Codex VS Code extension cannot re-authenticate in Dev Container after successful initial login (token_exchange_failed)
What version of the IDE extension are you using?
26.519.32039
What subscription do you have?
Plus
Which IDE are you using?
VS Code
What platform is your computer?
Linux 6.6.114.1-microsoft-standard-WSL2 x86_64 x86_64
What issue are you seeing?
Codex connected successfully initially
Session expired / disconnected
Re-login fails permanently
Chat shows Codex Reconnecting...
Sign-in flow fails with:
Token exchange failed:
error sending request for url (https://auth.openai.com/oauth/token)
Container network is healthy:
curl -Iv https://auth.openai.com/oauth/token
succeeds with TLS + HTTP response
From the log:
401 /wham/usage
api key auth is not supported
chatgpt authentication required for remote plugin catalog
stream disconnected - retrying sampling request
token_exchange_failed
What steps can reproduce the bug?
- On Windows 11, open project folder with VS Code.
- Make sure you have a working .devcontainer config and can re-open the project in a Dev Container.
- Confirm by running ctrl-shift-p, and re-open in container.
- Install openai.chatgpt extension, if not already installed. This will first install it at host level.
- Install the extension in the container. The option to do this shows on the listing of the extension at host level.
- After the extension is installed, a "CODEX" tab will show up in the Chat panel.
- Click the "Sign in With Chat GPT" button.
- A browser will open, login in to ChatGPT if not already.
- When the page "Sign in to Codex with ChatGPT appears, click Continue.
You will see either a failure or a freeze that lasts forever in both the chat window and the web page.
Failure case:
<img width="764" height="358" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/6773b7f0-b7e5-49b1-8c1d-06098d726a0b" />
Freeze case (never times out):
In this image I have clicked on the Continue button, and it goes gray and freezes.
<img width="637" height="622" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/187e9f55-b8a2-4a1d-8ccf-a72c081a9730" />
And this is what the chat window looks like:
<img width="498" height="665" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/0e0e9c4f-c12b-4f51-900b-062dbcda8c90" />
What is the expected behavior?
Existing working login should recover
Re-auth should succeed after disconnect
Dev Container auth state should not become unrecoverable
Additional information
_No response_
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