Windows: restoring a pasted Chinese draft with Windows paths causes persistent blank window

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

26.602.4764.0

What subscription do you have?

Unknown (ChatGPT account; the app does not display the subscription tier)

What platform is your computer?

Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.19045.0 x64

What issue are you seeing?

Codex Desktop becomes a blank white window immediately after pasting a 572-character, multi-line Chinese prompt containing Windows paths. After restarting the app, the window remains blank because the same composer draft is restored on startup.

The prompt contained 26 backslashes, CRLF line endings, Chinese punctuation, and a directory path ending in a backslash, for example: C:\Users\<redacted>\AppData\Roaming\Qoder\SharedClientCache\mcps\tia-portal\.

The pasted content was persisted as electron-persisted-atom-state.composer-prompt-drafts-v1.new-conversation. The state is valid UTF-8 JSON. App logs report routes mounted and ready handled, but the visible window remains blank. Removing only the persisted draft and renderer caches restores the app.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Feedback ID: no-active-thread-019ea547-4702-7982-86d5-20bd11b27203

1. Open Codex Desktop on Windows and start a new conversation.
2. Paste a roughly 572-character Chinese paragraph containing multiple Windows paths and CRLF line endings.
3. Include a directory path ending in a backslash.
4. The window becomes blank immediately.
5. Restart Codex Desktop.
6. The app remains blank because the draft is restored from .codex-global-state.json.

Recovery: terminate Codex, remove composer-prompt-drafts-v1, clear renderer caches, and restart.

What is the expected behavior?

Valid Unicode text containing Windows paths should paste and restore normally. If a draft cannot be restored, Codex should discard only that draft and continue with a usable window.

Additional information

Occurred June 8, 2026 around 11:00 Asia/Shanghai. Internal feedback includes session logs. Full local username paths and personal email are intentionally omitted from this public issue.