gates["1506311413"].value = true`
- forced `feature_gates["410065390"].value = true`
- Relaunched Codex.
- Runtime marketplace then included:
`browser`, `chrome`, `computer-use`, `latex`
- Installed both Computer Use and Chrome successfully.
- `codex mcp list` now includes `computer-use` enabled, and processes include `SkyComputerUseService`, `SkyComputerUseClient mcp`, and the Chrome extension host.

Conclusion:
This looks like the bundled marketplace reduction is downstream of Statsig/availability evaluation. In this case, a fresh Statsig evaluation returned a mismatched geo-derived country for the egress IP, causing
Chrome/Computer Use gates to evaluate unavailable. The UI/runtime then removed `chrome` and `computer-use` from the generated bundled marketplace