macOS in-app browser: policy verification unavailable, followed by 30-second timeouts

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

Application logs report release 26.911.61220. This value was obtained from logs, not independently confirmed in the About dialog.

What subscription do you have?

Not included in this report.

What platform is your computer?

macOS; Codex In-app Browser (iab). Observed on September 18, 2026.

What issue are you seeing?

A read-only public web search failed with a browser policy-verification error. Subsequent attempts to open the same URL timed out after approximately 30 seconds without returning page content.

Initial error:

Browser Use could not complete this action because a browser security check was unavailable. Reason: The admin-enforced policy could not be verified, so access was not granted. Browser use could not verify the admin-enforced policy before accessing https://www.bing.com. This failure may be temporary. The agent may retry after the issue is resolved, but must not bypass browser security controls or use an indirect workaround.

Subsequent error:

js execution timed out; kernel reset, rerun your request

What steps can reproduce the bug?

1. In a desktop task, ask the assistant to research public websites.
2. Have Browser Use create an in-app browser tab for:
   https://www.bing.com/search?q=site%3Aoshwhub.com+ST7789+%E5%B1%8F%E5%B9%95
3. Observe the policy-verification error.
4. Retry the original navigation. In this session, subsequent attempts timed out at approximately 30 seconds.

The later tool invocation was:

await cua.createBrowserTab("iab", "https://www.bing.com/search?q=site%3Aoshwhub.com+ST7789+%E5%B1%8F%E5%B9%95", { visible: false });

This documents the observed sequence in one task; reproducibility in a fresh task has not been established.

What is the expected behavior?

The browser should complete the applicable policy check and load an authorized public page. If access cannot be granted, the error should distinguish a policy denial from an unavailable policy check, a browser-session connection failure, or a network timeout, with actionable recovery guidance.

Additional information

Read-only diagnostics found:

• The local HTTP/HTTPS proxy is 127.0.0.1:20857. System and Codex proxy settings agree.

• A TCP connection to that proxy port succeeded. This does not establish end-to-end connectivity to the website or policy service.

• Earlier logs for the same task repeatedly reported:

  [browser-use-iab-api] IAB_LIFECYCLE iab backend info request failed
  No ChatGPT browser route is available for browser session <redacted-session-id>
  

• Later logs showed IAB_LIFECYCLE captured session route for the same task, but a subsequent navigation still timed out.

• No security controls were disabled and no proxy settings were changed during these diagnostics.

The relationship between the session-route error, policy-verification failure, and later timeouts is not established. Please help identify whether these are related and how normal browser access can be restored.

Related reports: #44621 and #42466 describe the same policy-verification message with Chrome. This report adds an in-app-browser occurrence, session-route log observations, and subsequent timeouts; it may belong to the same underlying issue.

Local usernames, filesystem paths, and session identifiers have been omitted.

Begin with the browser-use-iab-api lifecycle logs and the cua.createBrowserTab invocation, comparing the session-route failure with the later policy-check error and timeout. Reproduce the sequence if possible, then verify that authorized pages load or that errors distinguish policy denial, unavailable checks, session connection failure, and network timeout with recovery guidance.