Desktop app hangs on Thinking indefinitely on macOS; forcing external codex fixes it

[Hosheaaa]

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

26.305.950 (863)

What subscription do you have?

Not sure

What platform is your computer?

Darwin 25.3.0 arm64 arm

What issue are you seeing?

Codex Desktop on macOS can get stuck on Thinking indefinitely, even in a brand-new thread, while codex in the terminal works normally on the same machine, same account, and same proxy/network setup.

In my case, the Desktop app initializes its local app-server and accepts the turn, but no result ever comes back to the UI.

Relevant behavior from logs:

• stdio_transport_spawned ... executablePath=/Applications/Codex.app/Contents/Resources/codex
• Codex CLI initialized
• thread/start
• turn/start
• later: Failed to generate thread title errorMessage="Timed out waiting for structured result."

In an earlier run I also saw:

• Worker exited code=1

Important workaround:
If I force Codex Desktop to use my external CLI binary and then restart the app, the problem disappears immediately.

I used:

launchctl setenv CODEX_CLI_PATH /opt/homebrew/bin/codex
launchctl setenv HTTP_PROXY http://127.0.0.1:7897
launchctl setenv HTTPS_PROXY http://127.0.0.1:7897
launchctl setenv ALL_PROXY http://127.0.0.1:7897

After restart, logs show:

• stdio_transport_spawned ... executablePath=/opt/homebrew/bin/codex

and Desktop starts working normally again.

This makes it look like a Desktop/bundled-worker/app-server issue rather than an account issue.

Related issue: CLI-3726

What steps can reproduce the bug?

1. Use Codex Desktop on macOS in an environment where the CLI works normally.
   2. Start a brand-new thread in the Desktop app.
   3. Observe that the UI stays on Thinking indefinitely and no response appears.
   4. Check logs and note that Desktop spawned the bundled worker:
2. As a workaround, set CODEX_CLI_PATH to an external working codex binary and restart the Desktop app.
3. Observe that the issue disappears and logs now show:

• bundled worker: codex-cli 0.108.0-alpha.12
  • external CLI: codex-cli 0.111.0

What is the expected behavior?

Codex Desktop should complete responses normally with its bundled worker on macOS, without hanging forever on Thinking, and without requiring CODEX_CLI_PATH to point to an external codex binary.

Additional information

Additional context:

• Same machine
• Same account
• Same general network/proxy path
• CLI works
• Desktop fails only when it uses the bundled worker
• Desktop works again when forced to use the external newer CLI binary

This suggests one of the following:

1. the bundled Desktop worker is too old or incompatible
2. Desktop is not propagating the right GUI environment / network context to the bundled worker
3. Desktop should fail more explicitly instead of hanging forever on Thinking

If helpful, I can provide more log snippets.

[github-actions]

Potential duplicates detected. Please review them and close your issue if it is a duplicate.

• Codex App GUI no longer works with Clash Verge macOS system proxy, while bundled TUI works with env proxy #13682
• Codex Desktop App intermittently stuck on Thinking with anytls reuse=true (IpcRouter EPIPE) #12196
• Codex stuck in Thinking and no response for any prompt #13666

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[EriiiirE]

Thanks a lot — this worked for me too.

I had the same macOS issue where Codex App / VSCode would hang on prompts. After applying your workaround and restarting, both came back to normal.

Really appreciate you posting this.

[Mojackhak]

Works for me as well! thanks.