Text flickering and overlapping when scrolling through long ChatGPT conversations in Codex Desktop

Potential duplicates detected. Please review them and close your issue if it is a duplicate.

• #30975
• #31711

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I am seeing the same problem, I'm on MacOS. The app version is Version 26.707.31428

System settings:

Apple M1 Max
MacOS Tahoe 26.5.2

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/01599e5d-9000-4f0d-a80b-31b42f71d808

Same issue on macOS. A few additional notes:

• Once a session has this issue, it seems to be permanent; changing to a different session and then back still exhibits the same issue, and restarting does not fix it
• It is possible to scroll up far enough in the chat history to stop the flickering, but scrolling back down to the broken section of the chat causes the issue to show up again
• The "flickering" actually looks like it might be the chat rapidly moving up and down; screen recordings at lower fps (my display is 120hz) show the movement more visibly

Confirmed with a frame-by-frame analysis of a Windows screen recording.

Environment:

• Codex Desktop package: OpenAI.Codex 26.707.3748.0
• Windows 11 Home 64-bit, build 26200
• Recording: 1032x750, 30 fps, 59 decoded frames (~1.97 s)

Observed:

• This is not ordinary scrolling or a single dropped frame.
• The same conversation region repeatedly alternates between different render states: full previous message, normal transcript layout, and a collapsed Show more state.
• The vertical position of the chat changes on a repeating cycle roughly every 5–6 frames (about 5 Hz), so the whole text/code area appears to jump up/down and flicker continuously.
• The recording was captured without an intentional scroll gesture; the movement is produced by the UI renderer/layout itself.

Expected:

• A long conversation should keep a stable scroll position and render the same text layout consistently.
• Virtualized transcript rows should not oscillate between collapsed/expanded heights or repaint the whole chat repeatedly.

This provides a Windows reproduction and supports the report’s observation that the flicker is rapid vertical movement, not just a visual brightness flash.

It seems like the issue might have to do with chats that contain fenced code blocks. I am running into this immediately on a new session when I send a message with a code block.

Update: If I use page up and page down keys to scroll, it sometimes reproduces this bug, but sometimes does not.
If I scroll with my trackpad, it seems the bug 100% reproducible.

To be clear, this makes the desktop app un-usuable.

I'm also experiencing this on the desktop app in Windows 11.
Whether a new chat that grows long enough or opening an old one, this extreme visual bug is making the desktop app un-usuable.

If I open an old chat that is longer than what can be displayed on one page, and scroll up just a little bit, it 100% reproduces this bug

It might be jumping up and down between two positions in the chat

I captured this frame to show it's scrolling below the bottom of the chat's latest response
<img width="1927" height="840" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/8cfc8728-c634-4b95-93be-3f358f9592be" />

Then in this frame it shows bouncing back up into the middle of the latest response
<img width="1887" height="480" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/3f4f9cb0-2897-4a87-bed3-a6405e59e131" />

I'm not 100% sure that it's going back and forth between only two positions.

The speed of flickering is higher on my system, than in the video above. It maxes out my GPU card in Task Manager Performance tab.

Latest ChatGPT app. New bug probably with this version or a recent one, after it updated from Codex to ChatGPT app name.

Version 26.707.31428

Released Jul 9, 2026

I sent a trace with id 019f00e5-4716-71d3-9541-9efccde1f437

Upon reading more replies, I also use code blocks in my statements and I see code blocks in the output.
I might write a prompt, with the expectation that triple ticks makes a code block, e.g. here's a fake prompt:
What is this doing

ls -l

Same issue on macOS. A few additional notes: Once a session has this issue, it seems to be permanent; changing to a different session and then back still exhibits the same issue, and restarting does not fix it It is possible to scroll up far enough in the chat history to stop the flickering, but scrolling back down to the broken section of the chat causes the issue to show up again * The "flickering" actually looks like it might be the chat rapidly moving up and down; screen recordings at lower fps (my display is 120hz) show the movement more visibly

• Yes, it has a critically high possibility to reproduce the issue at the same position of chat.
• One fatal problem: the broken section may cause other sections broken when scrolling to normal parts. When I scrolled up, parts below were normal, but when I encountered the broken section and scrolled down, all parts below were broken too and "jump" between farther positions.
• I agree that the flicker is a rapid movement because the scrollbar also overlaps, which shows a quick jump between positions. I also made screenshots and caught two different code blocks in result at the same broken position. I don't know if it jumps between more positions.

The speed of flickering is higher on my system, than in the video above. It maxes out my GPU card in Task Manager Performance tab.

It somehow does not max out my GPU card but increases the usage of CPU. What's more, scrolling to normal parts does not decrease the usage that broken sections cause, in my test. I think this is a critical point.

I’m seeing the same issue on Windows.

I’m using Codex Desktop 26.707.3748.0 on Windows build 26200.

It happens in a longer conversation containing code blocks and command output. Even when I’m not scrolling, parts of the conversation rapidly disappear and reappear. The changing content height makes the thread jump up and down continuously, so I can’t read it properly or continue working in that session.

The rest of the app stays stable. The sidebar and window do not flicker, so the problem seems limited to how the conversation content is being rendered.

I also checked Windows Event Viewer and found no related application crash, hang, or display-driver reset.

I also see the same issue ([#32030]). And xmaayy found the minimal message that reproduces it here: https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/32030#issuecomment-4936583073.
And maybe my comment will help you :https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/32030#issuecomment-4950140532.

I also see the same issue ([#32030]). And xmaayy found the minimal message that reproduces it here: #32030 (comment). And maybe my comment will help you :#32030 (comment).

Thanks, your investigation is much more explicit and helps a lot.