Codex Local auth redirects to add-phone in Israel; no SMS option, Cloud/API work

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

26.609.30741

What subscription do you have?

Business

What platform is your computer?

Darwin 24.6.0 arm64 arm

What issue are you seeing?

Codex Local authentication is blocked by forced phone verification.

This affects both:

• Codex Desktop app
• Codex CLI installed via npm install -g @openai/codex

After I choose my ChatGPT account, the browser redirects to:

https://auth.openai.com/add-phone

This happens before workspace selection.

The phone verification flow is not completable for my case:

• Country: Israel
• SMS/Text Message is not offered in this flow
• Only WhatsApp is offered
• My WhatsApp account is registered to a different number, not my Israeli number
• When I try the Israeli number anyway, the WhatsApp code does not arrive (even if my number is Israeli) / the send flow does not complete
• I may also have hit rate limiting after retrying, but the main blocker is that there is no SMS fallback for Israel in this flow

Important: this is not a general ChatGPT login issue.

These all work:

• ChatGPT web works
• Codex Cloud at chatgpt.com/codex/cloud works after fresh login
• API key creation works
• API-key authentication works

Only Codex Local authentication fails.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Environment:

• OS: macOS
• Plan: ChatGPT Business, 2 seats
• Network: no VPN, no proxy
• Affected accounts: two accounts in the same Business workspace
• Codex Desktop app: affected
• Codex CLI: affected

Steps:

1. Open Codex Desktop app, or run Codex CLI.
2. Choose “Sign in with ChatGPT”.
3. Browser opens auth.openai.com/choose-an-account.
4. Select the account.
5. Before workspace selection, the flow redirects to auth.openai.com/add-phone.

This happens on both workspace accounts.

I do not have a session ID because the issue happens before Codex Local sign-in completes. I also cannot provide token/context usage because no Codex session starts.

What is the expected behavior?

Codex Local should complete ChatGPT sign-in and allow me to choose/use my ChatGPT Business workspace, the same way Codex Cloud does.

Expected flow:

1. Choose “Sign in with ChatGPT”.
2. Select account.
3. Select/use workspace.
4. Codex Desktop app / CLI receives the auth token and signs in successfully.

It should not require a phone-verification flow that cannot be completed, especially when ChatGPT web, Codex Cloud, API key creation, and API-key authentication already work.

Additional information

This started recently after Codex worked normally for about 2 months on these accounts.

The issue appears specific to Codex Local auth/token issuance:

• Codex Desktop app fails
• Codex CLI fails
• Codex Cloud works
• ChatGPT web works
• API key creation works
• API-key authentication works

Because Israel does not offer SMS/Text Message in this verification flow and only offers WhatsApp, the forced phone verification is not completable for users whose WhatsApp is registered to a different number.

Please route this to Codex/auth. It looks like Codex Local is incorrectly requiring phone enrollment or hitting a country-specific phone verification edge case.

Related issue:
https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/25828, and many more. A lot of users on reddit have been reporting this issue as well.

(btw, dont blame me but i used ai to summarize all my issues)