Codex mobile QR scan always opens old offline host page and cannot reconnect

Open 💬 3 comments Opened Jun 1, 2026 by bt1943

💡 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)?

26.527.31326 (3390)

What subscription do you have?

ChatGPT Plus, Personal account

What platform is your computer?

Darwin 22.5.0 arm64 arm

What issue are you seeing?

Codex mobile QR scan always opens the old offline host page instead of creating a new connection.

Host shown in ChatGPT iOS:
ximiaodeMacBook-Air.local
Status: offline
Platform shown in iOS: macos/aarch64
app-server shown in iOS: 0.133.0

Problem:
When I open Codex mobile on the macOS Codex app, it shows a QR code.
Scanning the QR code with the iPhone Camera app opens ChatGPT iOS, but instead of creating a new connection or showing a confirmation screen, it always returns to the old offline host reconnect page.

I cannot find a way to delete or forget the old offline host from ChatGPT iOS.

Steps to reproduce:

Open Codex app on macOS.
Open Codex mobile QR code setup screen.
Scan the QR code using the iPhone Camera app.
ChatGPT iOS opens.
It immediately shows the old offline host page:

ximiaodeMacBook-Air.local

Tapping reconnect does not work.

Expected behavior:
Scanning the QR code should create a fresh mobile connection or show a confirmation screen to connect the iPhone to the Mac host.

Actual behavior:
The iOS app always returns to the old offline host reconnect page, and the host remains offline.

Things I tried:

Reinstalled ChatGPT iOS app multiple times.
Reinstalled the macOS Codex app.
Restarted both iPhone and Mac.
Kept the Mac awake, open, connected to power, and online.
Enabled “Show in menu bar”.
Enabled “Prevent sleep while running”.
Opened Codex mobile QR page on Mac.
Scanned QR code using iPhone Camera app.
Tried to find a remove/delete/forget option for the old host on iOS, but none is available.
Tried “Manage connections” from the Codex mobile screen, but could not remove the old iOS-side host record.

This seems like the old desktop host record is stuck in ChatGPT iOS or account-side connection state.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Open the Codex app on macOS.
Open the Codex mobile QR code setup screen.
Scan the QR code using the iPhone Camera app.
ChatGPT iOS opens.
Instead of creating a new mobile connection or showing a confirmation screen, it immediately returns to the old offline host page.
The host shown is ximiaodeMacBook-Air.local, status offline.
Tapping reconnect does not work.
I cannot find a remove/delete/forget option for this old offline host in ChatGPT iOS.

Things I tried:

Reinstalled ChatGPT iOS app multiple times.
Reinstalled the macOS Codex app.
Restarted both iPhone and Mac.
Kept the Mac awake, open, connected to power, and online.
Enabled “Show in menu bar”.
Enabled “Prevent sleep while running”.
Scanned the QR code using the iPhone Camera app.
Tried Manage connections from the Codex mobile screen, but the old iOS-side host record still remains.

What is the expected behavior?

Scanning the Codex mobile QR code should create a fresh mobile connection or show a confirmation screen to connect the iPhone to the Mac host.

If an old host record exists and is offline, the iOS app should provide a way to remove or forget that host and allow a new connection to be created.

Additional information

Feedback/session ID:
019e73a9-5087-77e2-834f-43fcb9954e22

_No response_

View original on GitHub ↗

3 Comments

github-actions[bot] contributor · 2 months ago

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

#25311
#25011
#25241
#25424
#24447

Powered by Codex Action

Jarvis-Baba · 2 months ago

I am seeing a very similar stale mobile host state, but on Windows + ChatGPT iOS.

Current behavior:

Codex Desktop on Windows shows Connections -> Control this computer with no devices listed under "Devices that can control this computer".
"Allow discovery and control this device" is enabled.
I click Add and generate a fresh QR code.
Scanning the QR code opens the ChatGPT/Codex flow on iOS.
The iOS app still shows the previously paired Codex Desktop host as disconnected/offline, even though that phone pairing was accidentally removed from the desktop client.
Tapping / trying to reconnect that old host leads to the mobile error: Setup failed / Couldn't finish secure setup. Try again (Chinese UI: 设置失败 / 无法完成安全设置。请重试。).

Important detail: this machine had successfully paired before. The breakage happened after the phone/device entry was deleted from the Codex Desktop side. The phone still retained the old desktop host record, but the desktop no longer listed the phone. After that, a fresh QR scan could not create a clean new pairing.

Expected behavior:

If the desktop-side pairing was removed, the mobile app should either forget/invalidate the stale host record automatically, or provide a clear "forget/remove this computer" action.
Scanning a fresh QR code should create a new pairing instead of trying to reuse the stale/offline host.
The error should explain whether the failure is stale account-side state, missing desktop enrollment state, MFA/security setup, or network connectivity.

Screenshots are available locally and show the desktop Connections page, fresh QR flow, old disconnected iOS host, and the final "Setup failed" screen. I avoided posting the raw screenshots here because they include a QR code / host identifier.

Jarvis-Baba · 2 months ago

I also opened a focused Windows + iOS report for the same stale-host recovery path: #26535

The key variant there is: the pairing worked before, the phone was deleted from the desktop-side Connections list, iOS kept the old offline host, and fresh QR pairing now fails with Setup failed / Couldn't finish secure setup. This seems like the same missing "forget/remove stale host" recovery surface.