Codex desktop drained newly bought credits at a higher rate and also while being idle

Open 💬 2 comments Opened Aug 17, 2026 by coderine
💡 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)?

26.810.52044

What subscription do you have?

Plus plan

What platform is your computer?

Windows 11

What issue are you seeing?

I had drained weekly limits and to continue with work I had bought credit 3 times. Once I crossed the lower limit Even with lower engines used, the utilization became very high. I had tried some best practices but the utilization is alarming.

The main issue beyond the higher utilization was that the credits I had kept in reserve for evening time work drained by itself without me issuing any active task to Codex. This is extremely frustrating. I have no means to understand how it drained and there is no predictability. Now I am starting to understand why Claude or Gemini would be a better alternative since they don't seem to have hidden charges.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Not sure. Buy additional credits after weekly quota is over. Watch and wait to see the credits disappearing by itself.

What is the expected behavior?

  1. Credits are used for known and active tasks in the foreground.
  2. If at all any background tasks that take credits run, inform and get approval from the user before proceeding with it.
  3. Make utilization of credits more quantifiable and predictable before the task starts executing.

Additional information

_No response_

View original on GitHub ↗

2 Comments

github-actions[bot] contributor · 11 days ago

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

  • #38294
  • #37651
  • #38309
  • #38600

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smsubaie · 9 days ago

Same here, also Windows / Codex desktop: #39260.

You describe reserve credits draining with no task issued. On my account the same thing happens, and additionally the credit usage ledger stopped writing on 8 August and has not resumed since, while the balance keeps decrementing. 45,252 of 53,000 purchased credits ($2,081.59 incl. VAT) have no entry at any date.

If you check Codex → Settings → Analytics, it may be worth confirming whether your usage log has also frozen at a fixed date. If several of us show the same freeze date range, that narrows it considerably.

Related: #38294 (hard cap exceeded ~7x), #39167, #19242.