Compacting is getting stuck #14342

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1. nstas

   added

   appIssues related to the Codex desktop appIssues related to the Codex desktop app

   on Mar 11, 2026
2. github-actions commented on Mar 11, 2026

   

   github-actionsbot

   on Mar 11, 2026 – with GitHub Actions

   Contributor

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

   • codex just compacts repeatedly for hours at a time before it is able to make a change #14120
   • Compaction death spiral #13279
   • bug: Compaction can overwrite concurrent history writes and loop indefinitely #13946
   • Compact hangs and fails #13815

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3. RiddleMeThis3 commented on Mar 11, 2026

   

   RiddleMeThis3

   on Mar 11, 2026

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   Following up to say that lowering to high fixed it.
4. geokal commented on Mar 11, 2026

   

   geokal

   on Mar 11, 2026

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   me too!!
5. teneko commented on Mar 11, 2026

   

   teneko

   on Mar 11, 2026

   Last edited by teneko

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   I face it very often. It is annoying. I have to open codex cli and let it compact the thread, then I need to restart codex app, because otherwise it does not see the updated thread, and then finally I can continue in in the codex app. 🥲

   I also notice, that compacting in codex app takes MUCH longer than in codx cli. I use gpt-5.4 xhigh.
6. MovGP0 commented on Mar 12, 2026

   

   MovGP0

   on Mar 12, 2026

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   Context compaction works in the Codex CLI for me, but always have the problem with the Codex GUI on Windows.

   👀React with 👀1Reacted by Michael Koren
7. twentyOne2x commented on Mar 12, 2026

   

   twentyOne2x

   on Mar 12, 2026

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   Adding a concrete desktop-app example here because this looks like the same failure mode, but with stronger thread-level evidence.

   Environment:

   • Codex App version: 26.309.31024
   • Platform: macOS 26.3 arm64
   • Subscription: Pro
   • Thread: 019cb41c-0825-7f03-82ca-470891d7a6e8

   What happened:

   • The app appeared to get stuck in a long context-compaction / reread loop.
   • It kept rereading the same small set of files after compaction instead of making clear progress.
   • I eventually stopped it manually.

   Concrete timings from local rollout/log inspection on 2026-03-12:

   • Turn 1: 14:46:30.440Z -> 17:47:09.463Z, runtime 3h 0m 39s, 110 actual compactions
   • Turn 2: 17:47:29.644Z -> 18:32:31.318Z, runtime 45m 1.7s, 39 actual compactions
   • Turn 3: 18:36:30.021Z -> 18:38:06.605Z, runtime 1m 36.6s, 1 actual compaction before I interrupted it

   So the broader stretch was about 3h 45m 41s with 149 actual compactions total.
   If counting both compacted + context_compacted log records, that is 298 compact-related entries.

   Other evidence from the same thread:

   • Earlier app-side error on 2026-03-08: Failed to apply patches ... [Immer] minified error nr: 18
   • The thread had become extremely large locally by the time this happened: ~109k rollout events and ~2.71B tokens in local thread accounting
   • Around 17:47Z there was also a burst of repeated task_complete -> task_started cycles before the next real user message

   This did not feel like a single slow task. It felt like the app got trapped in repeated compaction and reread behavior on a very large thread.
8. ambrosino-oai

   added

   bugSomething isn't workingSomething isn't working

   appIssues related to the Codex desktop appIssues related to the Codex desktop app

   and removed

   appIssues related to the Codex desktop appIssues related to the Codex desktop app

   on Apr 1, 2026
9. InfiniteLife commented on May 26, 2026

   

   InfiniteLife

   on May 26, 2026

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   Still happens - Windows here
10. linear

    added

    Papercuts 2026

    on Aug 17, 2026