Regression: iOS Remote only lists projects with recent chats

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

• #23952

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Still reproducible on August 14, 2026, and currently makes the iOS Remote project selector unusable after projects are moved or renamed.

Environment:

• ChatGPT/Codex desktop: 26.810.50856
• macOS: 26.5.2 (25F84)
• iOS Remote client identified by the host: codex_chatgpt_ios_remote 1.2026.209

Direct host-side evidence:

1. Every project shown by iOS Remote matched a distinct non-archived threads.cwd value in the host's ~/.codex/state_5.sqlite, including two same-named projects disambiguated by their parent directory.
2. The desktop's current saved-project catalog in ~/.codex/.codex-global-state.json (local-projects / project-order) had already been updated before capture and differed substantially from the mobile list.
3. Several historical directories displayed by iOS no longer exist, ruling out a live filesystem scan.
4. Host logs for the iOS remote connection show initialize followed by two thread/list calls. There was no project-inventory, workspace-root, filesystem-read, or watch request.
5. The current app-server protocol exposes thread/list (whose thread objects include the recorded cwd) but no project/list or project-change notification.

This indicates that pull-to-refresh is contacting the host, but refreshes historical thread metadata rather than the authoritative Desktop project catalog. Consequently, deleted/moved/renamed working directories remain as ghost projects while valid saved projects can be absent until chat activity changes the bounded thread result.

Expected: Remote should consume a canonical project inventory from the selected host, refresh it on view/host selection/reconnect/pull-to-refresh, and invalidate it when Desktop projects change. A last-known snapshot is reasonable only while the host is offline.

Daily affected-user follow-up — 2026-08-15 (America/New_York)

This regression is still blocking usable iOS Remote project selection for this affected setup, and no fix has been confirmed on this issue.

• Installed desktop app: 26.810.50856 (build 6644)
• Bundled CLI: codex-cli 0.148.0-alpha.9

This is an automated once-daily follow-up requested by the affected user. It includes no prompts, local paths, account identifiers, databases, or diagnostic logs.

<!-- codex-ios-remote-daily:2026-08-15 -->

Daily affected-user follow-up — 2026-08-16 (America/New_York)

This regression is still blocking usable iOS Remote project selection for this affected setup, and no fix has been confirmed on this issue.

• Installed desktop app: 26.810.50856 (build 6644)
• Bundled CLI: codex-cli 0.148.0-alpha.9

This is an automated once-daily follow-up requested by the affected user. It includes no prompts, local paths, account identifiers, databases, or diagnostic logs.

<!-- codex-ios-remote-daily:2026-08-16 -->

Daily affected-user follow-up — 2026-08-17 (America/New_York)

This regression is still blocking usable iOS Remote project selection for this affected setup, and no fix has been confirmed on this issue.

• Installed desktop app: 26.810.52044 (build 6662)
• Bundled CLI: codex-cli 0.148.0-alpha.9

This is an automated once-daily follow-up requested by the affected user. It includes no prompts, local paths, account identifiers, databases, or diagnostic logs.

<!-- codex-ios-remote-daily:2026-08-17 -->

Request for a focused coordination/debugging channel

Would it be possible for OpenAI maintainers to create a focused GitHub Discussion, private support thread, or small affected-user cohort for the Codex Mobile Remote project-list / Remote Control issues?

Several open reports seem to describe the same broader failure family:

• #36040 - iOS Remote only lists projects with recent chats
• #24271 - iOS Remote project picker does not mirror Desktop projects
• #24749 - Android shows stale local project threads despite a connected Desktop host
• #28127 - Mobile cannot create/register a new local host project and first thread

Affected users can help validate candidate fixes quickly if there is a single place to coordinate sanitized diagnostics and before/after checks. Right now the evidence is split across several issues, and the same symptoms keep getting re-reported in slightly different forms.

Happy to provide or verify, without exposing local paths/account identifiers publicly:

• Desktop app build, bundled CLI version, and mobile client version.
• Host logs showing Remote initialize / thread-list behavior.
• A sanitized comparison of Desktop saved-project catalog vs mobile-visible project list.
• Reproduction checks for empty projects, renamed/moved projects, stale/ghost projects, and projects whose visibility depends on recent thread activity.
• Before/after validation against a candidate fixed build.

