[Windows][Codex app] Resuming a thread with unfinished in-app Browser calls consistently crashes the app

What version of the Codex App are you using (From “About Codex” dialog)?

26.721.4979.0

What subscription do you have?

API

What platform is your computer?

Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.19045.0 x64

What issue are you seeing?

The Codex Windows app crashes every time I send "continue" in one specific task. The task contains unfinished in-app Browser / Node REPL tool calls.

Updating or reinstalling Codex does not fix the issue because the problematic state appears to be persisted in the task history.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Steps to reproduce

1. Open the existing task named 构建能力地图天赋系统.
2. The task previously used the in-app Browser through mcp__node_repl__js.
3. A Browser call navigating to the following URL never returned:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2008.08.004

1. Reopen the task after Codex restarts.
2. Send continue.
3. Codex immediately or shortly afterward exits.
4. Reopen the same task and repeat. It crashes every time.

Actual behavior

The Codex process stops without an application error dialog. Windows destroys the desktop AppX container. The task remains accessible, but sending another message causes the same crash again.

No standard Windows Application Error, Windows Error Reporting crash, system restart, or crash dump was recorded.

Relevant local evidence

Thread ID:

019fa348-c997-7993-b13a-50b5f741b997

The session history contains 67 tool calls but only 65 corresponding tool outputs. These two calls have no matching output:

• call_Y77NnqkOEf48t3dORgeEgK75
• call_vSXFJBCrVUgXXV3Pa5MC5kaH

Both are mcp__node_repl__js calls that navigate the in-app Browser to:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2008.08.004

The first unfinished call occurred at:

2026-07-27 20:29:15 Asia/Shanghai

After resuming the task, a second equivalent unfinished call occurred at:

2026-07-27 21:00:23 Asia/Shanghai

The persisted session file has:

• Size: 1,807,600 bytes
• JSONL records: 516
• Longest JSONL record: approximately 160,247 characters
• Large Browser DOM snapshots and network timeout messages

Messages containing continue were recorded repeatedly at approximately:

• 20:42
• 20:47
• 20:59
• 21:18

Each attempt resulted in another application exit.

Suspected cause

Task recovery does not safely handle persisted custom tool calls that have no corresponding tool output. Restoring the unfinished in-app Browser / Node REPL state may terminate the Codex Windows application.

Large Browser output records in the same task may also contribute to the recovery failure.

Workaround

Create a new task for the same project and explicitly avoid restoring the previous Browser state. The affected task can no longer be continued safely.

What is the expected behavior?

Codex should mark the unfinished tool call as interrupted or failed and continue the task normally. A malformed or unfinished tool state should not terminate the desktop application.

Additional information

The project itself is a static HTML/CSS/JavaScript application.

It does not start a server or listen on a network port.

Its smoke test passes successfully.

Creating a new task for the same project avoids the crash.

Updating Codex through Microsoft Store does not repair the affected task.

The Browser runtime changed after updating Codex, but the same task continued to crash.