[macOS][Desktop][multi-host] Sidebar grouping resets and archived tasks resurrect after restart

What version of the Codex App are you using?

• Unified ChatGPT/Codex Desktop for macOS: 26.820.60940
• Bundle build: 7119
• Subscription: paid ChatGPT subscription (exact tier omitted)

What platform and connection topology are you using?

• macOS 26.5.2 (25F84), Apple silicon
• Three macOS development hosts connected to one Desktop client
• Tasks are available through the local host plus SSH-discovered and Remote Control projections
• All supported connection paths are enabled simultaneously

This multi-host topology may be important. The failure is most visible when the sidebar must reconcile tasks from several physical hosts and more than one projection type.

What issue are you seeing?

The Codex Desktop left sidebar does not preserve or deterministically reconstruct its task-list state across a full quit/restart or an app update.

The Recents task view supports:

• grouping by Project;
• grouping by Connection;
• one combined list; and
• ordering such as Priority or Latest Updated.

My preferred configuration is group by Project and Latest Updated. That configuration and the resulting task organization are reliable only within the current app session.

After quitting and restarting Codex—or after an app update—the sidebar can rehydrate into a different and internally inconsistent state:

1. Tasks that were grouped under their projects move into Recents as apparently projectless items.
2. Only a subset may be misplaced; which tasks move is non-deterministic.
3. Group by Connection is also inconsistent: task placement does not reliably correspond to the physical host or connection projection, and the resulting buckets can appear arbitrary.
4. Tasks that were archived, or deleted/removed through the available UI, can reappear in the active sidebar after restart.
5. Re-archiving a resurrected task removes it from the current active list, but opening Archived tasks can still show an empty list.
6. A later restart can resurrect tasks again, requiring the same manual cleanup.

The result is that active, archived, project-grouped, projectless, and connection-grouped views appear to be reading or hydrating from different state owners.

Steps to reproduce

The exact subset of affected tasks varies, but the overall failure is repeatable.

1. Connect Codex Desktop to several existing development hosts through all available connection methods, including SSH discovery and Remote Control.
2. Have multiple tasks across several saved projects and hosts.
3. In the sidebar, select:

• Group by Project
• Latest Updated

1. Confirm that tasks appear under the intended projects.
2. Archive several obsolete tasks. If deletion/removal is available for a task, remove one as well.
3. Confirm that those tasks disappear from the active list.
4. Fully quit Codex Desktop.
5. Relaunch the app, or install an update and relaunch.
6. Inspect the sidebar:

• some formerly project-grouped tasks may now appear under Recents;
• Group by Connection may place tasks inconsistently;
• archived or removed tasks may have reappeared as active.

1. Archive a resurrected task again.
2. Open the Archived tasks view.
3. Observe that the active row disappears, but the Archived view may be empty.
4. Restart again and observe that stale tasks may reappear.

Expected behavior

• The selected grouping and sorting preferences survive restart and app updates.
• A task has one canonical identity even when it has local, SSH-discovered, or Remote Control projections.
• Project grouping is derived from one durable, authoritative project assignment.
• Connection grouping consistently represents the task's actual physical host and selected projection.
• Archive and deletion tombstones are durable and take precedence over stale catalog or remote projection data.
• An archived task appears in Archived tasks and remains absent from active lists after restart.
• A deleted task never reappears.
• Startup hydration converges to the same result every time for unchanged underlying state.

Actual impact

Impact: high.

This is not cosmetic. The sidebar is the primary navigation and continuity surface for long-running Codex work. Restarting the app can destroy carefully curated project organization, make dead work look active again, and make archive/delete actions impossible to trust. With many projects and tasks across three hosts, manually reclassifying and re-archiving items after every restart is expensive and error-prone.

The inconsistent empty Archived view also prevents users from determining whether an archive action persisted or only changed the current renderer state.

Possible root-cause family

This is an inference from the visible behavior, not a confirmed diagnosis.

Startup/update hydration may be merging several catalogs or projections without one authoritative precedence order:

• saved Desktop project assignments;
• task-list/project projections;
• local and remote host catalogs;
• SSH-discovered and Remote Control projections;
• active task rows;
• archive/delete tombstones; and
• persisted sidebar grouping preferences.

A stale projection may be able to recreate an active row after a newer archive/delete state, while the Archived view reads a different or incomplete catalog. Project and connection grouping may likewise consume inconsistent identifiers.

Related reports, but not duplicates

• #40935 — Desktop ignores an App Server projectId and places a remote task in Recents.
• #39764 — a project-scoped task temporarily reports projectId: null and changes after restart.
• #37021 — task-list projectId disagrees with an existing direct project assignment.
• #35088 — sidebar project/task catalog does not populate after update.
• #39161 — archive teardown can fail to persist, but that report is Windows-specific and does not cover resurrection plus an empty Archived view.
• #25498 — requests supported project reassignment, but this report concerns loss of already-established organization and lifecycle state.

This report combines behavior not covered by any one of those issues: persistent view-mode loss, project and connection misgrouping, and archive/delete resurrection in a three-host SSH/Remote Control topology.

Privacy

Task IDs, project names, sidebar titles, account identifiers, absolute paths, and private task contents are intentionally omitted. Sanitized task/host coordinates or logs can be provided privately if maintainers identify the relevant diagnostic surface.