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Codex crashes on startup on Windows when WSL is enabled but no distro is installed #16169
Description
What version of the Codex App are you using (From “About Codex” dialog)?
Latest version (installed from Microsoft Store)
What subscription do you have?
Individual (ChatGPT)
What platform is your computer?
Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.26200.0 x64
What issue are you seeing?
Codex crashes immediately on startup with the following error:
An error has occurred
Codex crashed with the following error:
(code=3221225781, signal=null)
Most recent error: None
Environment:
- Windows 10/11
- Codex (latest version from Microsoft Store)
- WSL feature is enabled
- No WSL distributions installed (wsl -l -v shows none)
Steps to reproduce:
- Enable WSL Windows feature (without installing any distro)
- Launch Codex
- Codex crashes immediately
Expected behavior:
Codex should either fall back to native Windows execution (PowerShell) or show a clear error.
Actual behavior:
Codex crashes immediately with no actionable error message.
Additional context:
My codex-global-state.json does not contain any WSL-related settings:
{
"electron-main-window-bounds": {
"x": 744,
"y": 295,
"width": 800,
"height": 600,
"isMaximized": false
}
}
Workaround:
Manually forcing Windows mode fixes the issue:
{
"runCodexInWindowsSubsystemForLinux": false,
"integratedTerminalShell": "powershell"
}
Hypothesis:
Codex detects WSL availability but does not check whether a valid distro is installed, leading to a crash.
What steps can reproduce the bug?
- Enable the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) feature
- Ensure no WSL distributions are installed (
wsl -l -vshows none) - Start Codex from the desktop or Start menu
- Codex crashes immediately with exit code 3221225781
What is the expected behavior?
No response
Additional information
No response
Activity
github-actions commentedon Mar 29, 2026
Potential duplicates detected. Please review them and close your issue if it is a duplicate.
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1529119384 commentedon Mar 29, 2026
1529119384 commentedon Mar 29, 2026
Resolution
I was able to resolve this on Windows by repairing/reinstalling the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable packages.
Although the crash initially looked related to WSL detection, the actual root cause on my machine was a broken/conflicting VC++ runtime installation. After reinstalling the VC++ redistributables, Codex started normally.
What fixed it
Uninstall existing Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2022 Redistributable packages:
Reboot Windows.
Reinstall the latest official packages from Microsoft:
Launch Codex again.
Notes
code=3221225781on this machine was resolved by fixing the VC++ runtime.Suggested improvement for Codex
It would still be helpful if Codex could:
code=3221225781,quhy commentedon Mar 30, 2026
Thank you. I fixed the issue by following your method
zichen526 commentedon May 1, 2026
我重新安装了这两个插件还是不行