Codex Desktop (Windows): app crashes to error screen with "process is not defined" when a multi-root project is selected

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Assessment

Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Newbie friendliness
45/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Quiet
Domain
desktop, operating-systems

Research direction

Start with the Codex Desktop logs under %LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\OpenAI.Codex_2p2nqsd0c76g0\LocalCache\Local\Codex\Logs\2026\07\24\ and inspect the selected-project entry in ~/.codex/.codex-global-state.json. Reproduce with a project whose rootPaths length is greater than one, then trace the renderer error. Done means multi-root projects no longer show the process-is-not-defined error and the app remains usable after restart.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

app bug windows-os

Summary

Creating a project with two root folders (multi-repo project) on Codex Desktop for Windows causes the renderer to crash with Error: process is not defined. Once such a project is selected, the app shows the full-screen error ("An error occurred / Update ChatGPT / Try again") 13–22 seconds after every launch, making the app permanently unusable until the project entry is manually removed from ~/.codex/.codex-global-state.json.

Environment

  • App: Codex Desktop (MSIX package OpenAI.Codex, version 26.721.3404.0)
  • OS: Windows 11 Home 10.0.26200
  • Reproduced twice on 2026-07-24 with two different multi-root projects (same two repos)

Steps to reproduce

  1. On Codex Desktop, create a new project and select two local repositories as roots (e.g. C:\...\repoA and C:\...\repoB).
  2. The renderer crashes; the full-screen error boundary appears.
  3. Restart the app → it crashes again ~13–22 s after launch, every time, because selected-project in ~/.codex/.codex-global-state.json still points to the multi-root project.

Single-root projects (28 of them across my two state files) never trigger this. The only variable is rootPaths.length > 1.

Log evidence

From %LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\OpenAI.Codex_2p2nqsd0c76g0\LocalCache\Local\Codex\Logs\2026\07\24\codex-desktop-*.log:

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