Codex Windows app invite flow consumes referral quota on timeout/no-delivery and may not grant banked reset after accepted invite

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

OpenAI.Codex_26.609.3341.0_x64__2p2nqsd0c76g0 Codex.exe ProductVersion/FileVersion: 149.0.7827.54

What subscription do you have?

Pro 20x, US region

What platform is your computer?

Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.26100.0 x64

What issue are you seeing?

The Codex Windows app referral invite flow appears to have state consistency and recovery issues.

I had a 3-invite referral offer. One invitee already had a free ChatGPT account but had never used Codex before. They received the referral email, opened Codex for Windows through the email link, and sent their first Codex interactions. However, no referral banked rate-limit reset appeared on my account.

A later invite showed as sent in the UI, but the recipient reported that they did not receive the email.

A final invite attempt showed a client-side Request timeout.
After that, the app reported that I had 0 invites remaining, and the invite option disappeared. Retrying immediately showed that the quota was exhausted.

From the user side, all 3 invite attempts were consumed, but:

• one apparently successful referral did not grant the expected banked reset;
• one invite may not have been delivered;
• one timeout still consumed the remaining invite quota;
• the app provided no recovery path, resend option, pending state, or delivery/acceptance status.

This may be an invite-flow idempotency/recovery-path bug rather than only an account-specific issue.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

1. Open Codex desktop app for Windows.
2. Go to Profile → Invite a friend.
3. Send an invite to a user who has a ChatGPT account but has never used Codex.
4. Have the invitee open Codex from the referral email and send their first Codex messages.
5. Observe that the referrer may not receive a banked rate-limit reset.
6. Send another invite and observe that the app may show it as sent even if the recipient does not receive the email.
7. On the last invite attempt, trigger or encounter a Request timeout.
8. Retry and observe that the app may report 0 remaining invites and remove/disable the invite option.

What is the expected behavior?

• A qualifying referral should either grant the banked reset or show a clear pending/ineligible state.
• Invite quota should not be permanently consumed on a client-side timeout unless the server has created a valid invite record.
• If email delivery is uncertain, the UI should expose a pending/failed state or allow resend/cancel.
• The final invite attempt should be idempotent: retrying after a timeout should not produce an unrecoverable “quota exhausted” state unless the invite actually succeeded.
• The app should provide enough status for users to distinguish sent, delivered, accepted, failed, pending, and reward-granted states.

Additional information

I have already contacted OpenAI support for account-specific investigation. This issue is about the product behavior in the Codex Windows app invite flow.

Screenshots are available with PII redacted. I am intentionally not including account emails, invitee emails, or support case numbers in this public issue.