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Codex Issues / #38663

Codex Desktop Pet causes mouse cursor stuttering on Windows 11

Open 💬 6 comments Opened Aug 14, 2026 by jeomoo
💡 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)?

26.810.41047

What subscription do you have?

ChatGPT Plus

What platform is your computer?

Windows 11 (64-bit)

What issue are you seeing?

Enabling the Pet feature causes noticeable mouse cursor stuttering across Windows 11.

The stuttering occurs not only inside the Codex/ChatGPT app, but also on the Windows desktop and in other normally launched applications such as browsers and Notepad.

The issue persists even when the Codex/ChatGPT window is minimized.

Disabling Pet immediately restores normal mouse movement.

This issue began on August 15, 2026 at approximately 06:00 KST (UTC+9) after a recent desktop app update

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Launch the Codex/ChatGPT desktop app.

Enable the Pet feature.

Move the mouse cursor around the Windows desktop or over any normally launched application.

The cursor immediately begins to stutter.

Minimize the Codex/ChatGPT window.

The stuttering continues.

Disable Pet.

Mouse movement immediately becomes smooth again.

The issue is consistently reproducible.

What is the expected behavior?

Enabling Pet should not affect mouse cursor responsiveness or input behavior outside the Pet itself.

Mouse movement should remain smooth across the Windows desktop and other applications regardless of whether Pet is enabled, disabled, or the Codex/ChatGPT window is minimized.

Additional information

Environment

OS: Windows 11 64-bit

Codex/ChatGPT desktop app version: 26.810.41047

Subscription: ChatGPT Plus

Additional testing

CPU/GPU usage in Task Manager does not show an obvious spike when the issue occurs.

Turning "Show animations in Windows" off does not change the behavior.

The cursor stutters over the Windows desktop, browsers, and normally launched Notepad.

The cursor becomes completely smooth when moved over Task Manager while it is the foreground window.

I also tested Notepad:

Normally launched Notepad → cursor stutters.

Notepad launched with Run as administrator → cursor is completely smooth.

Moving the cursor back outside the elevated window immediately causes the stuttering again.

Disabling Pet immediately eliminates the issue everywhere.

The behavior appears to correlate with the difference between normal and elevated/admin windows. This may be related to the Pet floating overlay, window hit-testing, mouse tracking, UI hooks, or Windows integrity/elevation boundaries.

View original on GitHub ↗

6 Comments

github-actions[bot] contributor · 13 days ago

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

  • #38546
  • #38583

Powered by Codex Action

Poent · 13 days ago

Additional reproduction with a useful state-reset workaround:

Environment

  • Windows 11 x64 (10.0.26200)
  • Microsoft Store package: OpenAI.Codex 26.810.4967.0
  • Desktop/runtime release: 26.810.41047
  • Chromium: 151.0.7922.137

Observed behavior

The pet appeared to already be tucked away while the system-wide mouse stutter was occurring.

During the affected state:

  • The main ChatGPT.exe process sustained about 141–146% of one CPU core across repeated samples (about 1.4 cores).
  • In a quiet 15-second sample, the Codex backend used only about 0.1% of one core while the desktop main process remained at 143.4%.
  • Codex GPU-helper utilization stayed below roughly 2%.
  • Approximately 27 GB RAM remained available; disk queue, DPC time, interrupt time, and processor queue were all low.
  • Desktop diagnostics showed duplicate item/activity events being delivered to a hidden avatarOverlay renderer.
  • Fully exiting Codex immediately restored smooth mouse movement.

Workaround / reproduction detail

  1. Start with the pet shown as tucked away.
  2. Observe system-wide mouse stutter.
  3. Select Wake Pet.
  4. Immediately select Tuck Away Pet.
  5. Mouse responsiveness returns to normal immediately, without restarting Codex.

This suggests the persisted UI state can say the pet is tucked away while the hidden overlay remains active or stuck. Waking and tucking the pet appears to force the overlay lifecycle to reset correctly. This also seems consistent with the unused/hidden renderer lifecycle described in #36980.

