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Local Codex Desktop sessions disappear from sidebar after restart (Windows App) #13713
Closed as duplicate
Description
What version of the Codex App are you using (From “About Codex” dialog)?
26.305.950.0
What subscription do you have?
Business
What platform is your computer?
Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.26200.0
What issue are you seeing?
Local Codex Desktop sessions are written to disk correctly but are not shown in the Codex Windows app after restarting the application.
The sessions remain present in the filesystem, but the sidebar only displays Cloud tasks.
What steps can reproduce the bug?
- Start the Codex Windows app.
- Create a new local session (Codex Desktop).
- Confirm that the session appears in the sidebar.
- Restart the Codex Windows app.
- After restart, the local session is no longer visible in the sidebar.
What is the expected behavior?
Local Codex Desktop sessions should persist and appear in the sidebar after restarting the application.
Additional information
- Local sessions disappear from the sidebar after restart.
- Only Cloud tasks are displayed.
- Local session files still exist on disk.
Session files remain present in:
%USERPROFILE%.codex\sessions
Example:
rollout-2026-03-06T09-04-26-019cc22d-2cb7-7032-9762-64869a590f80.jsonl
The session metadata inside the file appears valid:
{
"type": "session_meta",
"originator": "Codex Desktop",
"source": "vscode"
}
Additional Notes
- The issue appears similar to previously reported desktop issues where the UI ignores local sessions and only displays cloud threads (MacOS, but already fixed)
- Sessions are not lost; they remain readable in the .codex/sessions directory.
- This behavior occurs specifically in the Codex Windows Desktop App after restart.
Activity
github-actions commentedon Mar 6, 2026
Potential duplicates detected. Please review them and close your issue if it is a duplicate.
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klinki commentedon Mar 16, 2026
Yeah this just happened to me, it got me a bit worried - luckily it seems data should be still in
.codexdirectory, just the desktop app ignores them for some reason :(Do you know if there is any workaround to get them back until they make an official fix?
panadenbaer commentedon Mar 16, 2026
klinki commentedon Mar 17, 2026
My issue was different after all. It was misconfigured CODEX_HOME - speckit changed that and I didn't notice. So luckily I have all data back :)
Lukas-EyeC commentedon Mar 18, 2026
I have the same issue with Win 11
panadenbaer commentedon Mar 18, 2026
Lukas-EyeC commentedon Mar 18, 2026
No - local windows path. Only one of three threads are visibile in the UI - but the sessions are present in sessions folder, they are present int the session_index.jsonl and also seem to exist in state_5.sqlite (at least mentioned - I just looked with a text editor into it). Codex 26.313.451514
panadenbaer commentedon Mar 18, 2026
SproutSeeds commentedon Mar 18, 2026
I read through the current thread more closely, and the unresolved Windows report looks narrower than the earlier
CODEX_HOMEcase.session_index.jsonlis not what decides sidebar visibility directly;thread/listgoes throughRolloutRecorder::list_threads(...)and only uses the session index for thread names.codex-rs/core/src/rollout/list.rswas requiring both session metadata and a persisteduser_messageevent before returning a thread item.codex-coretest: one normal thread plus two metadata-only session rollouts yielded only the normal thread on the fallback path. Relaxing that filter to require session metadata only brought all three back.So the narrow claim I can support is: there is a real fallback-listing bug here for stored sessions that exist on disk but have not yet persisted a qualifying user-message event. That seems compatible with "only one of three threads is visible after restart."
If anyone on Windows can confirm whether the missing threads were created or resumed before their first typed prompt was persisted, that would help confirm this is the same slice.
spl1974 commentedon Mar 18, 2026
I have the same problem. Files stored on network folder. #15052
panadenbaer commentedon Mar 24, 2026
I found a workaround that fixed missing local sessions in the Codex Windows app for me:
Delete the following files in your
.codexfolder:Then restart the Codex app.
Notes:
.codex/sessions/*.jsonl)marciocamello commentedon Apr 1, 2026
do it this and solve ok on windwows or similar for mac/linux
setx CODEX_HOME 'C:\Users\your_user.codex'
filasfermon commentedon Jun 19, 2026
I am experiencing the same issue on Windows 11.
Feedback ID:
019ec2a5-2b4c-7a72-999c-145bfdd16031
The Codex Desktop sidebar and
codex resume --allshow only 4 threads, althoughcodex doctor --json --allreports:At least one hidden thread can still be opened successfully with
codex resume <SESSION_ID>, but it does not reappear in the Desktop sidebar afterward.Changing the sidebar to Chronological and checking Archived chats did not solve the issue.