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Codex Issues / #28239

Codex Windows desktop app 26.609.x crashes silently ~4-8s after launch (regression from 26.602)

Open 💬 3 comments Opened Jun 15, 2026 by shinjm1472-glitch
💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (github-actions[bot], contributor) responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.

Summary
Codex Windows desktop app 26.609.x crashes silently within ~4–8 seconds after launch. The window never finishes opening.

  • Worked normally on 26.602 until 2026-06-12, then the app auto-updated to 26.609.4994.0 and began crashing on every launch.
  • Codex CLI / codex doctor (runtime) reports healthy; user data (~/.codex) is intact.
  • The crash happens right before the app-server / runtime connection completes.

Environment

  • Windows 11 Pro 10.0.26100 (x64)
  • App: OpenAI.Codex 26.609.4994.0 (MSIX, Microsoft Store), Electron/Chromium 149.0.7827.54
  • GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop (driver 2024-04-30) + AMD Radeon integrated (hybrid)

Crash signature

  • Process exits with code 0xE06D7363 (unhandled C++ exception). Crashpad dump generated on every launch.
  • Crashpad-parsed throwing module = chrome.dll; crashing process annotation ptype=browser (main/browser process, not the GPU process).
  • Last app log line before exit:

[AppServerConnection] Starting app-server connection hostId=local transport=stdio -> state connecting.

  • The app-server / runtime child process (codex.exe) is never spawned (verified via real-time process-creation trace) — the browser process throws just before launching it.
  • Crashpad reports: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\OpenAI.Codex_2p2nqsd0c76g0\LocalCache\Roaming\Codex\web\Codex\Crashpad\reports (and %APPDATA%\Codex\web\Codex\Crashpad after reinstall).

What still works

  • codex.exe doctor passes (auth, network, DB integrity, config parse all OK).
  • Launching the bundled Codex.exe directly (bypassing MSIX activation) sometimes survives; launching via normal Start-menu (MSIX activation) crashes consistently.

Tried, did not resolve
Reinstall / app reset, GPU acceleration off (--disable-gpu), GPU cache clear, MSIX re-register, Microsoft Store reinstall, external runtime folder (%LOCALAPPDATA%\OpenAI\Codex) recreation, and [windows] sandbox config changes.

Expected
App launches and stays open as it did on 26.602.

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.

  • #27849
  • #27780
  • #28236
  • #28035
  • #27867

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dinogx99 · 2 months ago

Codex Desktop on Windows is still closing suddenly and silently after a few minutes of work.

This is not just a bad config. I already performed a full deep uninstall/reinstall, deleted Codex caches/config/sessions/plugins/runtimes, removed custom config entries, disabled multi-agent/node_repl/browser-related settings, cleaned Codex sandbox profiles, repaired Windows with DISM, and verified the system with sfc /scannow. DISM now completes successfully and SFC reports no integrity violations.

The issue still persists.

Important detail: Windows Event Viewer showed repeated User Profile Service errors for CodexSandboxOffline.* profiles, where Windows could not delete the profile directory because it was not empty. This suggests Codex’s Windows sandbox/profile cleanup is failing or leaving broken sandbox profiles behind.

An older Codex version worked on the same machine, but after updating, the silent closing issue returned.

This looks like a serious regression or stability issue in the current Codex Desktop Windows build, likely related to Windows sandbox/profile handling, Electron/GPU rendering, or the desktop runtime. Codex should not silently disappear without a clear error or actionable diagnostic output.

ytiq · 2 months ago

also facing the same issue