Codex panel frequently fails to load — blank or stuck on logo, then VS Code hangs until unresponsive (macOS, Apple Silicon)

What version of the IDE extension are you using?

openai.chatgpt v26.715.31925 (installed ~1 day ago). Same extension ID (openai.chatgpt) on the host and inside the Dev Container.

What subscription do you have?

ChatGPT Pro

Which IDE are you using?

VS Code 1.129.1 (Universal)

What platform is your computer?

Darwin 25.3.0 arm64 arm (macOS on Apple Silicon; VS Code reports Node.js 24.18.0)

What issue are you seeing?

When I open a project in VS Code and click the Codex icon to open the Codex panel (docked in the right-hand Secondary Side Bar), the Codex chat webview frequently fails to load. It sometimes opens normally, but very often it gets stuck in one of the states below and never becomes interactive.

1. The panel is completely blank — the CODEX tab renders no UI at all:

<img width="467" height="647" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/041c88d4-2555-4d06-8105-9632ab73c33f" />

2. The panel shows only the OpenAI logo in the center and never finishes loading:

<img width="467" height="636" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/7489636f-1c19-4e4d-a545-e69e0a102583" />

After it hangs like this for ~3–5 minutes, the entire VS Code window becomes unresponsive and macOS shows the "The window is not responding" dialog (Reopen / Close / Keep Waiting) — VS Code effectively has to be force-reopened:

<img width="264" height="321" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/b6ad4a84-9ee3-4888-944b-af360299d251" />

When it does not hang completely, the panel still takes an extremely long time to load (in one captured case ~5 minutes before the UI finally mounted).

This reproduces both in a plain local VS Code window and inside a Dev Container — the behavior is identical in both, so it does not appear specific to the container/remote setup.

Based on the logs, the extension's backend/app-server starts and responds normally — it is the webview/React UI that fails to mount — so this looks like a renderer/webview hang rather than a backend or extension-host crash. There is no explicit error text in the panel itself (it just stays blank or on the logo); log timestamps and details are in the Additional information section below, and I'm happy to attach the raw logs (main.log, extension-host Codex.log) or a CPU/renderer profile of the hang.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

1. On macOS (Apple Silicon), open VS Code 1.129.1 with the Codex extension (openai.chatgpt v26.715.31925) installed.
2. Open any project/folder — reproduces both in a normal local window and inside a Dev Container.
3. Click the Codex icon to open the Codex panel and select the CODEX tab.
4. Observe the webview: it frequently stays completely blank, or shows only the OpenAI logo, and never becomes interactive.
5. Wait ~3–5 minutes → the VS Code window stops responding and macOS shows "The window is not responding" (Reopen / Close / Keep Waiting).

Frequency: intermittent but common — the panel sometimes opens fine, but it fails to load often enough to seriously disrupt normal work.

Feedback ID: no-active-thread-019f5b96-0772-72e0-976b-ca0df57ef5fa

What is the expected behavior?

Opening the Codex panel should reliably load the chat UI within a couple of seconds, every time, and should never freeze the VS Code window or make it unresponsive.

Additional information

• Extension: openai.chatgpt v26.715.31925 (updated ~1 day ago); same extension ID used on the host and inside the Dev Container.
• IDE: VS Code 1.129.1 (Universal); Node.js 24.18.0 (from VS Code's About dialog).
• OS: macOS on Apple Silicon — uname -mprs → Darwin 25.3.0 arm64 arm.
• Subscription: ChatGPT Pro.
• Reproduces in both a clean local VS Code window and a Dev Container.
• In the screenshots the Codex view is docked next to other views in the same panel (the CHAT / CLAUDE CODE / CODEX tabs); the problem is specific to the CODEX tab.

Diagnostics from the logs (Docker/OrbStack had 10 CPU / 16 GB RAM and ~1.2 TB free, so this is not resource starvation):

• Looks like a renderer/webview hang, not an extension-host or Docker crash. In VS Code's main.log the window goes unresponsive (16:55:33 "not responding", again 16:56:48, and a render frame is destroyed at 16:57:13), while the extension host exits cleanly with code 0.
• Backend alive, UI never renders. After reopening, the Codex app-server re-initialized at 16:57:29, but the React UI only began mounting at 17:02:29 — almost exactly 5 minutes later — and the renderer logged a potential listener LEAK around that time.
• In the Dev Container case the extension activates and the app-server responds, but a React root render requested event never appears before the window is closed — i.e. the app-server is healthy and the failure is in the webview/React UI mounting.
• Possibly contributing: the local Codex logs database is corrupted — ~/.codex/logs_2.sqlite fails PRAGMA quick_check (repeated "Bad ptr map" / "invalid page" / "duplicated page"), while the main ~/.codex/state_*.sqlite is intact. This might also explain generally sluggish Codex behavior across projects.
• Docker/OrbStack setup, volume permissions (owned 1000:1000, no EACCES/EPERM), and the devcontainer.json / compose files were checked and look correct, so they don't appear to be the root cause.
• Happy to provide the full main.log, the extension-host Codex.log, or a CPU/renderer profile of the hang.