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Codex Issues / #2905

MCP needs a greater timeout for startup (Windows)

Resolved 💬 7 comments Opened Aug 29, 2025 by sfz009900 Closed Sep 9, 2025
💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (bolinfest, collaborator) responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.

What version of Codex is running?

v0.5.0

Which model were you using?

gpt-5

What platform is your computer?

Windows_X64

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Before I had sent a post https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/2893 use MCP in Windows environment, for example, will get an error "MCP client for context7 failed to start: "request timed out", all kinds of tinkering didn't solve the problem. Later, I modified two files in the source code and then repackaged codex.exe to solve it:

codex-rs\core\src\mcp_connection_manager.rs
codex-rs\mcp-client\src\mcp_client.rs

<img width="1191" height="527" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/1480ece7-dbf3-40d0-b570-02e1462235fe" />

<img width="1204" height="529" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/550b3cc8-1882-4563-84f8-6bc1572442bf" />

<img width="1203" height="821" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/6186936e-1cb8-4f02-95e6-6ea8ea2c71d4" />

[mcp_servers.context7]
command = "F:\\software\\nodejsold\\npx.cmd"
args = ["-y", "@upstash/context7-mcp", "--api-key", "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"]

=====================================The following is the effect after the solution:

<img width="736" height="680" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/ca246451-6e96-4b38-b8c5-bc6abe3be34c" />

<img width="747" height="707" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/f8d59783-2f38-45ad-b62a-8eb11cfdef74" />

What is the expected behavior?

_No response_

What do you see instead?

_No response_

Additional information

_No response_

View original on GitHub ↗

7 Comments

SphaeroX · 10 months ago

Same here for Playwright

https://github.com/microsoft/playwright-mcp/issues/967

sfz009900 · 10 months ago

@SphaeroX I'll give you two modified files. You can package them into exe files yourself to replace the cod in "C:\Users\username\\.vscode\extensions\openai.chatgpt-0.5.0-win32-x64\bin\windows-x86_64" ex.exe will do

codex-rs\core\src\mcp_connection_manager.rs
codex-rs\mcp-client\src\mcp_client.rs

Use this command to package as an exe file:
cd codex-rs; cargo build --release
and get it :"\codex\codex-rs\target\release\codex.exe"

conversation_manager.zip

mcp_client.zip

jksmx · 10 months ago

macOS same error


🖐 MCP client for `context7` failed to start: request timed out

🖐 MCP client for `playwright` failed to start: request timed out
tarnan3751 · 10 months ago

Same issue here for the Serena MCP Server in the VSCode Terminal. Very frustrating

dheerajawale-svg · 10 months ago
@SphaeroX I'll give you two modified files. You can package them into exe files yourself to replace the cod in "C:\Users\username\.vscode\extensions\openai.chatgpt-0.5.0-win32-x64\bin\windows-x86_64" ex.exe will do codex-rs\core\src\mcp_connection_manager.rs codex-rs\mcp-client\src\mcp_client.rs Use this command to package as an exe file: cd codex-rs; cargo build --release and get it :"\codex\codex-rs\target\release\codex.exe" conversation_manager.zip mcp_client.zip

So great that you found this!

I am trying to follow these steps but there are several mismatches:

  • I fresh installed code cli and vscode extension today
  • In '...\.vscode\extensions', I only see "openai.chatgpt-0.4.3-win32-x64". No 0.5.0 present.
  • In its 'bin\windows-x86_64', I see 'codex' and 'rg' exe files.

Now, What is codex-rs? Is it a tool? OR Can I just rename downloaded .rs files to .exe? would it work?
[Let me know if I am missing something here]

Attached the screenshot as well:

<img width="775" height="231" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/1ac32809-4651-45fa-bcc0-eccae7cf8e2e" />

dheerajawale-svg · 10 months ago

Is it solved in latest release?

bolinfest collaborator · 10 months ago

https://github.com/openai/codex/releases/tag/rust-v0.31.0 now supports startup_timeout_ms, so please use that!