Pinned conversations disappear after restarting Codex and temporarily reappear when pinning another chat

Open 💬 1 comment Opened Aug 6, 2026 by ciliomine

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

26.730.61639

What subscription do you have?

ChatGPT Plus

What platform is your computer?

Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.26200.0 x64

What issue are you seeing?

Previously pinned conversations disappear from the left sidebar in the Codex Windows desktop app after closing and reopening the application.

The conversations do not appear to be deleted. I discovered that pinning any other currently visible conversation immediately makes the previously missing pinned conversations reappear in the sidebar.

However, this restoration is only temporary. If I close Codex and open it again, the older pinned conversations disappear from the sidebar again.

This suggests that the pinned-conversation list or sidebar state is not being correctly loaded when the application starts. Performing a new pin action appears to force the sidebar or pinned-thread state to refresh, causing the missing pinned conversations to become visible again.

No error message is displayed.

I have attached a screen recording showing the behavior.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

  1. Open the Codex desktop application on Windows.
  2. Have multiple conversations pinned in the left sidebar.
  3. Close the Codex application completely.
  4. Reopen Codex.
  5. Observe that some previously pinned conversations are missing from the left sidebar.
  6. Select any currently visible conversation.
  7. Use the conversation menu and choose Pin chat.
  8. Observe that the previously missing pinned conversations immediately reappear in the left sidebar.
  9. Close Codex completely again.
  10. Reopen Codex.
  11. Observe that the same older pinned conversations have disappeared again.

This behavior is reproducible on my installation.

The attached video shows:

  • The older pinned conversations initially missing.
  • A different conversation being pinned.
  • The missing pinned conversations immediately reappearing.
  • The issue returning after restarting Codex.

No code snippet, token limit, or context-window condition appears to be required to trigger this bug. It appears to be related specifically to persistence or hydration of the pinned conversation state in the desktop application's sidebar.

What is the expected behavior?

All pinned conversations should remain visible in the left sidebar after closing and reopening Codex.

The pinned-conversation list should be loaded correctly when Codex starts, without requiring the user to pin another conversation to force the sidebar to refresh.

Additional information

  • The affected conversations are not intentionally unpinned or archived.
  • The conversations appear to still exist because they return immediately when another conversation is pinned.
  • Pinning a new conversation seems to force a refresh or recalculation of the pinned-conversation list.
  • The restored conversations disappear again after the application is closed and reopened.
  • I have attached a video demonstrating the complete reproduction process.
  • Approximate occurrence time: August 6, 2026, around 3:00 PM, UTC-3.
  • Platform: Codex desktop application on Windows.
  • No visible error message is produced.

App: ChatGPT desktop, powered by Codex & OWL
Version: 26.730.61639
Release date: August 4, 2026

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1 Comment

nakita-creator · 18 days ago

Additional macOS reproduction (observed August 9, 2026):

  • App: ChatGPT desktop, powered by Codex & OWL
  • Version: 26.803.41515 (build 6321)
  • Platform: macOS 26.5.2 (25F84), Apple Silicon arm64
  • After restarting the app, the Pinned section renders only a subset of the conversations that remain pinned.
  • A read-only thread-list query returns 18 pinned conversations, including the missing entries. The affected entries are unarchived.
  • Desktop logs show successful thread/list responses and the full pinned list being delivered to the primary renderer, with no associated request error. The visible sidebar nevertheless renders a smaller subset.
  • Reasserting pin state can refresh visibility temporarily, but the reduced list returns after restarting the app.
  • There is no Chats/Pinned filter control in this Codex sidebar that can force a Chronological view, so the generic “select Chronological” troubleshooting guidance is not applicable to this UI.

No conversations appear to be deleted; this looks like a pinned-sidebar hydration/cache divergence after startup. Expected behavior is for every persisted pin to remain visible after restart.

Private task names, task IDs, local paths, and log contents are intentionally omitted from this public comment. Sanitized diagnostics can be provided through a private channel if needed.