Codex Desktop: in-thread history timeline disappears after update for legacy threads

Open 💬 3 comments Opened Jul 24, 2026 by D1a0y1bb

💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (github-actions[bot], contributor) responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.

Summary

After updating Codex Desktop, the in-thread draggable/scrollable history timeline disappeared from existing conversations.

This is not the app-level sidebar list. It is the history navigation/track inside an opened thread that previously allowed navigation through earlier parts of a long conversation.

Environment

Codex Desktop: 26.721.30844
Platform: macOS (Apple Silicon)
Plan: ChatGPT Pro
Local threads inspected: 298
Stored history_mode: all 298 are legacy; none are paginated

Actual behavior

Existing long threads open without the former in-thread history track/timeline. Earlier content is no longer reachable through that navigation UI.

The local thread records remain present; this does not appear to be intentional archival or data deletion.

Expected behavior

Legacy threads should keep an accessible in-thread history navigation UI after the paginated-history migration, or Codex should provide a supported migration/backfill path that preserves the prior navigation experience.

Related issues

#34175 reports incomplete rendering of legacy histories after the same migration.
#27340 reports local thread history disappearing after a Codex app update.

This report is focused on the missing in-thread navigable history timeline, observed on a newer macOS desktop build.

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.

#35071
#34175

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Vispstar-V · 1 month ago

I can reproduce a closely related variant on macOS with Codex Desktop 26.721.30844.
In long-existing threads, the user-message navigation rail is absent when the thread opens at the latest turn. It appears only after scrolling all the way to the top and waiting for all older history pages to load.
The history is not lost; the rail seems to be gated on complete history hydration.

SeruousMax · 3 days ago

I can reproduce this on Windows with a newer Codex Desktop build.

Environment:

Codex Desktop: 26.818.5229.0
Windows 11 Pro: 10.0.26200
Workspace: WSL
Codex CLI: 0.130.0-alpha.5

Observed behavior:
During a long, still-active coding task with many turns, earlier user and assistant messages disappeared from the visible in-thread history. The task itself remained open and usable, but the previous transcript was no longer accessible in the UI. This is a recurrence; the same loss of visible history has happened before.

This appears to be the in-thread pagination/history hydration variant rather than a sidebar-only problem. Earlier history pages should remain loadable and navigable throughout an active session.