Expected behavior: tucking the pet away should reliably destroy or throttle the hidden overlay and release its event listeners/rendering work.

foreverkf-hub · 13 days ago

Additional A/B isolation result

Environment:

  • Windows 11 x64 (10.0.26200)
  • Microsoft Store package: OpenAI.Codex 26.810.4967.0

After the system-wide mouse stutter returned, I kept the main ChatGPT/Codex window and active task open. Enumerating the app's top-level windows showed exactly one hidden candidate:

  • Window class: Chrome_WidgetWin_1
  • Window title: Codex
  • Visible: false
  • Size: 409 x 400

I sent WM_CLOSE only to that hidden window. The mouse became smooth immediately, while the main app window and active task remained open and usable. Restarting the desktop app recreates the hidden overlay, so this is only a temporary workaround.

Additional controls:

  • Launching the app with --disable-gpu did not resolve the stutter.
  • No session files, caches, or settings were modified by this test.

This strongly narrows the regression to the hidden avatar/pet overlay window lifecycle (or work still being performed by its renderer/event path), rather than mouse hardware or GPU acceleration. Expected behavior: a tucked/hidden overlay should not continue to affect Windows pointer responsiveness.

Li-Guangsen · 13 days ago

@tibo-openai — additional reproduction from another Windows 11 system.

Environment

  • Windows 11 Pro 25H2, build 26200.8655, x64
  • Codex Microsoft Store package: 26.810.4967.0
  • Codex VS Code extension also installed: 26.803.61601
  • CPU: Intel Core Ultra 7 265K
  • RAM: 48 GB
  • GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Ti, driver 32.0.16.1088 (610.88)
  • Intel Graphics driver: 32.0.101.7026

Additional reproduction

Codex itself is the trigger: the system-wide cursor stutter and UI lag occur while Codex is running, including when it is minimized/backgrounded. The browser and WeChat are affected surfaces, not the root cause. Task Manager and a native hardware utility remain smooth, even when maximized.

There was no obvious CPU, GPU, disk, DPC, or interrupt saturation during the affected state. Resetting the graphics driver did not resolve it.

The issue was immediately cleared without rebooting or quitting Codex by:

  1. Showing/waking the Codex pet.
  2. Immediately hiding/tucking the pet away again.

This points to the pet/avatar overlay or its hidden renderer/pointer lifecycle getting stuck. The show-then-hide action appears to reset that state.

fengfengkang · 13 days ago

Additional reproducibility detail from another Windows user:

  • Codex runtime version: 26.813.12317
  • The issue appeared only after today's update.
  • With Pet enabled, the app/system can become abnormally stuttery.
  • The stuttering is especially noticeable after the PC wakes from sleep.
  • Disabling Pet significantly improves/restores responsiveness.

This may be related to the hidden avatarOverlay behavior described in #38640, which is also on runtime bundle 26.813.12317. The sleep/resume transition may be a useful trigger or amplifier to test when reproducing the Pet overlay performance regression.

Suggested reproduction variant:

  1. Launch Codex on Windows with Pet enabled.
  2. Put the PC to sleep.
  3. Wake/resume Windows.
  4. Observe Codex/UI/mouse responsiveness across the desktop.
  5. Disable Pet and compare responsiveness immediately.

Environment detail available so far: Windows Codex runtime 26.813.12317.

fengfengkang · 13 days ago

Additional reproducibility detail from another Windows user:

  • Codex runtime version: 26.813.12317
  • The issue appeared only after today's update.
  • With Pet enabled, the app/system can become abnormally stuttery.
  • The stuttering is especially noticeable after the PC wakes from sleep.
  • Disabling Pet significantly improves/restores responsiveness.

This may be related to the hidden avatarOverlay behavior described in #38640, which is also on runtime bundle 26.813.12317. The sleep/resume transition may be a useful trigger or amplifier to test when reproducing the Pet overlay performance regression.

Suggested reproduction variant:

  1. Launch Codex on Windows with Pet enabled.
  2. Put the PC to sleep.
  3. Wake/resume Windows.
  4. Observe Codex/UI/mouse responsiveness across the desktop.
  5. Disable Pet and compare responsiveness immediately.

Environment detail available so far: Windows Codex runtime 26.813.12317.