[Windows][Desktop 26.721.4979.0] Blank console flashes during tool activity: ChatGPT.exe spawns PowerShell/conhost process snapshots

Open 💬 2 comments Opened Jul 28, 2026 by vodevadev

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

Summary

On Windows, Codex Desktop briefly flashes an empty black console window during active local tool work. Process tracing shows that the window is a conhost.exe child of short-lived powershell.exe processes spawned directly by ChatGPT.exe.

This is user-visible even though the PowerShell commands are invoked with -NoProfile -NonInteractive.

Environment

Windows 11, Windows-native agent
Codex Desktop MSIX: OpenAI.Codex_26.721.4979.0_x64__2p2nqsd0c76g0
ChatGPT.exe is the direct parent of the short-lived PowerShell processes
Microsoft Store reported no newer package version available

Symptom

An empty black console window flashes for a fraction of a second while working in Codex, approximately every 11–14 seconds during the observed task.

Observed user timestamps:

23:36:07–08
23:36:19
23:36:30
23:38:40
23:38:54

Process evidence

A 50 ms local process-creation trace captured the following chain during later active tool activity:

ChatGPT.exe
  -> powershell.exe -NoProfile -NonInteractive -Command
       Get-CimInstance Win32_Process |
         Select-Object ProcessId,ParentProcessId |
         ConvertTo-Json -Depth 2
  -> conhost.exe

ChatGPT.exe
  -> powershell.exe -NoProfile -NonInteractive -Command
       Get-CimInstance Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfProc_Process ...
       Get-CimInstance Win32_Process -Filter "ProcessId = ..." ...
  -> conhost.exe

The trace recorded the parent as the packaged ChatGPT.exe process for both PowerShell commands. The paired conhost.exe creation coincides with the visible blank console flash.

Expected behavior

Background process-tree and CPU sampling should not create visible console windows. Those subprocesses should be launched without a visible console or be replaced with a non-console process-inspection mechanism.

Reproduction

Open Codex Desktop on Windows with the Windows-native agent.
Work in a local task that invokes shell/tool calls.
Observe short-lived blank black console windows during tool activity.
Inspect descendants of ChatGPT.exe; short-lived powershell.exe and conhost.exe processes appear for the process-tree and CPU snapshot queries.

Related report

This appears related to #33776, which also reports Windows Codex Desktop descendants and conhost.exe process churn. This report focuses on the immediately visible console-window symptom and the direct PowerShell snapshot commands.

View original on GitHub ↗

2 Comments

github-actions[bot] contributor · 1 month ago

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

#34592
#34580
#34594

Powered by Codex Action

invoker-bot · 23 days ago

Confirmed on Codex Desktop 26.727.6591.0 on Windows x64.

I observed the same visible console flashes during active local tool/shell work. A high-frequency process trace captured this chain repeatedly:

ChatGPT.exe
  -> powershell.exe -NoProfile -NonInteractive -Command ...
     -> conhost.exe

The PowerShell commands matched the process-monitoring queries reported here, including:

Get-CimInstance Win32_Process |
  Select-Object ProcessId,ParentProcessId |
  ConvertTo-Json -Depth 2

and the heavier CPU/process sampler using:

Get-CimInstance Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfProc_Process
Get-CimInstance Win32_Process

The powershell.exe processes were direct children of the packaged ChatGPT.exe, and corresponding conhost.exe processes were created. A separate 25-second idle capture after the active shell work ended observed no new console-related processes, so the flashes correlated with the desktop app's exec/process-monitoring activity rather than a frequent Windows Scheduled Task.

No local usernames, repository paths, or private command contents are included here. This remains reproducible in the current 26.727.6591.0 build.