Windows Desktop fails to start after enabling WSL ("Operation not permitted (os error 1)")

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

26.707.9981.0

What subscription do you have?

Plus

What platform is your computer?

Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.26200.0 x64

What issue are you seeing?

Summary

After configuring Codex Desktop to use WSL, the desktop application no longer starts.

The splash screen appears briefly and then exits with:

Operation not permitted (os error 1)

The failure is 100% reproducible.

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Environment

• Windows 11
• ChatGPT/Codex Desktop 26.707.9981.0 (Microsoft Store)
• WSL2
• Ubuntu 24.04.4 LTS
• Codex CLI 0.144.3
• bubblewrap 0.9.0

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Relevant log output

Desktop launches the Linux app-server:

stdio_transport_spawned

then immediately fails during initialization:

Operation not permitted (os error 1)

Desktop bootstrap failed to start the main app

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Diagnostics performed

Verified:

• Ubuntu-24.04 is the default WSL distro.
• Only Ubuntu-24.04 is installed.
• WSL2 is functioning normally.
• codex runs normally from WSL.
• codex app-server starts successfully when run manually.
• codex-code-mode-host starts successfully when run manually.
• bubblewrap works.
• user namespace tests pass.
• AppArmor is not active.

Desktop launches the following command:

codex -c features.code_mode_host=true app-server --analytics-default-enabled

Running that command manually from WSL succeeds and waits for connections.

The failure occurs only when the Desktop application connects and performs the initialization handshake.

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Recovery attempts

None of these changed the behavior:

• Microsoft Store update
• Repair
• Reset
• Complete uninstall/reinstall
• Rebuilt ~/.codex/bin/wsl
• Cleared active workspace state
• Renamed global state file
• Reset ~/.codex/sqlite
• Removed old Ubuntu 22.04 distro
• Set Ubuntu-24.04 as default WSL distro

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Additional observation

Desktop logs consistently contain:

bundled_executable_relocation_failed
failedExecutableName=bwrap
ENOENT

However, this appears to be non-fatal because the Desktop application successfully launches the Linux codex executable afterward.

The actual failure occurs later during the initialization handshake, where the app-server exits with:

Operation not permitted (os error 1)

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If there is a way to enable verbose logging of the initialization handshake, I'd be happy to collect additional diagnostics.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Error occurs on any attempt to start the ChatGPT Desktop app.

What is the expected behavior?

App starts without error.

Additional information

From
C:\Users\<me>\AppData\Local\Packages\OpenAI.Codex_2p2nqsd0c76g0\LocalCache\Local\Codex\Logs\2026\07\15

codex-desktop-ed3725b0-0f78-4308-bacc-f46fa0dcee82-69336-t0-i1-021236-0.log