[Bug] ChatGPT Desktop Windows login buttons no-op because CDN JS chunks 403 until QUIC/HTTP2 are disabled

Product / repo routing note

I could not find a public GitHub issue tracker specifically for the official ChatGPT Desktop Windows app. Filing here because this appears to be an OpenAI Windows desktop/Electron networking issue and is very similar in shape to prior Codex Desktop Cloudflare/CDN 403 reports. Please route internally if this is the wrong tracker.

Summary

On the official ChatGPT Desktop Windows app, both visible login buttons appeared to do nothing. The app rendered normally and the buttons were enabled, but clicking Log in never opened the auth flow.

Remote debugging showed the click handler did fire. The actual failure was that the app received 403 Forbidden for required dynamic JavaScript chunks under https://chatgpt.com/cdn/assets/... during the login flow. Launching the app with --disable-quic --disable-http2 made the login dialog load correctly.

Environment

• OS: Windows 11, Windows_NT 10.0.26220, x64
• ChatGPT Desktop package: OpenAI.ChatGPT-Desktop_1.2026.133.0_x64__2p2nqsd0c76g0
• ChatGPT Desktop version: 1.2026.133.0
• Runtime/user agent observed in renderer: ChatGPT/1.2026.133 (Windows_NT 10.0.26220; x86_64; build ) Electron/39.2.7 Chrome/142.0.7444.235
• WebView2 runtime installed: Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime 150.0.4078.36
• Windows App Runtime dependency: Microsoft.WindowsAppRuntime.1.6_6000.519.329.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
• Default browser/protocol handoff: Edge registered for http/https
• Network proxy: direct access, no WinHTTP/user proxy configured
• DNS: Cloudflare DNS 1.1.1.1, 1.0.0.1

Symptoms

1. Open ChatGPT Desktop on Windows while logged out.
2. Click the upper-right Log in button.
3. Nothing visible happens.
4. Click the second login/signup entry point.
5. Same result: no visible auth flow.

Expected: login/auth dialog or external browser auth flow opens.

Actual: the click appears to be ignored from the user's perspective.

Debugging evidence

Using Electron/Chromium remote debugging:

ChatGPT.exe --remote-debugging-port=9222 --disable-gpu --disable-features=CalculateNativeWinOcclusion,RendererCodeIntegrity

The page saw the login button and it was enabled:

{
  "href": "https://chatgpt.com/?window_style=main_view",
  "title": "ChatGPT",
  "ready": "complete",
  "buttons": [
    { "text": "Log in", "disabled": false }
  ]
}

Programmatically invoking the button produced runtime/network failures:

TypeError: Failed to fetch dynamically imported module:
https://chatgpt.com/cdn/assets/ae144ef6-gkcka715v9r33hm5.js

Representative network log entries from the renderer:

Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 403 ()
https://chatgpt.com/cdn/assets/9521ff6d-h45d6dvtmzsrc1k4.js

Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 403 ()
https://chatgpt.com/cdn/assets/ae144ef6-gkcka715v9r33hm5.js

Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 403 ()
https://chatgpt.com/cdn/assets/c2675c8c-nvervxei1it6541m.js

Important detail: fetching one of the same assets outside the app worked from the same machine/network:

curl.exe -I -L "https://chatgpt.com/cdn/assets/ae144ef6-gkcka715v9r33hm5.js"

returned:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: cloudflare
cf-cache-status: HIT
Content-Type: application/javascript

Fetching that same asset inside the renderer could also return 200 individually, but the login-triggered burst of dynamic imports repeatedly produced 403 failures.

Workarounds tried before finding the fix

Did not fix it:

• Restart ChatGPT Desktop
• Reboot Windows
• Reset app package via Reset-AppxPackage
• Re-register app package via Add-AppxPackage -Register AppxManifest.xml
• Force reinstall WebView2 runtime with winget install --id Microsoft.EdgeWebView2Runtime --force
• Close Grammarly/DesktopIntegrations overlay process
• Relaunch with GPU/occlusion workarounds only
• Clear app cache/cookies through DevTools protocol

Working workaround

Launching ChatGPT Desktop with QUIC and HTTP/2 disabled fixed the login flow:

$exe = Join-Path (Get-AppxPackage OpenAI.ChatGPT-Desktop).InstallLocation 'app\ChatGPT.exe'
Start-Process $exe -ArgumentList '--disable-quic','--disable-http2'

After that, clicking Log in successfully rendered the modal:

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Hypothesis

This looks like a Cloudflare/CDN edge interaction specific to Electron/Chromium transport behavior during the login flow. The fact that --disable-quic --disable-http2 resolves it suggests the failing path may involve HTTP/2 or HTTP/3/QUIC negotiation, request burst behavior, or WAF/CDN classification for Electron requests during dynamic imports.

Related signal

This resembles previous Windows desktop Cloudflare 403 reports, but the trigger here is ChatGPT Desktop login chunk loading rather than Codex Desktop backend/plugin calls.