[ChatGPT Work cloud browser] Native confirm click followed by persistent CDP refresh timeouts; dialog recovery also blocked

What issue are you seeing?

In ChatGPT Work, the managed cloud Chrome/CDP browser became unusable during an authorized application test immediately after a click whose handler calls native window.confirm(). The initial error was:

Input.dispatchMouseEvent timed out

Subsequent operations consistently fail with:

CDP operation refresh tabs timed out after 20000ms

The failure affects tab discovery, navigation in newly created tabs, dialog inspection, Escape, manual handoff, and closing a newly created tab. New-tab creation can return an ID, but this does not restore navigation.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Observed sequence on 2026-09-12 (UTC date; exact onset time unavailable):

1. Use the managed cloud browser for an authenticated web application.
2. Click a button whose application handler invokes window.confirm().
3. The click times out.
4. Attempt tab listing and the documented dialog-inspection/recovery operations: they time out during tab refresh.
5. Create a fresh tab. An ID is returned.
6. Attempt navigation, including to the public OpenAI Help Center: the same tab-refresh timeout occurs.

This describes one affected session, not a confirmed minimal reproduction. A pending native dialog is a hypothesis based on the triggering handler and modal behavior; we could not inspect the dialog or prove the root cause.

What is the expected behavior?

The browser should expose and accept/dismiss native dialogs without blocking the recovery path, or offer a supported way to replace an unusable cloud browser session while preserving the task. A returned tab ID should not be treated as proof that navigation has recovered.

Additional information

• Surface: ChatGPT Work; managed cloud Chrome/CDP browser.
• Only one browser backend was listed in this session; no restart/replacement capability was advertised.
• Shell, application build/tests, and connected deployment services remained usable.
• Attempts to open the Help Center through this browser also failed, so this report uses the GitHub route documented at https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/reference/troubleshooting .
• Related reports found before filing: #37539 (tab creation succeeds but refresh fails), #39950 (handoff/session recovery), #41228 (browser control unavailable). This report adds the native-confirmation triggering sequence and the fact that dialog dismissal/recovery operations themselves cannot get past tab refresh; a common root cause remains unverified.
• Application-side mitigation: replaced native confirmations with explicit in-page dialogs. Local tests pass, but this cannot repair the already affected managed browser, and browser verification remains blocked.
• Please investigate whether native-dialog handling can prevent tab refresh and recovery, and provide a supported autonomous session-replacement path.
• No private application URLs, repository names, credentials, account identifiers, customer data, or session transcripts are attached. Client app version and account plan are not available from this diagnostic surface.

Start by reproducing the reported sequence in the managed cloud Chrome/CDP browser: trigger a native window.confirm(), then test tab refresh, dialog recovery, navigation, and session replacement. Compare the behavior with the expected ability to inspect or dismiss the dialog and recover the browser; the report does not identify repository files or tests.