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Codex Issues / #39492

[Windows] Unable to archive any local Codex task (thread/archive -32603, os error 2)

Open 💬 4 comments Opened Aug 19, 2026 by gconteratto-pixel
💡 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)?

26.814.41957

What subscription do you have?

ChatGPT Plus

What platform is your computer?

Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.19045.0 x64

What issue are you seeing?

I cannot archive any local Codex task from any project. The operation fails every time, the task remains in the active sidebar, and the Archived chats list remains empty. Because archiving is required before permanent deletion, this also prevents me from deleting tasks through the supported UI.

The failing local RPC operation is thread/archive, using hostId=local and the stdio transport. It returns error code -32603 with the following full message:

failed to archive session: thread-store internal error: failed to archive thread: O sistema não pode encontrar o arquivo especificado. (os error 2)

Current environment:

  • Codex App version: 26.814.41957
  • Windows app package: 26.814.5517.0
  • Codex app-server: 0.148.0-alpha.15
  • Windows 10 22H2, build 19045, x64

This appears to be a regression introduced after an application update. Local logs show:

  • Version 26.810.7004.0 with app-server 0.148.0-alpha.9: 9 successful archive operations and 0 failures.
  • Version 26.814.5167.0 with app-server 0.148.0-alpha.15: 0 successful operations and 12 failures.
  • Current version 26.814.5517.0 with app-server 0.148.0-alpha.15: 0 successful operations and 5 failures.

Read-only integrity checks found no missing source files. The SQLite state database passed PRAGMA quick_check, there were no foreign-key violations, the affected rollout files exist, and the archive destination directory exists with write permissions.

This suggests that the “file not found” error refers to an internal temporary or destination path used by the newer Windows archive routine, rather than to the task’s source file.

No local files or database entries were modified during this diagnosis.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Feedback ID: 01a01a4a-dfc7-7212-87ca-a9629b67f3cc

What is the expected behavior?

_No response_

Additional information

Continuation of "What steps can reproduce the bug?"

  1. Open the ChatGPT/Codex desktop app on Windows.
  2. Open any local project containing Codex tasks.
  3. Hover over any task in the sidebar.
  4. Click the three-dot menu.
  5. Select “Archive chats”.
  6. Confirm “Archive all”.
  7. Observe that the archive operation fails and the task remains visible.

The issue also reproduces from the Recent Tasks menu and through the app’s supported native task-management action.

Expected result:
The task should disappear from the active sidebar and appear under Settings > Archived chats.

Actual result:
The operation fails with error code -32603 and os error 2. The task remains active and the Archived chats list remains empty.

Frequency:
100%. It occurs with every local task and project tested.

Troubleshooting already performed:

  • Updated the app to the latest available version.
  • Fully closed and reopened the app.
  • Restarted Windows.
  • Waited until the following day and tested again.
  • Tested several different tasks and projects.
  • Tested both the sidebar and Recent Tasks menus.
  • Confirmed that the source task files exist.

Latest reproduction:
2026-08-19 at approximately 11:05, America/Sao_Paulo (UTC-03:00).

View original on GitHub ↗

4 Comments

github-actions[bot] contributor · 8 days ago

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

  • #39471
  • #39468
  • #39275
  • #39239
  • #39130

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phillipnhenry · 8 days ago

I independently reproduced this exact failure on Windows with Microsoft Store package OpenAI.Codex 26.814.5517.0.

My additional impact finding concerns recurring automations: 19 completed runs from one daily automation accumulated in the active sidebar because neither manual archiving nor explicit automation self-archiving could complete.

The operation returned:

failed to archive session: thread-store internal error: failed to archive thread: The system cannot find the file specified. (os error 2)

I also observed that some archive calls resolve at the tool-call transport level while their returned content reports failure. A caller can therefore mistakenly report the archive as successful unless it inspects the returned text. The tasks remained visible, proving the operation had not succeeded.

Issues #39600, #39239, and #39130 appear to provide a likely implementation clue involving thread/resume, the stored rollout_path, and Windows extended-length paths beginning with \\?\.

Full sanitized report and broader Windows reliability timeline:

https://github.com/phillipnhenry/chatgpt-windows-app-postmortem/blob/main/Codex-Windows-Task-Archive-Failure-20260819.md

My independently submitted report is #39638.

phillipnhenry · 7 days ago

This is not a newly discovered defect, and releasing 26.818.2441.0 without fixing it is unacceptable.

As of August 20, 2026:

  • The exact Windows thread-store os error 2 archive failure has been publicly reported since August 18 in #39130 and independently diagnosed in #39239.
  • Windows archive operations failing outright have been reported since July 31 in #36289.
  • Archive state being reversed, archived tasks returning to the active sidebar, and related archive/UI failures have been reported since May 21 in #23851, #25541, and #25713.
  • The likely underlying Windows \\?\ path-normalization problem has been publicly documented since May 17 in #23193.

Therefore, the precise current error has been known for two days, Windows archiving failures have been known for at least 20 days, and the broader archive/sidebar/path-state defect family has been public for roughly three months.

Microsoft Store and the running Codex processes now both report version 26.818.2441.0. I tested archiving again after the update. A few attempts appeared to work, but further testing confirmed that the failure remains intermittent and is not fixed.

The update itself closed Codex, presented ambiguous download and installation states, promised that Codex would restart automatically, and then failed to restart it. After I manually relaunched the application, I discovered that the known archive defect was still present.

Shipping another Windows build without resolving this defect, clearly identifying it as a known issue, or providing a supported workaround is not an acceptable release practice. Users should not have to repeatedly test a basic task-management feature after every forced or disruptive update to determine whether a publicly documented defect was quietly ignored again.

Please provide a substantive status update:

  1. Is the \\?\ rollout-path handling defect accepted as the cause?
  2. Is a fix implemented or scheduled?
  3. Which build will contain it?
  4. What regression coverage is being added for archive, restore, sidebar reconciliation, and recurring-automation cleanup?
  5. What supported repair path will be provided for already-affected local task stores?
phillipnhenry · 7 days ago

Follow-up: task archiving appears improved in Microsoft Store version 26.818.3698.0, but the app is still unstable.
I successfully archived 45 tasks in several batches, and the sidebar updated correctly. Shortly afterward, however, Codex crashed again.
The archive operation may now function, but the overall task-management workflow cannot be considered reliably fixed while routine use still causes the app to crash.