Codex Desktop plugins disappear after restart; Chrome native host manifest is not created and computer-use MCP is not attached

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

• #25758
• #25780
• #25795
• #25665

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Adding another data point from a macOS 26.5 machine. This looks related to the Computer Use / Browser plugin failures, but the local evidence points to a sandboxed trust-evaluation problem rather than the Codex Computer Use.app bundle actually being damaged.

Environment, with private machine/user paths redacted:

• macOS 26.5, Darwin 25.5.0, arm64
• Codex App 26.601.20914, bundle version 3497
• Bundled Computer Use app path: <Codex.app>/Contents/Resources/plugins/openai-bundled/plugins/computer-use/Codex Computer Use.app

Observed symptom:

• When Codex invokes Computer Use through tools, macOS shows:
• "Codex Computer Use.app" is damaged and can't be opened. You should move it to the Trash.
• The same app can be opened normally outside the Codex tools path.

What I checked:

1. In a normal/non-sandboxed macOS shell, the app and its helpers validate successfully:

Codex Computer Use.app: valid on disk
Codex Computer Use.app: satisfies its Designated Requirement
Codex Computer Use.app: accepted
source=Notarized Developer ID
origin=Developer ID Application: OpenAI OpCo, LLC (2DC432GLL2)

The same was true for the main executable and bundled helper apps, including:

SkyComputerUseService: accepted
Codex Computer Use Installer.app: accepted
SkyComputerUseClient.app: accepted
CUALockScreenGuardian.app: accepted

A direct LaunchServices open also succeeded:

open -n <Codex Computer Use.app>

and the SkyComputerUseService process started. No new CoreServicesUIAgent / syspolicyd damaged/rejected log entries appeared after that direct open.

1. In the Codex tool sandbox, the exact same validation commands fail differently:

Codex Computer Use.app: invalid signature (code or signature have been modified)
spctl: internal error in Code Signing subsystem

Even an Apple system app fails in that sandboxed context:

/System/Applications/TextEdit.app: CSSMERR_TP_NOT_TRUSTED

and keychain lookup is broken there:

security list-keychains
security: SecKeychainCopySearchList: One or more parameters passed to a function were not valid.

1. Running the same checks outside the Codex tool sandbox immediately succeeds:

/System/Applications/TextEdit.app: valid on disk
/System/Applications/TextEdit.app: satisfies its Designated Requirement

security list-keychains
    <user login keychain>
    /Library/Keychains/System.keychain

Conclusion:

The damaged-app dialog appears to be a false Gatekeeper/code-signing failure triggered by the Codex tools sandbox / Computer Use launch context. The bundled app itself is signed and notarized correctly in the normal macOS trust context. Reinstalling or removing quarantine attributes is unlikely to fix this specific failure mode, because com.apple.quarantine was not present and normal spctl/codesign checks pass.

A likely area to inspect is how Codex launches or validates bundled plugins from the tool sandbox, especially whether that sandbox loses access to the normal keychain/trust evaluation context on macOS 26.5.

Adding a fresh verification run from June 3, 2026.

Current live state on the same macOS Codex Desktop environment:

• At the start of the run, codex plugin list showed:
• browser@openai-bundled: installed, enabled
• chrome@openai-bundled: not installed
• computer-use@openai-bundled: not installed
• Re-running the supported CLI install path succeeded:
• codex plugin add chrome@openai-bundled
• codex plugin add computer-use@openai-bundled
• After reinstall, codex plugin list showed all three installed/enabled.
• codex mcp list showed:
• computer-use: enabled, Auth: Unsupported
• node_repl: enabled, Auth: Unsupported
• supabase: enabled, OAuth
• codex doctor --summary with TERM=xterm-256color returned: 17 ok · 1 idle · 1 notes · 0 warn · 0 fail.

Chrome-specific checks:

• Google Chrome is installed and running.
• The Codex Chrome Extension is installed and enabled in the selected Default Chrome profile.
• Native host manifest is still missing:

/Users/cocogoat/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/NativeMessagingHosts/com.openai.codexextension.json
exists: false
correct: false

• The in-app Browser backend works (iab opened https://example.com/ and read title Example Domain).
• The Chrome extension backend still fails:

agent.browsers.get("extension") -> Error: Browser is not available: extension

Computer Use-specific checks:

• computer-use appears enabled in codex mcp list after reinstall.
• Tool discovery in the current Codex thread still does not expose mcp__computer_use action tools.
• The bundled MCP process starts and responds to newline-delimited JSON-RPC initialize:

{
  "serverInfo": {
    "name": "Computer Use",
    "version": "d10a51766bb4d162ef1eed308e86a0f8f3816fb860896cb92c18e6de998142af"
  },
  "capabilities": {
    "tools": {
      "listChanged": false
    }
  }
}

• However, after notifications/initialized, a tools/list request did not return within 10 seconds, and no stderr was emitted.

This adds one more data point that the issue is not just plugin install status: the Browser backend works, Chrome fails specifically on missing native-host wiring, and Computer Use can initialize as an MCP process while still not becoming a usable tool surface in the active Codex thread.

Adding another macOS data point from a fresh Mac migration / restart cycle. This overlaps with the restart persistence problem, but the current build and observed state are slightly different from the earlier comments.

