Codex VS Code Extension becomes all blank

Open 💬 15 comments Opened Jan 21, 2026 by tradingfuturo
💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (github-actions[bot], contributor) responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.

What version of Codex is running?

v0.87.0

What subscription do you have?

Business

Which model were you using?

all of them

What platform is your computer?

Windows 11

What terminal emulator and version are you using (if applicable)?

Visual Studio Code

What issue are you seeing?

Sometimes the extension becomes all blank. It keeps working on the background and even completes according to codex cli history. But becomes impossible to use the extension back again without restarting visual studio code.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

No idea, just working out of the blues it enters that broken state. check the attached screenshot.

What is the expected behavior?

Keep rendering the interface properly.

Additional information

<img width="556" height="916" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/d17b2faa-8753-45c7-abd3-af13589d8a13" />

View original on GitHub ↗

15 Comments

github-actions[bot] contributor · 6 months ago

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

  • #2895
  • #2571

Powered by Codex Action

etraut-openai contributor · 6 months ago

Thanks for the bug report. When this happens, please do the following:

  1. Restart the extension
  2. Find the session that was running at the time you experienced the bug
  3. Use the /feedback slash command to upload logs and session details
  4. Copy the thread ID and post it to this issue

This will allow us to diagnose the problem based on the session details.

tradingfuturo · 5 months ago

I was not using it due to instability (went back to cli), but I switched to trigger the bug. The extension is far better to work than console. Here is the thread ID: 019be379-6935-76d2-abe1-8ab2826026f7

tradingfuturo · 5 months ago

This appears to occur when some console command is executed by Codex. Just a hint. I have not tracked exactly when it happens, but the information could be of help to track the issue. Maybe some unhandled exception that happens and bubbles up manifesting in the GUI. Under the hood it keeps working and completes the task. Only VS extension gets trashed. What I am doing when it happens is that I check with CLI is the task completed and restart VS Code.

WhammyLeaf contributor · 5 months ago

I am experiencing this as well quite often

tiapac · 1 month ago

I am also experiencing this in June. This is extremely frustrating and basically makes Codex unusable for an undefined time.

roke-julian-lockhart · 1 month ago

@etraut-openai, is this an example of the same problem?

<p></p><img width="638" height="695" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/d4bffe3c-0215-4812-a379-1d8d3338f764" /><p></p>

I don't know where one would enter /feedback, to confirm. Regardless, this probably duplicates what issues/8197 describes.

My Environment
  • > ~~~YAML

> Version: 26.5616.30709
> VS Marketplace Link: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=openai.chatgpt
> ~~~

  • <blockquote>

~~~YAML
Version: 1.126.0-insider
Commit: 226cd5d573076e1d3b260d21409538fbc67cb059
Date: 2026-06-16T21:33:37-07:00
Electron: 42.2.0
ElectronBuildId: 14159160
Chromium: 148.0.7778.97
Node.js: 24.15.0
V8: 14.8.178.14-electron.0
OS: Linux x64 7.0.12-201.fc44.x86_64
~~~

</blockquote>

danailvidev · 18 days ago

I am also experiencing this in July!

Code:
Version: 1.126.0
Commit: 7e7950df89d055b5a378379db9ee14290772148a
Date: 2026-06-23T01:46:13Z
Electron: 42.2.0
ElectronBuildId: 14159160
Chromium: 148.0.7778.97
Node.js: 24.15.0
V8: 14.8.178.14-electron.0
OS: Linux x64 7.0.0-27-generic

Codex:
Version
26.623.81905

EDIT:
clearing the extension/vs code cache fixed the issue

yaronelh · 18 days ago

Same.. strange thing that for me it started appearing recently

thinszx · 17 days ago

same, i've tried to delete ~/.codex/logs_2.sqlite* and relaunch vscode, sometimes it works but soon it's gonna be blank again...

timohuovinen · 12 days ago

I was having that issue in linux ubunutu, but maybe applicable for windows.

After reinstalling vscode and all of codex with all cache clearing, it still didn't work, so after an hour of debugging with Fable and failing and then another hour of debugging with codex cli, I managed to fix it, quoting what it outputted:

# Codex VS Code Blank Screen Date: 2026-07-08 ## Symptom The OpenAI Codex VS Code extension opened to a blank dark webview with only the OpenAI logo visible. The Codex panel also showed an odd horizontal scrollbar at the bottom. This happened on a fresh VS Code install with only openai.chatgpt@26.623.141536 installed. ## What Was Ruled Out - VS Code extension conflicts: code --list-extensions --show-versions showed only openai.chatgpt@26.623.141536. - Codex CLI/auth failure: the bundled CLI at /home/th/.vscode/extensions/openai.chatgpt-26.623.141536-linux-x64/bin/linux-x86_64/codex started successfully outside the VS Code webview and reported idle. - Official Codex docs did not document this exact blank-logo webview state. - The extension host did start Codex successfully: - Activating Codex extension - [CodexMcpConnection] Spawning codex app-server - [CodexMcpConnection] Initialize received id=1 ## Root Cause This was a VS Code/Electron rendering issue, not a Codex account or extension-state issue. The running VS Code process was using the Wayland/Chromium GPU rendering path. After forcing software rendering, the Codex webview loaded normally. The key observed change after restart was that VS Code launched with flags like: - --use-gl=disabled - --disable-gpu-compositing The warning about ~/.codex/.tmp/plugins/plugins/ngs-analysis/.codex-plugin/plugin.json was unrelated. It was only a plugin manifest validation warning and did not prevent the Codex app server from initializing. ## Fix Edit /home/th/.vscode/argv.json and enable hardware acceleration disablement: ``jsonc { "disable-hardware-acceleration": true, "ozone-platform": "x11", "enable-crash-reporter": true, "crash-reporter-id": "321b7146-3f89-42a7-97e2-25f1a4e35f72" } ` Then fully restart VS Code. The important setting was: `jsonc "disable-hardware-acceleration": true ` "ozone-platform": "x11" was also added as a Wayland workaround attempt, but the process list still showed --ozone-platform=wayland; the confirmed effective part was GPU/software rendering disablement. ## Verification After restart, the Codex panel loaded instead of staying on the blank logo screen. Fresh logs still showed the extension and app-server initializing, but the webview rendered correctly. ## Rollback If this causes unrelated VS Code rendering or performance problems, revert /home/th/.vscode/argv.json by commenting out or removing: `jsonc "disable-hardware-acceleration": true, "ozone-platform": "x11", `` Then restart VS Code.
RolandGao · 7 days ago

this issue still happens after adding "disable-hardware-acceleration": true,

RolandGao · 7 days ago

although clicking the codex icon and clicking "move to" secondary side bar worked for me

howienguyen · 5 days ago

Same issue here

<img width="531" height="299" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/2164e182-65ab-45dc-a73a-7e802efbdd0f" />

timohuovinen · 5 days ago

Got the issue again, here's some more details for Ubuntu, hopefully it's helpful to someone

Add this to ~/.vscode/argv.json: ``jsonc { "disable-hardware-acceleration": true } ` Add this to VS Code’s settings.json: `jsonc { "window.restoreWindows": "one" } `` Then fully quit all VS Code windows and reopen a single workspace. The first setting avoids the Electron/Wayland GPU rendering issue. The second prevents multiple restored windows from initializing Codex concurrently after an extension update.