Codex Remote on iOS displays raw Visualize content reference instead of rendering visualization

Summary

When a Codex task is viewed through ChatGPT Remote on iOS, a bundled Visualize result is displayed as the raw internal content-reference directive instead of rendering the visualization.

The visualization itself is generated successfully on the Mac host and renders correctly at mobile width when opened locally. The failure is in the iOS Remote presentation layer: the client shows the internal visualize marker and an absolute host filesystem path as ordinary text.

Environment

• Host app: ChatGPT desktop 26.803.61601 (build 6396)
• Host OS: macOS 26.5.2 (25F84), arm64
• Bundled plugin: visualize@openai-bundled 1.0.20
• Client: ChatGPT app on iPhone, Codex Remote
• iOS app version: not yet captured
• Date reproduced: 2026-08-10

What the user sees

Instead of an interactive visualization, the completed assistant message visibly contains a raw marker equivalent to:

[visualize content reference containing {"path":"/Users/<redacted>/.codex/visualizations/<date>/<thread>/<visual>.html"}]

The real screenshot and path contain personal information, so they are intentionally not attached publicly. A sanitized screenshot can be supplied if maintainers need it.

Steps to reproduce

1. Start or continue a local Codex task on a Mac host.
2. Connect to that host from ChatGPT on iPhone using Codex Remote.
3. Invoke the bundled Visualize plugin in the task.
4. Have Codex create a valid thread-scoped HTML fragment under the host visualization directory.
5. Return the documented visualization content reference in the final assistant response.
6. Open or complete the turn on iOS.
7. Observe that the iOS client displays the internal content-reference syntax and absolute local path as text instead of rendering the visualization.

The behavior reproduced more than once in the same iOS Remote task.

Control result

The generated fragment was rendered locally with the bundled Visualize renderer and inspected at both 736 px and 360 px widths. It displayed correctly, including at the mobile viewport. This rules out malformed HTML or a mobile-layout failure in the fragment itself.

Expected behavior

On supported iOS clients and eligible accounts, the Codex task should render the inline visualization, consistent with the documented iOS support introduced in ChatGPT for iOS 1.2026.188.

If the account, workspace, or app version is not eligible for the Visualizations preview, the client should show a graceful fallback or an actionable availability message. It should never expose the internal content-reference syntax or the host's absolute filesystem path.

Actual behavior

• No visualization is shown.
• The internal Visualize directive appears literally in the completed assistant message.
• The absolute Mac host path is exposed to the iOS user.
• There is no fallback image, open action, relay-backed attachment, or availability error.

Impact

• Blocks review of visual work while away from the host.
• Leaks implementation syntax that users should not need to understand.
• Exposes a host-local absolute path, including information that may identify the local account.
• Makes a successful generation look like an agent failure even though the artifact exists and renders correctly on the host.

Related reports

• #25202 — Remote mobile Codex does not render local media artifacts linked from assistant messages
• #35371 — Codex Remote on iOS shows tool images during execution but drops them from the completed turn

Those reports cover adjacent Remote media/replay failures. A repository search did not find an existing issue specifically for raw Visualize content-reference syntax appearing on iOS.

Documentation

• https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/visualizations#check-availability
• https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/whats-new#inspect-codex-task-visualizations-on-ios

Suggested fix area

The iOS completed-turn renderer should recognize and resolve Visualize content references through the supported relay/preview mechanism. Unsupported clients should receive a sanitized fallback. Raw directives and absolute host paths should never be rendered directly to the user.