A temporary coordination channel would reduce duplicate reports and make it easier to confirm whether a fix covers the full project-catalog path, not only one stale-cache or thread-list symptom.

Daily affected-user follow-up — 2026-08-18 (America/New_York)

This regression is still blocking usable iOS Remote project selection for this affected setup, and no fix has been confirmed on this issue.

• Installed desktop app: 26.810.52044 (build 6662)
• Bundled CLI: codex-cli 0.148.0-alpha.9

This is an automated once-daily follow-up requested by the affected user. It includes no prompts, local paths, account identifiers, databases, or diagnostic logs.

<!-- codex-ios-remote-daily:2026-08-18 -->

Daily affected-user follow-up — 2026-08-19 (America/New_York)

This regression is still blocking usable iOS Remote project selection for this affected setup, and no fix has been confirmed on this issue.

• Installed desktop app: 26.810.52044 (build 6662)
• Bundled CLI: codex-cli 0.148.0-alpha.9

This is an automated once-daily follow-up requested by the affected user. It includes no prompts, local paths, account identifiers, databases, or diagnostic logs.

<!-- codex-ios-remote-daily:2026-08-19 -->

Still reproducible after the advertised project-picker improvement in ChatGPT for iOS 1.2026.223 (released 2026-08-18):

Improved the New Thread project picker to reflect the selected host’s current projects.

Environment:

• ChatGPT for iOS: 1.2026.223
• Selected host: Linux SSH remote
• Remote Codex CLI/app-server: 0.148.0
• The same SSH projects are present in the desktop app
• Remote Control and starting/continuing tasks otherwise work

Additional host-side evidence:

1. The iOS New Thread picker shows exactly five projects.
2. Project enumeration from the same selected host also returns exactly those same five projects.
3. The remote state_5.sqlite contains many more valid non-archived project CWDs.
4. Ordering distinct CWDs by their latest threads.recency_at produces exactly the same five projects, in exactly the same order, as the mobile picker/project enumeration.
5. The sixth and older project CWDs are valid, accessible directories and are saved/visible in the desktop app, but are absent from iOS.
6. The app-server is launched through a restricted wrapper, but representative missing projects are inside the running namespace and allowed roots, so filesystem visibility does not explain the five-project cutoff.

This strongly suggests that 1.2026.223 fixed which host the picker queries, but the selected host’s project feed is still derived from a bounded recent-thread result (apparently the five most recent distinct cwd values) rather than the host’s complete saved-project inventory.

Expected: the selected host’s full saved-project catalogue should be available in the New Thread picker, independently of thread recency.

Same behavior for me with Codex Desktop on macOS and ChatGPT iOS Remote Control. Desktop shows several saved project labels (apps, portfolio, others, and chrome extensions), but iOS Remote groups the chats under the Mac account/home-directory label instead of those project names. The projects are visible on Desktop, but the Remote sidebar does not match after refresh. Creating or reopening activity can make entries appear, but the grouping remains incorrect. I also renamed a project in Desktop, and Remote still shows the underlying folder/home-directory name. No local paths or logs attached.

Daily affected-user follow-up — 2026-08-20 (America/New_York)

This regression is still blocking usable iOS Remote project selection for this affected setup, and no fix has been confirmed on this issue.

• Installed desktop app: 26.810.52044 (build 6662)
• Bundled CLI: codex-cli 0.148.0-alpha.9

This is an automated once-daily follow-up requested by the affected user. It includes no prompts, local paths, account identifiers, databases, or diagnostic logs.

<!-- codex-ios-remote-daily:2026-08-20 -->

Daily affected-user follow-up — 2026-08-21 (America/New_York)

This regression is still blocking usable iOS Remote project selection for this affected setup, and no fix has been confirmed on this issue.

• Installed desktop app: 26.810.52044 (build 6662)
• Bundled CLI: codex-cli 0.148.0-alpha.9

This is an automated once-daily follow-up requested by the affected user. It includes no prompts, local paths, account identifiers, databases, or diagnostic logs.

