macOS desktop app reaches 84.47 GB and triggers application-memory exhaustion

macOS desktop app reaches 84.47 GB and triggers application-memory exhaustion

Observed September 17, 2026 on macOS 26.5.1 (25F80), Apple Silicon, 48 GiB physical RAM. Desktop app version 26.908.70816 (9275); bundle identifier com.openai.codex, app display/process name ChatGPT.

Observed behavior

macOS displayed “Your system has run out of application memory” and attributed 84.47 GB to ChatGPT. Calculator and Simulator were shown paused. The screenshot is retained locally; no screenshot or raw logs are included in this public-ready report.

The preceding desktop process logged activity from 2026-09-17T00:37:41Z to 17:11:07Z. A replacement desktop process launched at 17:14:55Z. After that launch, at approximately 17:29Z, 33 executable processes within the app bundle summed to 4.81 GiB RSS. System swap used was about 5.59 GiB. RSS is not directly comparable with macOS Force Quit application-memory accounting, and this measurement excludes external tool descendants.

Diagnostic leads, not established causes

The preceding app run contains 21,911 occurrences of “ResizeObserver loop completed with undelivered notifications” from the primary desktop renderer between 00:37:56Z and 17:06:46Z. It also contains 8,405 git-init-watcher ENOENT failures for the same removed local project directory. The replacement app run still retries the missing directory; its inspected logs initially contain no ResizeObserver loop errors.

No allocation profile was captured during the 84.47 GB state. A memory leak or unbounded retention is suspected; neither the leaking process nor the allocation source has been proven. The listed errors may be independent symptoms.

Expected behavior and requested investigation

Bound memory over long-running multi-task use, release inactive renderer/task/browser resources, and avoid indefinitely retrying a missing workspace without backoff or cleanup. Investigate renderer ResizeObserver activity and resource retention; inspect missing-workspace watcher cleanup separately. Please advise which diagnostic capture would identify the allocation source if the issue recurs.

Reproduction status

A precise minimal reproduction is unavailable. The current restarted process has not reproduced the previous peak during this investigation. No cache deletion, plugin removal, service termination, or application-bundle modification has been performed.

No source files or tests are named; start with the primary desktop renderer logs, the git-init-watcher retries, and an allocation capture if the peak recurs. Done requires identifying the allocation source and assessing the ResizeObserver and missing-workspace symptoms separately, with evidence of bounded long-running memory use.