[App] Popout Window run-location click hides the window and breaks the hotkey until restart; cloud projects cannot start new chats from the desktop app

Open 💬 2 comments Opened Aug 13, 2026 by Hzzz7
💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (github-actions[bot], contributor) responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.

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

26.803.10989.0 (Windows; embedded CLI version 0.147.0-alpha.6.6)

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?

Two reproducible issues in the Codex App desktop UI:

  1. Popout Window run-location control hides the window and kills the hotkey until restart. After enabling the experimental Popout Window with a global hotkey (Alt+3), clicking the run-location label (“电脑” / Local) at the top-left of the popout makes the window disappear. Pressing the hotkey again does not reopen it; the only recovery is restarting the ChatGPT desktop app, and the bug recurs every time.
  1. Cloud projects cannot start new chats from the desktop app. A cloud project synced from Codex Cloud (GitHub repository + environment created on the web) appears in the sidebar with its cloud task, but the project row has no “New chat” action; the compose (“编写”) button next to the project starts a chat bound to a local project instead, and the project picker lists only local projects. Cloud access is enabled in the app state (codexCloudAccess: enabled, environment object registered), so this looks like a missing/blocked UI entry rather than a connection failure.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Popout Window:

  1. Settings → Experimental features → set a global shortcut for “Popout Window” (e.g., Alt+3). Without a hotkey the feature stays off.
  2. Press the hotkey to open the popout window.
  3. Click the run-location label at the top-left (“电脑” / Local).
  4. The popout window hides. Pressing the hotkey again does not bring it back.
  5. Restarting the app restores the hotkey; the bug reproduces on every attempt.

Cloud project new chat:

  1. On Codex Cloud (web), connect GitHub and create a cloud environment for a repository.
  2. In the desktop app, the cloud project appears in the sidebar and its web-created cloud task syncs into it.
  3. There is no “New chat” action on the cloud project. Clicking the compose button next to the project creates a chat in a local project. The project picker shows only local projects.

What is the expected behavior?

  1. Popout Window: clicking the run-location control should not hide the window, or the hotkey should still toggle it back, without requiring an app restart.
  2. Cloud projects: starting a new chat from a synced cloud project should open the composer in cloud mode with the environment selector, consistent with the app’s “Start cloud chats from the composer” behavior.

Additional information

  • App state confirms cloud is configured correctly: codexCloudAccess=enabled; environment object registered (label “codex-cloud-test”, description “Codex 云端测试环境”); sidebar cloud group expanded.
  • The run-location dropdown strings exist in the app bundle under composer.hotkeyWindow.modeDropdown.* (Local project / Worktree / Cloud), but the selector is only reachable in the experimental Popout Window, which is off by default (“Set a global shortcut for Popout Window. Leave unset to keep it off.”).
  • A cloud task created on the web synced correctly to the desktop sidebar, so sync works; only creating new cloud chats from the desktop fails.
  • No error message is shown in either case; both are UI behavior issues.

View original on GitHub ↗

2 Comments

github-actions[bot] contributor · 14 days ago

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

  • #37943

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Hzzz7 · 14 days ago

Thanks for the duplicate suggestion. I reviewed #37943 and #32927 before deciding to keep this open.

This issue bundles two distinct problems:

  1. Popout Window run-location control hides the window and the hotkey stops working until app restart (reproducible on Windows 26.803.10989.0). This is not covered by #37943 or #32927.
  2. No run-location/environment selector, so a synced cloud project cannot start new chats from the desktop app (composer button routes to a local project; project picker lists only local projects). This overlaps with the missing-selector theme in #37943/#32927, and adds Windows + Codex Cloud evidence.

I'm keeping this open for issue 1 and the Windows/cloud specifics of issue 2. If maintainers prefer to track issue 2 under #37943/#32927, I'm happy to close the duplicate part and keep only the Popout Window bug here.