[Windows][26.715] Creating a chat in a multi-folder project causes a persistent whole-app “Oops” screen

What version of the Codex App are you using?

ChatGPT Desktop for Windows / Codex 26.715 (exact build number was not recorded).

What subscription do you have?

Plus

What platform is your computer?

Windows 11 (Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.26200), x64

What issue are you seeing?

After creating two empty multi-folder local projects and starting a new chat in the second one, the entire Codex view was replaced by “Oops, an error has occurred.” Fully quitting and reopening the app returned to the same error, so no projects or existing chats could be accessed from the UI.

The repositories and existing conversations were intact. Recovery required manually removing the two new project records and the persisted selected-project reference from %USERPROFILE%\.codex\.codex-global-state.json.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

1. Update ChatGPT Desktop/Codex to 26.715.
2. Have three existing local folders, for example:

• backend
• mini-app
• admin-web

1. Create an empty multi-folder project A:

• name: mini-app-workspace
• roots: [backend, mini-app]

1. Create an empty multi-folder project B:

• name: admin-workspace
• roots: [admin-web, backend]

1. Open project B and create a new chat.
2. Observe that the whole Codex view shows Oops, an error has occurred.
3. Fully quit and reopen the desktop app.
4. Observe the same error again because the broken project remains persisted as the selected project.

What is the expected behavior?

Creating a chat in a multi-folder project should work. If project state is invalid, the error should be scoped to that project and the sidebar/settings should remain available so the project can be removed. Restarting the app should recover to a safe projectless/home state instead of reopening a persistent whole-app error boundary.

Additional information

The two newly created projects had no conversations, and existing single-folder projects and chats were not corrupted.

The relevant state shape was similar to:

{
  "project-order": [
    "<project-b-id>",
    "<project-a-id>"
  ],
  "local-projects": {
    "<project-a-id>": {
      "id": "<project-a-id>",
      "name": "mini-app-workspace",
      "rootPaths": [
        "D:\\path\\backend",
        "D:\\path\\mini-app"
      ]
    },
    "<project-b-id>": {
      "id": "<project-b-id>",
      "name": "admin-workspace",
      "rootPaths": [
        "D:\\path\\admin-web",
        "D:\\path\\backend"
      ]
    }
  },
  "selected-project": {
    "projectId": "<project-b-id>"
  }
}

A non-destructive recovery that worked:

1. Fully quit ChatGPT/Codex.
2. Back up .codex-global-state.json and .codex-global-state.json.bak.
3. Remove only the two new project IDs from local-projects, project-order, and related project-reference maps.
4. Remove selected-project because it referenced project B.
5. Clear active-workspace-roots.
6. Write valid UTF-8 JSON without BOM and restart the app.

After restart, the desktop app opened normally and all pre-existing projects and conversations were still present.

This looks like a Desktop multi-folder project / persisted selection regression rather than repository or conversation data loss. Even if the underlying project initialization fails, the app should not trap the entire UI behind a persistent error screen.

Privacy note: local usernames, real repository names, project IDs, paths, and conversation content have been replaced with placeholders.