TUI crashes when using /side on long-running sessions.

Resolved 💬 3 comments Opened Jun 17, 2026 by Pimpmuckl Closed Jul 22, 2026

💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (github-actions[bot], contributor) responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.

What version of Codex CLI is running?

0.140.0

What subscription do you have?

Pro

Which model were you using?

gpt-5.5

What platform is your computer?

Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.26200.0 x64

What terminal emulator and version are you using (if applicable)?

PS7 within Windows Terminal

Codex doctor report

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}

What issue are you seeing?

After codex CLI sessions have been running for 12h+, using /side forces the TUI in a hang.

Side starting... is shown in the bottom right but the TUI itself just stays stuck.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Have a session run for 12h+
Use /side
More often than not, the TUI freezes, thread in app-server stays alive

What is the expected behavior?

Have a session run for 12h+
Use /side
TUI enters /side, thread in app-server stays alive

Additional information

I sent my local codex to investigate and it is pretty sure that the /side ingests the whole prior conversation just to throw it out right then and there. And with very large conversations, that can yield to the freeze.

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.

#27922

Powered by Codex Action

bobaoapae · 1 month ago

I can reproduce the equivalent failure through /btw, which dispatches the same side-conversation flow as /side, on Windows with long-running sessions. I traced the current fork path on main (f90e7deea6) and found a narrow response-projection optimization.

Confirmed cause

The TUI creates side conversations as ephemeral forks. thread/fork must copy the source history so the forked model context remains intact, but the TUI does not need the complete inherited turn array returned in the fork response for this ephemeral side flow.

Without excludeTurns, the app-server reconstructs and serializes that inherited turn history and replays restored token usage before the ephemeral side conversation can become interactive. The cost grows with the parent session and can make the Windows terminal appear completely frozen.

Proposed correction

Set ThreadForkParams.exclude_turns from the existing ephemeral flag:

ephemeral,
exclude_turns: ephemeral,

This preserves the important semantics:

the app-server still copies the complete source history into the fork;
the model in /side or /btw still inherits the parent context;
only the unused inherited thread.turns response projection and restored token-usage replay are skipped;
normal persistent forks continue using excludeTurns: false and return their turns as before.

The app-server already has integration coverage proving that thread/fork with excludeTurns: true keeps the fork usable while omitting returned turns and restored token-usage replay. The TUI patch adds policy coverage asserting both sides of the condition: ephemeral forks use true, persistent forks remain false.

Validation and patch

focused TUI policy test: passed
just fix -p codex-tui: passed
full codex-tui run: 3030 passed, with 6 unrelated Windows environment/locale failures
Branch: https://github.com/bobaoapae/codex/tree/fix/tui-long-session-latency
Commit: https://github.com/bobaoapae/codex/commit/9301c03625

The branch also contains the related DB-first /resume picker fix discussed in #22037. I have not opened an unsolicited PR because the repository requires a maintainer invitation. If this approach matches the intended behavior, I would be happy to open the prepared PR.

Pimpmuckl · 1 month ago

Fixed in 0.145.0 from what I can tell.