Codex macOS app crashes on startup with EXC_BREAKPOINT/SIGTRAP in CrBrowserMain
What version of the Codex App are you using (From “About Codex” dialog)?
26.616.81150 Build 4306
What subscription do you have?
ChatGPT Plus
What platform is your computer?
Mac mini Apple M4 Pro Darwin 25.5.0 arm64 arm
What issue are you seeing?
he Codex macOS app repeatedly crashes shortly after startup.
Crash reports show:
- Exception:
EXC_BREAKPOINT - Signal:
SIGTRAP - Termination:
Trace/BPT trap: 5 - Faulting thread:
CrBrowserMain - App version:
26.616.81150 - Build:
4306 - macOS:
26.5.1 (25F80) - Architecture:
arm64
The app log contains:
```text
ERR_FAILED (-2) loading 'app://-/index.html'
Another log entry shows the bundled node version check failing:
nodeVersionStatus=failed
nodeVersionError={"code":null,"killed":true,"signal":"SIGTERM","cmd":"/Applications/Codex.app/Contents/Resources/
cua_node/bin/node --version","stdout":"","stderr":""}
<img width="328" height="348" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/58185852-321f-4151-ac3d-35e8058ab061" />
The bundled Codex CLI runs:
/Applications/Codex.app/Contents/Resources/codex --version
Output:
codex-cli 0.142.0
But the app process itself crashes in Chromium/V8 startup code.
What steps can reproduce the bug?
1. Open Codex.app on macOS.
2. Wait for the app to start loading.
3. The app crashes shortly after launch.
This happened multiple times on 2026-06-25.
Relevant crash reports:
- `Codex-2026-06-25-153916.ips`
- `Codex-2026-06-25-145030.ips`
Relevant app logs:
- `codex-desktop-881fd0aa-1e4a-404a-8fc2-6ee401f3f3ab-88189-t0-i1-063921-0.log`
- `codex-desktop-f2a1b99b-6d2c-4165-872f-d3005d88eef0-78997-t0-i1-063906-0.log`
- `codex-desktop-4bd8b792-1d6b-49ec-aed8-4582176f82c9-48541-t0-i1-054957-0.log`
[codex-desktop-881fd0aa-1e4a-404a-8fc2-6ee401f3f3ab-88189-t0-i1-063921-0.log](https://github.com/user-attachments/files/29325365/codex-desktop-881fd0aa-1e4a-404a-8fc2-6ee401f3f3ab-88189-t0-i1-063921-0.log)
### What is the expected behavior?
Codex.app should launch normally and keep running.
### Additional information
I will attach the crash reports and app logs.
Please note that the bundled CLI works, but the app UI/runtime crashes with `EXC_BREAKPOINT/SIGTRAP` in
`CrBrowserMain`.
I also see this warning when running the bundled CLI:
```text
WARNING: proceeding, even though we could not create PATH aliases
[codex-desktop-log.zip](https://github.com/user-attachments/files/29325378/codex-desktop-log.zip)
: Operation not permitted (os error 1)
[Codex-2026-06-25.zip](https://github.com/user-attachments/files/29325354/Codex-2026-06-25.zip)
3 Comments
Potential duplicates detected. Please review them and close your issue if it is a duplicate.
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Same crash on the latest build, adding a data point.
App: 26.623.42026 (build 4514)
OS: macOS 26.5.1 (25F80)
Hardware: MacBook Pro Mac17,2, Apple M5, 16 GB
Identical signature to this issue: EXC_BREAKPOINT / SIGTRAP (Trace/BPT trap: 5), faulting thread CrBrowserMain, crashes almost immediately on launch. Two back-to-back crash reports were byte-identical, so it is fully deterministic.
Likely trigger, an incomplete delta update: the crashes started right after applying an in-app Sparkle delta update. The cached patch was at ~/Library/Caches/com.openai.codex/org.sparkle-project.Sparkle/PersistentDownloads/.../Codex 4514/Codex4514-4452-arm64.delta (4452 to 4514). The on-disk bundle still passed codesign --verify --deep --strict ("valid on disk"), so it was not detectable as signature corruption.
Workaround that fixed it: quit Codex, replace /Applications/Codex.app with a clean full DMG from the official site (https://persistent.oaistatic.com/codex-app-prod/Codex.dmg), then relaunch. 4514 launches and runs fine afterwards. So the delta-applied install appears to be broken in a way that a full install is not.
Follow-up: this is a real build regression, not just a bad delta update.
Newer build 26.623.61825 (build 4548) still crashes with the identical signature (EXC_BREAKPOINT / SIGTRAP, faulting thread CrBrowserMain, on macOS 26.5.1, Apple M5 / Mac17,2).
In my earlier comment, build 4514 was fixed by replacing the delta-updated bundle with a clean full DMG install. That does NOT work for 4548. I isolated it:
So neither a clean bundle nor a clean profile avoids it. The bundled node runs fine on its own (Contents/Resources/cua_node/bin/node --version returns v24.14.0, exit 0), so the node-version-check path is not the cause here.
Workaround: downgrade to build 4514 (full DMG install) launches and runs fine, with the same machine and the same profile that crashes 4548. So 4548 itself is the regression.
Note on triggering: the in-app updater only pre-downloads; the broken version is only applied when the user manually clicks Update. Staying on a known-good build and not clicking Update avoids the crash.