Codex Desktop Windows crashes when clicking Settings > Connections > Connect computer

Open 💬 2 comments Opened May 30, 2026 by chrichuang218

💡 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 (From “About Codex” dialog)?

Codex Desktop 26.527.31326 / Microsoft Store package 26.527.3686.0

What subscription do you have?

ChatGPT Plus / API

What platform is your computer?

Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.19045.0 x64

What issue are you seeing?

On Windows, Codex Desktop crashes/closes immediately when I open Settings > Connections and click "Connect computer".

There is no visible error dialog. The app just exits.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Open Codex Desktop on Windows.
Open Settings.
Go to Connections.
Click "Connect computer".
Codex Desktop immediately crashes/closes.

What is the expected behavior?

The "Connect computeLocal Codex Sentry breadcrumbs show errors around remote/computer-control initialization:

[remote-connections/bootstrap] shared_object_synced connectionCount=0

[computer-use-native-pipe] computer-use native pipe startup failed
errorMessage="Windows Computer Use helper paths are unavailable"

Request failed:
unsupported feature enablement auth_elicitation
supported features are apps, memories, mentions_v2, plugins, remote_control, tool_suggest, tool_call_mcp_elicitation

bundled_plugins_marketplace_install_failed
errorCategory=plugin_cache_windows_file_lock
errorMessage="failed to install plugin: failed to back up plugin cache entry: Access denied (os error 5)"
bundledPluginSourcePath=./plugins/chrome

The web Sentry scope also shows repeated:
GET https://chatgpt.com/backend-api/wham/remote/control/clients?limit=100
status_code=401

Windows Event Viewer did not show an APPCRASH for Codex at the same time; the only recent APPCRASH entry was DAX3API.exe, which appears unrelated.r" setup flow should open and allow me to pair/control this computer.

Additional information

_No response_

View original on GitHub ↗

2 Comments

github-actions[bot] contributor · 3 months ago

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

#24296
#25162

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MisterRound · 3 months ago

Adding a related sanitized data point from the same current Windows Store build family.

Codex Desktop package: OpenAI.Codex_26.527.3686.0_x64__2p2nqsd0c76g0
Desktop release string in logs: 26.527.31326
Mode: Windows Desktop with WSL-backed app-server enabled

Remote control itself worked in this setup: Desktop successfully handled remoteControl/status/read, and the user was able to use remote control after the update.

The failures were specifically around computer use / bundled plugin setup in the Windows+WSL mode:

remoteControl/status/read ... errorCode=null
browser_use_availability_resolved available=false browserPane=true platform=Windows reason=wsl-disabled release=26.527.31326
[computer-use-native-pipe] computer-use native pipe startup failed errorMessage="Windows Computer Use helper paths are unavailable"

The Settings > Computer use toggle also failed to update at least once with:

Failed to update plugin enabled state
Configuration was modified since last read. Fetch latest version and retry.

Nearby bundled-plugin reconciliation also hit Windows/WSL path normalization failures, including invalid paths of the form:

C:\mnt\c\Users\<user>\.codex\plugins\cache\openai-bundled\chrome\26.527.31326

So the current evidence suggests remote control can be healthy while computer-use/browser-use native helper setup is still unavailable or unstable in Windows Desktop + WSL mode. That distinction may help triage: the remote pairing path is not necessarily broken, but the native helper/plugin bridge used by computer-use/browser-use appears to be failing before it can provide a usable control backend.