Bug Report: Multiple ChatGPT Desktop Issues — Voice Conversation Sync, Unexpected Desktop-Only Chat, Internal Prompt Exposure, and Classic Mode Selection

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

26.908.40834

What subscription do you have?

ChatGPT Plus

What platform is your computer?

No response

What issue are you seeing?

Bug Report: Multiple ChatGPT Desktop Issues — Voice Conversation Sync, Unexpected Desktop-Only Chat, Internal Prompt Exposure, and Classic Mode Selection

I am experiencing several related issues across the new ChatGPT Desktop app and ChatGPT Classic.

Environment

• New ChatGPT Desktop app (the app previously known as Codex, now containing both ChatGPT and Codex modes)
• ChatGPT mode → Chat
• ChatGPT Classic desktop app
• ChatGPT Web
• ChatGPT Mobile
• Same ChatGPT account across all clients
• Approximate time observed: September 13, 2026, around 8:36 PM (UTC+8)

Issue 1 — Voice conversation history is incomplete in the new ChatGPT Desktop app

I have existing ChatGPT conversations that contain both text interactions and voice interactions.

The same conversations appear correctly on:

• ChatGPT Mobile
• ChatGPT Web
• ChatGPT Classic

On those clients, both my voice questions and the assistant's responses are present.

However, when I open the same conversation in the new ChatGPT Desktop app → ChatGPT mode → Chat, the conversation history is incomplete.

Text-based interactions generally appear correctly, but many assistant responses corresponding to questions I asked using Voice are missing.

This does not appear to be simple synchronization delay because the missing content follows a pattern: text interactions are preserved much more reliably, while many Voice-related assistant responses are absent.

This suggests that the new Desktop app may be using a different conversation representation, synchronization layer, cache, or projection of the canonical ChatGPT conversation, and Voice-generated events/messages may not be mapped correctly.

Issue 2 — An unexpected Chat was automatically created without any user action

While investigating Issue 1, a completely new conversation appeared automatically in:

New ChatGPT Desktop → ChatGPT mode → Chat

I did NOT create this conversation.

This unexpected conversation:

• Exists only in the new ChatGPT Desktop app.
• Does NOT appear in ChatGPT Web.
• Does NOT appear in ChatGPT Mobile.
• Does NOT appear in ChatGPT Classic.
• Is shown under ChatGPT/Chat, NOT under Codex mode.
• Can be opened and continued as a normal conversation.

This is particularly unusual because normal conversations created in ChatGPT/Chat are expected to synchronize across ChatGPT clients.

Issue 3 — The unexpected conversation exposed what appears to be an internal Voice transcript wrapper prompt

The first user message of this automatically created Desktop-only conversation was not written or submitted by me.

Instead, it contained an internal-looking instruction beginning with:

"The conversation below is an SRT transcript. Based on the transcript, provide the assistant response to the latest user turn..."

It then included:

• The current date and time
• My timezone
• An SRT-formatted transcript of my original Voice conversation
• user: and assistant: message entries
• Instructions telling the model how to respond to the latest user turn

In other words, content that appears to be an internal prompt used to transform/process a Voice conversation was exposed as a visible user message.

The SRT transcript corresponds to the original Voice conversation in which I was reporting the Desktop synchronization problem.

The sequence therefore appears to be something like:

Original Mobile Voice conversation → Voice/SRT processing → internal wrapper prompt → unexpected Desktop-only Chat created

This unexpected conversation is the conversation from which I am reporting the issue now.

Issue 4 — ChatGPT Classic cannot actually switch model/reasoning modes

There is a separate issue with the ChatGPT Classic desktop application.

ChatGPT Classic displays my normal conversation history correctly, including the Voice-related content that is missing from the new Desktop app.

However, model/reasoning mode selection appears to be broken.

When I attempt to select different available chat/reasoning modes, the selection does not take effect. Regardless of what I select, conversations continue to operate in Auto mode.

Clicking/selecting other modes appears to have no functional effect.

Therefore I currently have two desktop clients with complementary problems:

New ChatGPT Desktop

• Supports the newer ChatGPT interface and modes.
• Conversation history is incomplete for Voice interactions.
• Unexpectedly created a Desktop-only Chat.
• Exposed an internal-looking SRT transcript wrapper prompt inside that Chat.

ChatGPT Classic

• Displays the normal synchronized conversation history correctly.
• Cannot reliably change the chat/model/reasoning mode; it remains on Auto.

Expected behavior

1. A ChatGPT conversation should contain the same message history across Mobile, Web, Classic, and the new Desktop ChatGPT/Chat interface.
2. Voice interactions and their assistant responses should not disappear when viewing the conversation in the new Desktop app.
3. The Desktop app should not automatically create a new user-visible Chat without user action.
4. Internal Voice-processing prompts, SRT transcript wrappers, or other internal instructions should never appear as user-authored messages.
5. Conversations shown under ChatGPT → Chat should synchronize normally across ChatGPT clients.
6. ChatGPT Classic should respect the selected model/reasoning mode instead of always remaining in Auto.

Why I believe these issues may be related

The combination of symptoms suggests there may be a problem in the new Desktop app's conversation synchronization or conversion layer, particularly for Voice-generated conversation events.

The original conversation is complete on Mobile/Web/Classic but incomplete on the new Desktop app. At the same time, Voice content from that original conversation was apparently converted into an SRT transcript and unexpectedly persisted as a separate Desktop-only Chat, including the internal wrapper instruction.

This may indicate an issue around Voice transcript processing, conversation/event mapping, Desktop conversation persistence, or synchronization between the new Desktop Chat system and the canonical ChatGPT conversation history.

I have kept the unexpected Desktop-only conversation available in case its conversation/thread identifiers or associated server logs are useful for debugging.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Feedback ID: no-active-thread-01a09ada-008e-7191-af62-a51e9ea2a6d5

What is the expected behavior?

No response

Additional information

No response

No source file, test, or code entry point is identified in the report. Start by reproducing the four reported behaviors across the new Desktop app, Classic, Web, and Mobile using the supplied feedback ID and the described Voice conversation. Done means the separate symptoms are isolated into reproducible cases with synchronized history, no unintended chat or prompt exposure, and working mode selection.