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Codex Issues / #32216

Bug: Background and non-selected Codex sessions freeze; only the visible conversation continues running

Open 💬 7 comments Opened Jul 10, 2026 by JeffreyBai
💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (github-actions[bot], contributor) responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.

What version of the Codex App are you using (From “About Codex” dialog)?

26.707.31428

What subscription do you have?

ChatGPT Pro

What platform is your computer?

Win11

What issue are you seeing?

Bug: Codex Remote becomes unresponsive during active work and cannot be recovered remotely

Environment

  • Platform: Windows
  • Codex Desktop App (auto-updated)
  • ChatGPT mobile app using Codex Remote

Description

I encountered a case where Codex Remote became completely unresponsive while I was actively discussing a task with the agent.

This was not an idle timeout:

  • The agent and I were in the middle of an active discussion.
  • The PC did not go to sleep.
  • The task had not finished yet.
  • The mobile app suddenly stopped responding.

Expected behavior

If the desktop app is still running, Remote should either:

  • remain connected, or
  • automatically reconnect after a transient failure.

At minimum, there should be a way to recover the Remote connection without physical access to the PC.

Actual behavior

The Remote connection became unusable.

Since I was away from my computer, there was no way to:

  • reconnect the Remote session,
  • restart the desktop app,
  • or continue the discussion.

This effectively made Remote unusable until I could access the PC again.

Additional investigation

I also had Claude Code Remote connected to the same machine.

Using Claude, I verified that:

  • Codex had produced no new output for over one hour.
  • Restarting Codex from Claude allowed the work to continue.

This suggests the issue may be more than a mobile UI synchronization problem. It appears the Codex agent or its Remote session may become stuck.

Impact

This is particularly problematic for long-running development workflows.

The whole purpose of Remote is to allow users to continue working while away from their computers. If the Remote session becomes unrecoverable, there is currently no recovery path unless another remote-management tool is already installed.

Has anyone else experienced the same issue during active work (not after idle or sleep)?

What steps can reproduce the bug?

  1. Start Codex App
  2. Connect Codex remote from ChatGPT mobile app
  3. Execute work actively
  4. The remote Codex App stops responding and loads indefinitely

What is the expected behavior?

If the desktop app is still running, Remote should either:

  • remain connected, or
  • automatically reconnect after a transient failure.

At minimum, there should be a way to recover the Remote connection without physical access to the PC.

Additional information

_No response_

View original on GitHub ↗

7 Comments

github-actions[bot] contributor · 10 days ago

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

  • #31973

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JeffreyBai · 10 days ago

No, it's not a duplicate. It's loading indefinitely instead of getting stuck in reconnecting. In fact, the problem is that it doesn't even TRY to reconnect.

JeffreyBai · 8 days ago

The other tickets you provided described communication issues, but in my issue, the tasks totally stopped working at all. They no longer produce any outputs, which they should and commit after each step. The tasks simply freezed.

This was not limited to a single conversation. All Codex tasks were frozen and produced no further progress, while Windows and other applications (including Claude Code Remote, so that I could restart Codex remotely) continued to function normally.

JeffreyBai · 8 days ago

I've confirmed that when this bug occurs, if I can get back to the machine and physically click into the frozen conversation in the Codex app, the task will suddenly resume running.

However, this is not possible remotely, so I could only kill the app and restart it with Claude Code Remote.

JeffreyBai · 7 days ago

I found a strong correlation between task progress and UI foreground/visibility state.

Observed behavior:

  1. When the Codex desktop app is not in the foreground, all running tasks are much more likely to stop making progress.
  2. When the Codex app is in the foreground, the task belonging to the currently selected and visible conversation usually continues normally.
  3. Other sessions that are not currently selected may still stop making progress, even while the Codex app itself remains in the foreground.
  4. Selecting a session appears to protect or revive that session temporarily.

This suggests that task execution, event processing, polling, or stream consumption may incorrectly depend on the visibility state of the app window or the currently mounted conversation UI.

Background and non-selected sessions should continue independently of which conversation is visible.

JeffreyBai · 7 days ago

Reproduction steps

  1. Start the Codex desktop app.
  2. Create multiple active Codex sessions (or at least one long-running task).
  3. Connect to the desktop app using Codex Remote from the ChatGPT mobile app.
  4. Start a long-running coding or discussion task.
  5. Move the Codex desktop app to the background (or switch to another application for an extended period).
  6. Return to Codex Remote and keep using/observe tasks being executed remotely

Observed behavior

  • The Remote UI may remain in an indefinite loading state.
  • All background Codex tasks may stop making progress.
  • If the desktop app is brought back to the foreground, the currently selected conversation often resumes or continues normally, while other non-selected sessions may remain frozen.
  • Restarting the Codex desktop app restores normal operation.

This does not happen every time, but the probability increases significantly when the Codex desktop app is left in the background.

JeffreyBai · 7 days ago
Potential duplicates detected. Please review them and close your issue if it is a duplicate. - #31973 Powered by Codex tAction

It's not a duplicate, as discussed in the comments.