Computer Use fails when per-user runtime app is missing
Open 💬 3 comments Opened Jun 24, 2026 by BryanTegomoh
Computer Use failed to start in Codex Desktop with:
Computer Use could not start because its runtime app is missing.
Setup:
- macOS, Codex Desktop app build
26.616.81150 computer-use@openai-bundledenabled, version1.0.829- Browser backends enabled:
chrome,iab ~/.codex/config.tomlhadnotifypointing at~/.codex/computer-use/Codex Computer Use.app/.../SkyComputerUseClient
What I found:
~/.codex/computer-use/containedconfig.json, butCodex Computer Use.appwas missing.- The bundled app still existed under the Codex app resources and plugin cache.
- Existing
SkyComputerUseClienthelper processes were stale, and Computer Use calls failed before any desktop task could start.
Workaround:
- Restored
~/.codex/computer-use/Codex Computer Use.appas a symlink to the bundled Computer Use app. - Killed stale
SkyComputerUseClienthelpers. - Restarted Codex so the Computer Use MCP transport could reconnect.
Expected behavior:
- Codex should repair or reinstall the missing per-user Computer Use runtime automatically, or surface a one-click repair path.
- The MCP transport should recover cleanly after the runtime path is repaired.
Possibly related to #28485, but this failure mode was a missing per-user runtime app path, not a macOS damaged-app dialog.
cc @tibo-openai @jif-oai
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