Windows: Chrome browsing history import fails with “Make sure Chrome is fully closed” despite unlocked, readable history databases

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

26.901.6511.0, verified from the installed Windows package (Get-AppxPackage OpenAI.Codex), rather than the About dialog.

What subscription do you have?

ChatGPT Pro.

What platform is your computer?

Microsoft Windows 11 Pro, 10.0.26100, 64-bit.
Chrome version: 152.0.7977.83 (from Chrome's BLBeacon registry value).

What issue are you seeing?

Importing Chrome data into the Codex built-in browser reports Import complete, but browsing history fails. The result dialog shows:

• Saved passwords: green success check.
• Cookies: green success check.
• Browsing history: red failure icon, with “Make sure Chrome is fully closed”.

The history failure persists even when no Chrome processes are running, the source history databases are readable and unlocked, and Codex has been fully closed and reopened. The recovery message gives no actionable explanation for this case.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

1. On the affected Windows installation, open Codex Settings and use the browser data import flow to import Chrome passwords, cookies, and browsing history.
2. Observe the result above: passwords and cookies succeed, but browsing history fails.
3. Fully close Chrome. Verify that no Chrome/Chromium processes remain, including background processes.
4. Click Retry in the import result dialog. Browsing history still fails with the same message.
5. Fully close and reopen Codex while leaving Chrome closed, then retry the import. The same failure remains.

This reproduces repeatedly on this installation. Reproduction on a clean installation or another machine has not been tested. The exact Chrome profile selected in the dialog was not recorded; the standard Chrome user-data directory contains Default, Guest Profile, Profile 1, and Profile 2.

What is the expected behavior?

Chrome browsing history should import successfully when the source is accessible. If import fails for another reason, the UI should report the actual failure or provide a diagnostic error code instead of only instructing the user to close Chrome.

Additional information

Read-only diagnostics performed on the affected machine:

• Get-Process -Name chrome and a Win32_Process check for Chrome/Chromium found no running processes.
• All four source History files under Chrome's standard user-data directory could be opened for read access with FileShare.None, then immediately closed. No sharing violation was returned at the time of the checks.
• Each source database could be opened using Python SQLite with mode=ro.
• PRAGMA quick_check returned ok for all four databases.
• Queries against both urls and visits succeeded. Default, Profile 1, and Profile 2 contained history; Guest Profile was empty.
• Restarting Codex did not resolve the failure (confirmed by the user).
• Inspection of the installed app bundle found the message under settings.browserUse.profileImport.historyRetryGuidance, described as recovery guidance when Chrome browsing history could not be imported completely. The message itself therefore does not establish that a Chrome process is still running.
• Recent Codex desktop logs inspected during troubleshooting did not expose a history-specific failure reason. An earlier cookie-copy failure was present, but it does not explain this history-only result and is not being treated as the cause.

These checks rule out an obvious persistent Chrome process or source sharing lock at the time of inspection; they do not establish the underlying cause or rule out importer-context permissions, compatibility, destination database issues, or a transient lock during import.

No browser databases, cookies, passwords, visited URLs, or unredacted application logs are attached. Browser data was not modified during diagnosis. The dialog is transcribed above instead of attaching a screenshot.

Start at the browser data import flow and the settings.browserUse.profileImport.historyRetryGuidance entry point. Reproduce the Windows import with the available Chrome History databases, then trace why the history-only failure selects the generic closed-Chrome message. Done means the underlying failure is surfaced accurately or diagnostic guidance is provided, with coverage for this case.