macOS 26.825.41651: Brave/Chrome shown installed but native-host manifests and chrome/latest are missing

Summary

On macOS, ChatGPT Desktop reports the Brave Browser extension as installed and enabled, but the Brave side panel says "Install the app to use ChatGPT in Brave." The desktop app is installed and running.

The bundled external-browser plugin is installed and current, and its signed native-host executable exists in the versioned plugin directory. However, the install/repair flow creates neither the chrome/latest indirection nor the Native Messaging manifest for Brave or Chrome.

This reproduces on a newer build than the related reports #38530 and #37059.

Environment

• ChatGPT Desktop: 26.825.41651 (build 7345)
• Embedded Codex CLI: 0.151.0-alpha.7.1
• macOS: 26.5, Apple Silicon (arm64)
• Brave Browser: 151.1.93.138
• ChatGPT browser extension: 1.2.27268.51612_0
• browser@openai-bundled: installed and enabled, 26.825.41651
• chrome@openai-bundled: installed and enabled, 26.825.41651

Actual behavior

• Brave is running.
• The extension is installed and enabled in the selected Brave profile.
• ChatGPT Settings -> Computer use shows Brave as installed and enabled.
• The Brave extension side panel says the desktop app must be installed.
• The expected Brave manifest is absent:

<home>/Library/Application Support/BraveSoftware/Brave-Browser/NativeMessagingHosts/com.openai.codexextension.json
exists: false
correct: false

• The expected Chrome manifest is also absent, so this is not limited to Brave:

<home>/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/NativeMessagingHosts/com.openai.codexextension.json
exists: false
correct: false

• The current versioned native-host executable does exist:

<home>/.codex/plugins/cache/openai-bundled/chrome/26.825.41651/extension-host/macos/arm64/ChatGPT for Chrome

• The cache root contains the versioned directory but no chrome/latest entry.

Supported recovery attempts

1. Toggled Brave integration off and on in ChatGPT Settings.
2. Removed and reinstalled the Brave extension through ChatGPT Settings.
3. Removed and reinstalled browser@openai-bundled with the official codex plugin manager.
4. Installed chrome@openai-bundled with the official plugin manager.
5. Restarted the internal app service.
6. Fully quit and reopened ChatGPT Desktop.
7. Rechecked Brave and Chrome with the bundled diagnostic scripts.

The UI continued to report success, but the manifests and chrome/latest remained absent.

Expected behavior

Installing or repairing an external browser integration should atomically:

1. install and enable the current bundled Chrome/external-browser plugin;
2. create or update chrome/latest to the active version;
3. create the Native Messaging manifest for every enabled supported Chromium browser, including Brave;
4. verify that the manifest target exists and is executable before showing an installed/healthy state.

Privacy

All account identifiers, usernames, private project paths, browser history, logs, tokens, and screenshots have been omitted. Paths above use <home> intentionally.

Related

• #38530
• #37059
• #31904

Start by reproducing the bundled plugin install or repair flow and checking the reported ~/.codex/plugins/cache/openai-bundled/chrome/26.825.41651 path, chrome/latest entry, and browser NativeMessagingHosts manifests. Trace the diagnostic scripts and plugin-manager entry points mentioned in the issue; done means enabled Brave and Chrome integrations create valid manifests targeting an existing executable and report healthy only after verification.