Desktop app freezes when opening an 82 MiB task history on macOS
Nobody has claimed this yet.
- Dominant language
- Rust
- Stars
- 125k
- Forks
- 19.4k
- PR merge metrics
- PR metrics pending
Description
What version of the Codex App are you using (From “About Codex” dialog)?
Installed app bundle reports version 26.903.71938 (build 8576), bundle identifier com.openai.codex, display name ChatGPT. Version read from Info.plist, not the About dialog.
What subscription do you have?
Pro
What platform is your computer?
macOS 26.6.2, Apple Silicon.
uname -mprs: Darwin 25.6.0 arm64 arm
What issue are you seeing?
Clicking an existing large task freezes the desktop app. This is the user's observed behavior; an agent has not independently reproduced the UI freeze.
The affected local transcript measures 86,142,506 bytes (82.15 MiB), with 9,896 JSONL records. The largest individual record is 2,263,383 bytes (2.16 MiB). A backend read of the task's recent history succeeds, and the task was idle when inspected.
What steps can reproduce the bug?
Feedback ID: 01a0920e-e85c-7f12-a5e3-27ea2fa0f057
Affected task/session ID: 01a07a1b-5d3a-7a61-b241-028ed75605db
- Open the desktop app.
- Click the affected existing task, or navigate to codex://threads/01a07a1b-5d3a-7a61-b241-028ed75605db.
- The user reports that the app freezes when opening it.
What is the expected behavior?
The task should open while the app remains responsive, including with a large persisted history.
Additional information
Large-history loading or rendering is a hypothesis, not an established root cause. The transcript contains 16 compaction records and 6 embedded image data URLs. No private transcript contents are attached.
Possibly related: #22991. This report provides a macOS case triggered by opening a task, with a feedback ID and measured transcript size substantially below the approximately 500 MB histories described there.
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start by reproducing the freeze through the codex://threads/01a07a1b-5d3a-7a61-b241-028ed75605db entry point, using the supplied feedback and session IDs. Investigate large-history loading or rendering around the 86,142,506-byte transcript, comparing behavior with the related #22991 report. Done means the task opens on macOS while the desktop app remains responsive.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- macos, rust
- Domain
- desktop, performance
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 4/5
- Estimated time
- 3-5 days
- Activity status
- Active
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 45/100