Environment:

• macOS 26.5.1, arm64
• Codex App 26.601.21317, bundle version 3511
• Bundled Codex CLI: codex-cli 0.136.0-alpha.2
• openai-bundled marketplace source: <home>/.codex/.tmp/bundled-marketplaces/openai-bundled

Observed behavior:

1. After fully quitting and reopening Codex Desktop, the user observed that all bundled plugins disappeared from the Codex UI / active tool surface, including Chrome.
2. After restarting Codex Desktop two more times, the app reached a partial state where Browser/Chrome appeared usable again, but Computer Use remained missing.
3. A manual repair earlier in the same session had restored [plugins."computer-use@openai-bundled"] and copied the plugin cache back. After the next Codex restart, Codex rewrote the config/cache and removed Computer Use again.

Current post-restart CLI state:

Marketplace `openai-bundled`
<home>/.codex/.tmp/bundled-marketplaces/openai-bundled/.agents/plugins/marketplace.json

PLUGIN                       STATUS              VERSION       PATH
browser@openai-bundled       installed, enabled  26.601.21317  <home>/.codex/.tmp/bundled-marketplaces/openai-bundled/plugins/browser
chrome@openai-bundled        installed, enabled  26.601.21317  <home>/.codex/.tmp/bundled-marketplaces/openai-bundled/plugins/chrome
computer-use@openai-bundled  not installed                     <home>/.codex/.tmp/bundled-marketplaces/openai-bundled/plugins/computer-use
latex@openai-bundled         not installed                     <home>/.codex/.tmp/bundled-marketplaces/openai-bundled/plugins/latex

Current config.toml / cache state immediately after restart:

config.toml mtime: 2026-06-04 13:15:50 CST
browser@openai-bundled       present in config: true
chrome@openai-bundled        present in config: true
computer-use@openai-bundled  present in config: false

<home>/.codex/plugins/cache/openai-bundled/browser        exists: true
<home>/.codex/plugins/cache/openai-bundled/chrome         exists: true
<home>/.codex/plugins/cache/openai-bundled/computer-use   exists: false

<home>/.codex/.tmp/bundled-marketplaces/openai-bundled/plugins/browser       exists: true
<home>/.codex/.tmp/bundled-marketplaces/openai-bundled/plugins/chrome        exists: true
<home>/.codex/.tmp/bundled-marketplaces/openai-bundled/plugins/computer-use  exists: true

The generated runtime marketplace JSON still contains browser, chrome, computer-use, and latex, but the installed plugin state/cache is reconciled down to Browser/Chrome only. This makes the manual Computer Use install/config repair non-durable across restart.

The Chrome part is slightly different: after multiple restarts, codex plugin list reports chrome@openai-bundled as installed/enabled, but the user initially saw no Chrome plugin in the Codex UI/tool surface immediately after launching Codex. That suggests there may be two related layers here:

• plugin install/cache reconciliation, which removes Computer Use from config/cache;
• UI/session/tool hydration, where Chrome may be installed according to CLI state but not immediately visible/attached in the active Codex session after launch.

This does not look like missing bundled files: the active marketplace source still contains the computer-use plugin directory and manifest.

After every Codex restart, typing @Computer shows “Adding computer use...”.
After that, the top-right status says Computer Use is installed.
This indicates the plugin can be added lazily in the current session, but its attached/installed state is not restored on startup.

Possible fix/workaround that just fixed mine on Windows. Not official, so back up first.

My failure was not only the browser extension. The local bundled marketplace was broken. In my case codex plugin list failed with:

marketplace root does not contain a supported manifest

What fixed it:

1. Update the PATH CLI:

npm install -g @openai/codex@latest
codex --version
codex doctor --summary

1. Back up these before changing anything:

%USERPROFILE%\.codex\config.toml
%USERPROFILE%\.codex\plugins\bundled-marketplaces\openai-bundled

1. Remove the broken marketplace entry:

codex plugin marketplace remove openai-bundled

1. Restore/recreate this missing manifest:

%USERPROFILE%\.codex\plugins\bundled-marketplaces\openai-bundled\.agents\plugins\marketplace.json

The manifest needs local entries for:

./plugins/browser
./plugins/chrome
./plugins/computer-use
./plugins/latex

1. Re-add the marketplace:

codex plugin marketplace add "$env:USERPROFILE\.codex\plugins\bundled-marketplaces\openai-bundled"

1. If you use Edge with the Codex Chrome extension, check the Edge native messaging host too. Chrome and Edge use separate registry keys. This was missing on mine:

$manifestPath = "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\OpenAI\extension\com.openai.codexextension.json"
$key = "HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Edge\NativeMessagingHosts\com.openai.codexextension"
New-Item -Path $key -Force | Out-Null
Set-ItemProperty -Path $key -Name "(default)" -Value $manifestPath

1. Fully restart Codex and Edge/Chrome.

After this, codex plugin list showed:

browser@openai-bundled installed, enabled
chrome@openai-bundled installed, enabled
computer-use@openai-bundled installed, enabled

and codex doctor --summary ended clean: 17 ok - 1 idle - 0 warn - 0 fail ok.

This probably does not fix every upstream bug, but it fixed the local plugin/cache/native-host state where Browser/Chrome/Computer Use disappeared or the extension was connected but unavailable to Codex.