[Windows][26.810.7004.0] Codex run drives node.exe to ~55 GB virtual memory and crashes/reboots Windows

What version of the Codex App are you using?

• Codex Desktop: 26.810.7004.0
• Bundled Codex CLI: 0.148.0-alpha.9
• Platform: Windows 11 x64
• Subscription: ChatGPT Pro 200

Summary

Codex Desktop is reproducibly triggering severe system-wide instability on my Windows machine. The strongest incident was captured by Windows Event Viewer: a Codex-started node.exe process grew from ~33.9 GB to ~55.0 GB of virtual memory in about one minute, Windows logged Resource Exhaustion Detector events, and the machine then automatically rebooted after a bugcheck.

This is not a generic unstable-PC issue in my testing: I worked on the same machine for a full day with Codex/ChatGPT Desktop closed and had no instability. The next morning I launched Codex, started two runs, and within ~5 minutes the same failure chain returned.

Reproduction / observed failure chain

1. Use the machine normally for a full day with Codex/ChatGPT Desktop closed.
   • Result: no freezes, black screens, desktop corruption, or reboot.
2. Launch Codex Desktop.
3. Start normal Codex work.
4. Within minutes, the failure escalates:
   • Chrome becomes unresponsive / dark;
   • Codex becomes unresponsive / dark;
   • the Windows desktop background disappears;
   • Windows eventually reboots automatically.

Windows Event Viewer evidence from 2026-08-16

Resource Exhaustion Detector — Event ID 2004

At 11:27:40:

• node.exe PID 10308: 33,896,910,848 bytes virtual memory
• another node.exe PID 25312: 3,266,023,424 bytes
• explorer.exe: 2,889,867,264 bytes

At 11:28:40, one minute later:

• the same node.exe PID 10308: 55,018,573,824 bytes virtual memory
• explorer.exe: 2,921,197,568 bytes
• codex.exe: 529,600,512 bytes

So one node.exe increased from ~33.9 GB to ~55.0 GB in roughly one minute immediately before the system crash/reboot.

System crash / reboot

At 11:30:41:

• Kernel-Power Event ID 41: system restarted without a clean shutdown.

At 11:30:52:

• Microsoft-Windows-WER-SystemErrorReporting Event ID 1001
• Bugcheck: 0x0000010d
• Parameters: (0x0000000000000005, 0x0000667840b50648, 0x000000000000100a, 0xffff9987baf11c40)
• A minidump was written under C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\...

At 11:30:53:

• Event ID 6008: previous shutdown was unexpected.

Controlled reproduction after restart

I then reproduced the runaway behavior more carefully.

Before starting a run:

• Codex was open and idle;
• no node.exe or node_repl.exe process was present initially;
• Browser, Chrome, and Computer Use plugins were disabled;
• the machine was responsive.

After opening the existing run screen (without starting/resuming it), node.exe and node_repl.exe appeared at a small baseline.

After starting one normal Codex run:

• node.exe PID 9132 reached about 1064 MB private memory;
• approximately 11 seconds later the same PID was at about 1816.5 MB private memory;
• multiple node_repl processes were also visible;
• the run became difficult/impossible to stop from the UI;
• I force-terminated Codex/ChatGPT through Task Manager before Windows reached the same ~55 GB state again.

This happened with only one controlled run and with Browser/Chrome/Computer Use disabled.

Current config/runtime observations

The user config contains one bundled Node REPL MCP entry pointing to Codex's own runtime:

[mcp_servers.node_repl]
command = '...\\OpenAI\\Codex\\runtimes\\cua_node\\...\\bin\\node_repl.exe'
startup_timeout_sec = 120

and its environment points to Codex's bundled node.exe.

A manual enabled = false added under [mcp_servers.node_repl] did not persist: Codex Desktop removed that line again after restart.

codex doctor --summary on the bundled CLI reports:

• 16 OK
• 0 failures
• state databases healthy
• auth/config/network healthy
• 452 active rollout files
• 55.86 GB of active rollout data on disk

Possible amplifier: very large image-heavy rollouts

I am not claiming this is the sole root cause, but the profile also contains extremely large Codex rollout files.

The largest active rollout is 5.64 GB. A read-only scan of that one rollout found:

• data:image: 1504
• base64: 1607
• "type":"compacted": 75

Several other active rollouts are 3–4.7 GB.

That looks potentially related to #34863 (large image-heavy rollouts / repeated inline PNG data retained across compaction), and may amplify the memory problem when old sessions are opened or resumed.

Expected behavior

• One normal Codex run should not cause a bundled Node process to allocate tens of gigabytes of virtual memory.
• Helper/MCP/runtime processes should have bounded memory and be reaped or reused correctly.
• Disabling Browser/Chrome/Computer Use should not still allow an uncontrolled Node/Node REPL memory explosion during an ordinary coding run.
• Large local rollouts should be loaded/compacted safely without making the entire Windows session unstable.
• A Codex failure should remain recoverable at the application level and must not take down Windows or force an automatic reboot.

Related issues

This looks closely related to:

• #38825 — Windows Codex creates/retains hundreds of duplicate Node/MCP processes during one task
• #38765 — Windows Codex exhausts commit memory, freezes OS, and crashes
• #38754 — stdio MCP servers repeatedly spawned and not reaped within one task
• #38714 — node_repl workers remain after Code Mode work and correlate with system-wide stalls
• #37672 — Windows code-mode host / Node helper explosion; enabled = false can be ineffective
• #34863 — oversized image-heavy rollouts and compaction amplification
• #38820 — Windows 26.810.7004.0 system-wide performance regression

Additional information / diagnostics available

I can provide sanitized additional diagnostics if maintainers want them, including:

• the Windows minidump metadata;
• additional Event Viewer output;
• process/memory screenshots from the controlled reproduction;
• sanitized config excerpts;
• rollout-size statistics without exposing private conversation contents.

I am intentionally not attaching raw rollout files, databases, local project paths, conversation content, or authentication data because they contain private material.

Start with the bundled node.exe and node_repl.exe processes described in the controlled reproduction, then review the related process-lifecycle issues #38825, #38754, and #38714. Reproduce one normal run with Browser, Chrome, and Computer Use disabled while tracking process and memory growth. Done means helper processes are bounded or reaped and a normal run does not destabilize Windows.