Codex desktop shows completed subagents as active and processing indefinitely

What version of the Codex App are you using (From “About Codex” dialog)?

26.818.2872.0 (Windows package OpenAI.Codex_26.818.2872.0_x64)

What subscription do you have?

ChatGPT account; exact subscription tier is not displayed in the Codex App

What platform is your computer?

Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.26200.0 x64

What issue are you seeing?

In the Codex desktop app for Windows, completed subagents remain listed under Active with the status Processing indefinitely.

The panel currently shows Active · 18, even though those subagents already completed their work and returned final results. Some entries have been displayed as processing for several days.

Restarting and reopening the Codex app does not clear or correct the stale entries. The UI therefore suggests that background work is still running when it is not.

Two screenshots are attached showing the stale active count and the completed subagents still marked as processing.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

1. Open a long-running task in Codex desktop.
2. Start multiple subagents during the task.
3. Allow the subagents to complete and return their results.
4. Open the subagent activity panel.
5. Observe that completed subagents remain under Active with status Processing.
6. Close and restart the Codex desktop app.
7. Open the same task again; the stale active entries are still present.

Additional runtime evidence:

• The active-agent runtime listing returns only the root agent.
• Attempting to interrupt one of the displayed subagents by its canonical name returns not_found.
• The task list shows only the current parent task, not the 18 displayed subagents.

This suggests the desktop UI is rendering persisted stale child-run records rather than live agent state.

What is the expected behavior?

Completed subagents should leave the active count and be shown as completed/closed, or be removed from the active list.

The Active counter should match the actual live agent runtime state. Restarting the application should not preserve completed agents as actively processing.

Additional information

Impact: the UI is misleading and gives users no working way to stop or clear the apparent background agents. It also creates concern that resources are still being consumed when no agents are actually running.

No project code, credentials, or private project data are included in this report.

Start by locating the desktop subagent activity panel and the persisted child-run records it displays. Compare those entries with the active-agent runtime listing and task list described in the report. Done means completed subagents leave Active/Processing, the counter matches live runtime state, and restarting the app does not restore stale entries.