Clicking sidebar chats sometimes opens a new chat instead of the selected conversation
What version of the Codex App are you using (From “About Codex” dialog)?
Codex Desktop 26.616.81150 — Released Jun 24, 2026
What subscription do you have?
ChatGPT Pro
What platform is your computer?
- macOS Tahoe
26.5.1 - MacBook Pro 16-inch
- Apple M5 Max
- 128 GB memory
What issue are you seeing?
When clicking existing chats in the left sidebar, the click sometimes fails to open the selected conversation. This seems to happen more often with long-running / older conversations.
The failure mode is confusing:
- I click an existing chat in the left sidebar.
- The right pane does not display that conversation.
- Instead, the right pane shows the project/new-chat start screen and composer, e.g. “What should we build in
<project>?” - If I click the same chat again, it usually opens correctly on the second attempt.
So the first click appears to be accepted visually, but the main content route/state does not load the selected chat.
Steps to reproduce
- Open Codex Desktop.
- Open a project/worktree with many historical chats in the left sidebar.
- Click an existing chat, especially a long-running or older chat.
- Observe whether the right pane opens the selected conversation or instead shows the new-chat start screen.
- Click the same chat again.
Expected behavior
Clicking a chat in the left sidebar should reliably open that exact conversation on the first click.
Actual behavior
Sometimes the first click fails: the right pane remains on, or navigates to, a new-chat screen instead of the selected conversation. A second click on the same chat is required to enter the chat normally.
Impact
This makes the chat history feel unreliable and slows down navigation, especially when trying to find and reopen specific long-running conversations. It is also easy to think that the selected chat failed to load, was empty, or was lost.
Additional information
This was observed in the left sidebar chat list on the current Codex Desktop build 26.616.81150. A screenshot shows a historical chat selected in the left sidebar while the main pane displays the project new-chat screen instead of the selected conversation.