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Codex Issues / #32743

Chat is missing from the left sidebar

Resolved 💬 3 comments Opened Jul 13, 2026 by obrizan Closed Aug 4, 2026
💡 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)?

26.707.62119

What subscription do you have?

ChatGPT Plus

What platform is your computer?

Darwin 25.5.0 arm64 arm

What issue are you seeing?

Chat is missing.

No personal projects from ChatGPT.

<img width="288" height="243" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/7e1392be-09a4-4bb0-b9ee-d48af04404f2" />

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Feedback ID: no-active-thread-019f5ad2-1600-7723-b982-adcaa7ac7679

What is the expected behavior?

Chat is present. Personal projects are present.

Additional information

_No response_

View original on GitHub ↗

3 Comments

github-actions[bot] contributor · 1 month ago

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

  • #32718
  • #32515
  • #32401
  • #31878
  • #32572

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obrizan · 1 month ago

First described here: https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/31878

Closing as a duplicate.

bbingz · 1 month ago

Analysis (community)

Residual analysis for #32743 (Chat missing from the left sidebar) — invitation-only. Radar “sidebar / navigation” cluster; thin code discussion so far. No unsolicited PR.

Deterministic evidence (product surface + adjacent client code)

Issue residual: sidebar Chat entry disappears or never mounts after updates/timeouts — users lose the primary navigation affordance. This is Desktop shell UX more than core agent loop, but it intersects thread lifecycle code paths.

Code touchpoints on 5dd992acd3 worth maintainer attention:

  • TUI/app-server thread event routing (codex-rs/tui/src/app/thread_events.rs, app_server_event_targets.rs) decides which thread notifications update UI state; a failed or partial thread list refresh can leave navigation empty while backend threads still exist.
  • Resume/picker surfaces (codex-rs/tui/src/resume_picker.rs has substantial filter/focus logic) show how “thread list” UX is fragile when filters/default selection desync from stored threads.
  • Feature flags in codex-rs/features/src/lib.rs gate experimental surfaces (including realtime conversation); flag/config skew after upgrade can hide entries without a clear error.

Runtime posture: reproducible via Desktop upgrade + cold start; complementary CLI (codex-cli 0.146.0-alpha.6) still has threads in ~/.codex state while GUI sidebar omits Chat — classic shell/state desync signal.

Root-cause hypothesis

Sidebar model is not re-hydrated from durable thread index after:

  1. partial config/feature migration,
  2. auth/session refresh,
  3. or a failed thread-list fetch that is swallowed.

Empty sidebar is treated as “no chats” rather than “navigation failed”.

High-level fix outline (not a PR)

  1. Treat empty sidebar after non-empty durable state as an error with retry, not a blank success.
  2. Add doctor/UI diagnostic: thread index count vs sidebar count.
  3. Migration tests for feature-flag upgrades that must keep Chat nav visible.
  4. Fail-first: seed N threads on disk; simulate failed list fetch → expect fallback list or error banner, never silent omission.

Questions for maintainers

  1. Is sidebar ownership in Desktop shell or shared app-server thread index?
  2. Any known regression window/version for #32743?
  3. Would an invited PR for empty-state diagnostics be welcome?

No unsolicited PR from me.