<!-- codex-ios-remote-daily:2026-08-21 -->

Additional Windows + iOS reproduction — 2026-08-22

This regression is still reproducible on a current Windows desktop host and ChatGPT for iOS 1.2026.223.

Environment:

• ChatGPT for iOS: 1.2026.223
• Codex Desktop for Windows: 26.818.3698.0
• Selected Remote host: the same local Windows machine used by Codex Desktop

Host-side counts, read directly from the current local state:

• 757 total threads
• 683 non-archived threads
• 172 distinct cwd values among non-archived threads
• 42 saved local projects in the desktop global state (38 entries in the project order)

Observed behavior:

1. Codex Desktop shows the saved projects and older non-archived tasks.
2. iOS Remote shows only a small subset of those projects/tasks.
3. A known older task that remains available in Codex Desktop is absent from iOS after selecting All, selecting the specific host, expanding project groups, refreshing, and reconnecting.
4. Searching iOS Remote with the known exact task title also returns no result, so search does not bypass the incomplete list/catalogue.
5. The missing task is still present in the host database; this is a Remote enumeration/indexing problem, not local data loss.
6. During the same affected session, the host logged multiple iOS thread/list requests, but matching completion entries were not found before the Remote connections closed. This may be a second interacting failure mode similar to #38571.

Impact: Remote cannot be relied on to resume a known existing task when the task has fallen outside the subset exposed to mobile, and the mobile search box cannot recover it.

Expected behavior:

• The selected host's complete saved-project catalogue should be available independently of thread recency.
• Task list pagination and exact-title search should cover all non-archived host threads, not only the currently loaded/recent subset.
• If the host cannot return the full list, Remote should show an explicit loading/error state rather than silently presenting a partial catalogue as complete.

No prompt contents, task titles, project names, account identifiers, or local paths are included in this report.

Daily affected-user follow-up — 2026-08-22 (America/New_York)

This regression is still blocking usable iOS Remote project selection for this affected setup, and no fix has been confirmed on this issue.

• Installed desktop app: 26.810.52044 (build 6662)
• Bundled CLI: codex-cli 0.148.0-alpha.9

This is an automated once-daily follow-up requested by the affected user. It includes no prompts, local paths, account identifiers, databases, or diagnostic logs.

<!-- codex-ios-remote-daily:2026-08-22 -->

Daily affected-user follow-up — 2026-08-23 (America/New_York)

This regression is still blocking usable iOS Remote project selection for this affected setup, and no fix has been confirmed on this issue.

• Installed desktop app: 26.810.52044 (build 6662)
• Bundled CLI: codex-cli 0.148.0-alpha.9

This is an automated once-daily follow-up requested by the affected user. It includes no prompts, local paths, account identifiers, databases, or diagnostic logs.

<!-- codex-ios-remote-daily:2026-08-23 -->

Daily affected-user follow-up — 2026-08-24 (America/New_York)

This regression is still blocking usable iOS Remote project selection for this affected setup, and no fix has been confirmed on this issue.

• Installed desktop app: 26.810.52044 (build 6662)
• Bundled CLI: codex-cli 0.148.0-alpha.9

This is an automated once-daily follow-up requested by the affected user. It includes no prompts, local paths, account identifiers, databases, or diagnostic logs.

<!-- codex-ios-remote-daily:2026-08-24 -->

I can reproduce this on the current macOS/iOS Remote stack with a larger project inventory, and the cutoff is directly explained by bounded thread/list pagination.

Environment:

• ChatGPT desktop for macOS: 26.818.41509 (build 6962)
• Codex CLI/app-server: 0.149.1
• ChatGPT iOS app: latest available update installed on August 24, 2026

Anonymized inventory and results:

• Desktop has 13 saved projects.
• 12 projects have assigned chats; one valid saved project has no chats.
• iOS Remote shows only 3 projects.
• A Remote-shaped request using thread/list with limit: 20, sortKey: "recency_at", archived: false, sourceKinds: [], and useStateDbOnly: true returns 20 chats whose assignments cover exactly those 3 visible projects.
• Paging the complete unarchived interactive catalog returns 200 chats and covers all 12 non-empty projects. The oldest project needed chat rank 182 before it appeared.
• A same-version local diagnostic build that expanded only the first recent page from 20 to 200 made all 12 non-empty projects discoverable, while preserving the normal 20-item behavior for other sorts and later pages. It still could not represent the empty project.
• In a backup-backed migration test, all 13 saved projects were imported into the native SQLite project/list inventory, including the empty project. The current iOS UI still showed the same recent-derived subset. The migration was then fully rolled back and both databases passed PRAGMA quick_check.

