Codex Desktop: in-app browser tabs are repeatedly disposed/closed and lose Browser Use session ownership

What issue are you seeing?

In Codex Desktop on macOS, in-app browser tabs are repeatedly disposed and closed during Browser Use workflows. From the user's perspective, the page appears to go back, disappear, or become unusable even though no explicit Back action was requested.

After the teardown, subsequent Browser Use calls can fail because the tab is no longer owned by the current browser session.

This occurred while navigating a logged-in job-search website, but the logs show a Codex IAB lifecycle/session failure in addition to a website security redirect.

Environment

• ChatGPT/Codex Desktop: 26.707.72221 (build 5307)
• App-bundled CLI: codex-cli 0.144.2
• macOS: 26.5.2 (build 25F84)
• Architecture: arm64
• Browser: Codex in-app browser / Browser Use
• Date observed: 2026-07-14/15

Reproduction

1. Open the Codex in-app browser sidebar.
2. Open and log in to a website.
3. Ask Browser Use to navigate to a search page and interact with the search UI.
4. Continue across several Browser Use turns and/or try to take control of an existing visible tab.
5. Observe the visible tab disappear, appear to navigate backward, or become detached.
6. A later Browser Use command against the tab may fail with a session ownership error.

Actual behavior

The Desktop logs repeatedly show the IAB webview being disposed, the browser guest being torn down, and the tab being recorded as closed:

2026-07-14T18:29:37.896Z IAB_LIFECYCLE renderer disposed browser sidebar webview ...
2026-07-14T18:29:37.900Z IAB_LIFECYCLE browser sidebar guest torn down ...
2026-07-14T18:29:37.907Z IAB_TAB_ANALYTICS browser tab lifecycle action=closed ... isBrowserUseTab=true

This sequence repeats for both Browser Use tabs and normal in-app browser tabs. Other recurring warnings include:

[mcp-app-sandbox] mcp_app_sandbox.attach_unmatched ... url=undefined urlProtocol=invalid

After the teardown, Browser Use reports:

IAB_LIFECYCLE iab backend request failed
errorMessage="Tab 2 is not part of browser session <redacted>"
request=executeCdp:Runtime.evaluate

The same ownership error is then repeated during Browser Use cleanup commands such as Page.removeScriptToEvaluateOnNewDocument and Runtime.removeBinding.

Website security redirect observed separately

The target website did trigger its own security check once:

browser sidebar dom-ready ... /web/passport/zp/security.html?...code=37...
browser sidebar dom-ready ... /web/geek/jobs?_security_check=1_<redacted>

However, this does not explain the repeated Codex-side renderer disposed, guest torn down, action=closed, and Tab ... is not part of browser session events. The teardown also occurred across multiple tabs and lifecycle transitions.

Expected behavior

• In-app browser tabs should remain alive across Browser Use tool calls and turns.
• Taking control of an existing visible tab should not dispose or close it.
• If a website redirects to a security-check page, Codex should preserve that page and report it instead of tearing down the tab.
• Browser Use should either retain session ownership or rebind cleanly after an IAB lifecycle transition.

Related issues

• #20678 — similar IAB route/turn ownership and connection failures
• #21824 — similar in-app browser disappearance with renderer detach/dispose logs
• #19463 — IAB backend discovery/registration failures

All IDs, session values, account details, security parameters, local document paths, and personal data have been removed from the log excerpts.