macOS desktop: voice activation button disappears after disconnect and requires repeated app restarts

What version of the Codex App are you using?

Current installed macOS desktop app bundle reports 26.915.31945, build 9922. This is the installed version at report time; versions for all previous occurrences are not established.

What subscription do you have?

Not included in this public report.

What platform is your computer?

macOS 26.6.2 (25G83), MacBook Pro.

What issue are you seeing?

After a working voice session disconnects, the voice activation button is no longer visible. I cannot start another voice session because the control itself is missing. Recovery has required killing and reopening the desktop app, sometimes several times. Stopping other work and restarting the app is disruptive and not a reliable in-app recovery path.

This report is specifically about missing UI and failure to restore voice availability, not just a voice session ending.

Evidence distinction:

• Missing-button behavior and repeated restart attempts are user-observed. There is not yet a screenshot of the failed UI state.
• The retained logs independently establish 14 voice connection failures near two hours. This does NOT establish that the button disappeared after all 14 events, and it does not establish the UI root cause.
• Voice is currently working after restart. I am not terminating it to force another reproduction.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

1. Use voice successfully in the desktop app.
2. A voice session disconnects.
3. The voice activation button disappears and does not return to a usable idle/start state.
4. Attempting to start voice again is impossible because the control is absent.
5. Kill and reopen the app; in reported occurrences more than one restart was needed before voice became available again.

These are observed recurrence steps, not a deterministic minimal reproduction. The exact recovery timing and state transition that hides the button still need investigation.

What is the expected behavior?

After a disconnect, retain or restore a usable Start Voice/Reconnect control, or show an actionable explanation if voice is temporarily unavailable. Recovery should not require killing the app or interrupting unrelated running work.

Please investigate and validate this UI recovery path independently from the reason the preceding session ended. Even if a session-duration cap is intended, a missing activation button with no recovery path is still a separate resiliency issue.

Additional information

Connection-loss report: https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/46821

A search found https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/46792, concerning a missing voice button for new chats in ChatGPT Projects on Windows. This report differs: macOS, voice was already working, and the button disappears after disconnect.

The authenticated OpenAI Help Center conversation has already received this distinction. Its automated response could not confirm a human escalation or provide a case number. This is filed through the GitHub route linked by official desktop troubleshooting documentation.

No credentials, conversation transcripts, account email, task identifiers, or raw private logs are included. I am happy to supply relevant sanitized diagnostic metadata through an appropriate support channel.

Start with the macOS desktop voice flow and the linked connection-loss issue #46821, then reproduce a successful voice session followed by disconnect while observing the retained diagnostics. Trace the state transition that controls the voice activation button; done means the control returns to a usable start or reconnect state, or presents an actionable unavailable state without requiring app restarts.