This gives two useful boundaries:

1. Increasing thread/list limits is only a partial workaround. It can recover old projects that have chats, but it can never represent a saved project with zero chats.
2. Project discovery needs to consume the authoritative project inventory independently from chat pagination.

The public app-server added SQLite-backed project APIs in #38940. I implemented the server-side part as ZehuaKcrissLi/codex#1, commit c161c57f. It makes read-only project/list available to non-experimental clients, exports it in the stable schema, documents that clients must not infer projects from bounded thread/list, and adds a regression test for an empty project.

GitHub currently prevents non-collaborators from opening a pull request directly against openai/codex, so the tested patch is published as a PR in the fork for maintainer review/cherry-pick. The desktop legacy-to-native import and the iOS switch to consume project/list are still client-side follow-ups; the public server change alone should not be treated as phone-side acceptance.

I intentionally omitted screenshots, project names, chat titles, hostnames, and local paths from this report.

Daily affected-user follow-up — 2026-08-25 (America/New_York)

This regression is still blocking usable iOS Remote project selection for this affected setup, and no fix has been confirmed on this issue.

• Installed desktop app: 26.810.52044 (build 6662)
• Bundled CLI: codex-cli 0.148.0-alpha.9

This is an automated once-daily follow-up requested by the affected user. It includes no prompts, local paths, account identifiers, databases, or diagnostic logs.

<!-- codex-ios-remote-daily:2026-08-25 -->

Additional Windows + iOS reproduction — August 25, 2026

I can confirm the zero-chat project case on the current Windows Desktop build.

Environment:

• ChatGPT/Codex Desktop for Windows: 26.818.8289.0
• ChatGPT Remote on iOS, using the same account and workspace
• The Windows host is online, and Remote otherwise works normally

Read-only inspection of the Desktop project state found:

• 8 saved local projects in total
• 4 newly created saved local projects point to existing folders and have exactly 0 assigned chats
• All 4 zero-chat projects are absent from both the iOS Remote sidebar and the new-task project picker
• Projects with assigned chats remain visible
• A removed or renamed historical project with existing chat history remains visible on iOS as a stale entry

This makes the filtering boundary especially clear: mobile project discovery appears to be derived from thread history rather than the authoritative Desktop saved-project inventory. A valid saved project with zero chats can never enter a thread-derived project list, so the user cannot start its first task from mobile even after pre-creating the project on Desktop.

Expected behavior:

• Every valid saved local project on the connected host should appear in the Remote project picker, regardless of chat count or recency.
• Removed or renamed projects should not remain as ghost entries after the host state is refreshed.

I have intentionally omitted project names, local paths, chat titles, account identifiers, and screenshots.

Daily affected-user follow-up — 2026-08-26 (America/New_York)

This regression is still blocking usable iOS Remote project selection for this affected setup, and no fix has been confirmed on this issue.

• Installed desktop app: 26.810.52044 (build 6662)
• Bundled CLI: codex-cli 0.148.0-alpha.9

This is an automated once-daily follow-up requested by the affected user. It includes no prompts, local paths, account identifiers, databases, or diagnostic logs.

<!-- codex-ios-remote-daily:2026-08-26 -->

Daily affected-user follow-up — 2026-08-27 (America/New_York)

This regression is still blocking usable iOS Remote project selection for this affected setup, and no fix has been confirmed on this issue.

• Installed desktop app: 26.814.41407 (build 6720)
• Bundled CLI: codex-cli 0.148.0-alpha.15

This is an automated once-daily follow-up requested by the affected user. It includes no prompts, local paths, account identifiers, databases, or diagnostic logs.

<!-- codex-ios-remote-daily:2026-08-27 -->