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Codex Issues / #35195

Codex Desktop (Windows): app crashes to error screen with "process is not defined" when a multi-root project is selected

Open 💬 4 comments Opened Jul 24, 2026 by nakata946
💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (github-actions[bot], contributor) responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.

Summary

Creating a project with two root folders (multi-repo project) on Codex Desktop for Windows causes the renderer to crash with Error: process is not defined. Once such a project is selected, the app shows the full-screen error ("An error occurred / Update ChatGPT / Try again") 13–22 seconds after every launch, making the app permanently unusable until the project entry is manually removed from ~/.codex/.codex-global-state.json.

Environment

  • App: Codex Desktop (MSIX package OpenAI.Codex, version 26.721.3404.0)
  • OS: Windows 11 Home 10.0.26200
  • Reproduced twice on 2026-07-24 with two different multi-root projects (same two repos)

Steps to reproduce

  1. On Codex Desktop, create a new project and select two local repositories as roots (e.g. C:\...\repoA and C:\...\repoB).
  2. The renderer crashes; the full-screen error boundary appears.
  3. Restart the app → it crashes again ~13–22 s after launch, every time, because selected-project in ~/.codex/.codex-global-state.json still points to the multi-root project.

Single-root projects (28 of them across my two state files) never trigger this. The only variable is rootPaths.length > 1.

Log evidence

From %LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\OpenAI.Codex_2p2nqsd0c76g0\LocalCache\Local\Codex\Logs\2026\07\24\codex-desktop-*.log:

View original on GitHub ↗

4 Comments

github-actions[bot] contributor · 1 month ago

Potential duplicates detected. Please review them and close your issue if it is a duplicate.

  • #35061
  • #35057
  • #35137
  • #35081

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nakata946 · 1 month ago

Another user reports the same symptom independently — error screen persisting across restarts after adding folders to a project, replying to the official multi-folder announcement:
https://x.com/mathiasjonss/status/2080486343533015057
This suggests the bug affects the multi-folder project feature generally, not just Windows/MSIX. Could someone confirm whether macOS is also affected? If so, the windows-os label may be too narrow.

100tomer · 1 month ago
Another user reports the same symptom independently — error screen persisting across restarts after adding folders to a project, replying to the official multi-folder announcement: https://x.com/mathiasjonss/status/2080486343533015057 This suggests the bug affects the multi-folder project feature generally, not just Windows/MSIX. Could someone confirm whether macOS is also affected? If so, the windows-os label may be too narrow.

I confirm, it happens to me on Mac OS 26.5.

ZeBra802 · 28 days ago

Additional findings regarding Codex multi-root workspace startup crash
I previously reported an issue where Codex Desktop became completely unusable after creating a multi-folder project. After further investigation, I believe the root cause has been identified.
This does not appear to be caused by the project files, corrupted databases, or service outage. Instead, the issue seems to be related to Codex's handling of persisted multi-root workspace state and frontend path processing.
Reproduction flow
A user creates a Codex project with multiple folders (multi-root workspace).
Codex persists the selected project state locally, including multiple rootPaths.
When Codex starts again, it attempts to restore the previous workspace.
During the multi-root path comparison/search process, Windows paths are transformed into a format similar to:
win32:/mnt/...
These paths are incorrectly passed into POSIX-style path handling logic.
The frontend then calls process.cwd(), which is unavailable in the browser/Electron renderer environment, causing the following error:
error boundary
errorMessage="process is not defined"
name=AppRoutes
Because the broken workspace state is persisted, every restart loads the same invalid state and immediately crashes again:
Launch Codex
→ Restore previous multi-root workspace
→ Renderer crash
→ "Update ChatGPT / Retry" screen
→ Retry triggers the same failure
Why common fixes did not work
This also explains why:
deleting the original project folders did not resolve the issue;
restarting the computer did not resolve the issue;
reinstalling or retrying did not resolve the issue.
The project files themselves were not the trigger. The persisted workspace state was.
The issue was temporarily resolved by renaming the local .codex directory, which forced Codex to create a fresh state and removed the persisted invalid multi-root workspace selection.
I have already reported this issue to OpenAI Support under case number:
#12039084
The support team confirmed that they received the information and acknowledged the details regarding the Windows renderer error and multi-root project behavior.
However, at this time I have not received any confirmation about whether a fix has been implemented or which version will address the issue.
Additionally, I have noticed similar multi-root workspace issues being reported on macOS as well. This suggests that the problem may not be limited to Windows path handling alone, but could potentially be related to the broader multi-root workspace state restoration and path normalization logic.
Potential improvements that may prevent this class of issue:
Add a safe mode when restoring a failed workspace;
Provide an option to skip the last failed workspace on startup;
Improve cross-platform path normalization and validation before entering the renderer layer.
A workspace parsing failure should ideally not be able to make the entire Codex Desktop application inaccessible.