[Bug] Windows Codex Desktop intermittently freezes with desktop-notifications DLL failure (0xc06d007f)

Summary

Codex Desktop intermittently becomes completely unresponsive on Windows 11. The window can reopen in the same frozen state after being closed and relaunched. The same launch also records a Windows desktop-notification DLL initialization failure, repeated notification-service initialization, and repeated Windows Application Error events with exception code 0xc06d007f.

The problem survived Windows app Repair, Reset, uninstall, and reinstall. The currently installed package is the same build after reinstall.

Environment

• Codex package: OpenAI.Codex_26.707.9981.0_x64__2p2nqsd0c76g0
• Executable: ChatGPT.exe
• Windows 11 25H2, build 26200.8875, x64
• Main workspaces are hosted in WSL, but WSL remained responsive during the freezes
• Codex app-server connection to WSL succeeded and reported version 0.144.4

Observed behavior

1. Start Codex Desktop and use it normally.
2. The entire Codex UI intermittently stops accepting input.
3. Closing only the window and launching Codex again can reopen the window in the same unresponsive state.
4. Windows may still report the main process as Responding=True, even while the UI accepts no input and process CPU remains flat.
5. Windows Application log repeatedly records failures for packaged ChatGPT.exe with:

• Exception code: 0xc06d007f
• Repeated exception offset: 0x00007ff8c5361ada
• Repeated WER bucket/hash: fe840c3ed30ba850ddeac7488b0e9f2e

The Codex Desktop log records:

[desktop-notifications][unhandled-rejection] Error: A dynamic link library (DLL) initialization routine failed.

On one launch that remained usable for more than an hour, the same log contained:

[desktop-notifications] service starting  # 43 occurrences
[desktop-notifications][unhandled-rejection] Error: A dynamic link library (DLL) initialization routine failed.  # 1 occurrence
ResizeObserver loop completed with undelivered notifications  # 0 occurrences

This indicates that the DLL error does not always immediately kill the UI, but it is present in the same affected launch family. Earlier affected launches sometimes contained many ResizeObserver warnings, while other affected launches contained none, so ResizeObserver does not appear to be the root cause.

Troubleshooting already performed

• Windows Settings > Apps > Codex > Repair
• Windows Settings > Apps > Codex > Reset
• Uninstalled and reinstalled Codex Desktop
• Temporarily disabled the Windows notification registry entry for Codex (Enabled=0); the freeze/DLL failure still reproduced
• Restored the notification setting afterward
• Removed a custom UI font-size setting; the issue still reproduced
• Verified that WSL boots, systemctl reports running, and memory is available
• Verified that the OpenAI service and mobile app were operational

Windows integrity checks also reported a repairable component store and SFC integrity violations. The specific SFC files reported were Bluetooth drivers (BthA2dp.sys, BthHfEnum.sys, and bthmodem.sys), not an obvious WinRT/notification DLL. DISM /RestoreHealth and a full sfc /scannow repair are being completed separately, so I am not claiming the SFC findings are unrelated until post-reboot verification is complete.

Expected behavior

Codex Desktop should remain interactive, initialize its desktop-notification service once, and handle a notification DLL initialization failure without freezing or repeatedly crashing the packaged application.

Related issues

• #16374 - Windows Codex/Windows shell intermittent freezes
• #25197 - Windows desktop notification activation problem and repeated service starting logs
• #20544 - Codex Desktop UI freeze on Windows
• #13019 - Desktop notification configuration behavior in app-server mode

This report adds a distinct local signature: desktop-notifications DLL initialization failure together with Windows exception 0xc06d007f on package 26.707.9981.0.

I can provide sanitized Codex Desktop logs and matching Windows Event Viewer entries if maintainers need them. No local SQLite databases or private conversation data will be uploaded.