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Inconsistent scrollback / output rendering behavior on Windows Terminal vs macOS terminal #15380
Description
What version of Codex CLI is running?
codex-cli 0.116.0
What subscription do you have?
Plus
Which model were you using?
No response
What platform is your computer?
No response
What terminal emulator and version are you using (if applicable)?
No response
What issue are you seeing?
When using Codex CLI on macOS, the terminal output behaves normally — scrollback works, and the UI rendering is stable.
However, on Windows (especially when using Windows Terminal with WSL or PowerShell), I frequently encounter rendering issues:
- Scrollback does not work correctly (older output disappears or cannot be accessed)
- Output is sometimes overwritten or re-rendered incorrectly
- Text may appear duplicated or partially missing
- Scrolling during streaming output can cause content to be cut or misaligned
This issue appears consistently on Windows Terminal, but does not reproduce on macOS terminal environments (e.g., iTerm2 / default Terminal with similar configurations).
This suggests a platform-specific compatibility issue between Codex CLI TUI rendering and Windows terminal emulators.
What steps can reproduce the bug?
- Open Windows Terminal (PowerShell or WSL)
- Run codex
- Send a prompt that produces long output (longer than one screen)
- While output is streaming:
- Try scrolling up
- Or wait until output finishes and then scroll
- Observe:
- Earlier content is missing or cannot be scrolled back to
- Output may be overwritten, duplicated, or visually corrupted
Control experiment:
- Repeat the same steps on macOS (Terminal or iTerm2)
- Observe that:
- Scrollback works normally
- Output rendering is stable and consistent
What is the expected behavior?
No response
Additional information
No response
Activity
github-actions commentedon Mar 21, 2026
Potential duplicates detected. Please review them and close your issue if it is a duplicate.
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DMIGitH commentedon Mar 21, 2026
This has been this way from the beginning it drives me nuts as I go back to read what it said just have it has disappeared. I ask it to respect what it says and it can’t, spewing most of times unrelated information.
Of course it beats the other crazies that it does.
zhatlas commentedon Mar 22, 2026
The content only disappears from the UI—it’s still present in Codex’s context. You can recover the history with /resume, although the restored UI layout can sometimes be a bit glitchy.
RooTooRD commentedon Mar 31, 2026
same issue with
Linux 6.12.73+deb13-amd64 x86_64
Ghostty
codex-cli 0.117.0
gpt-5.3
Pro
jingkarqi commentedon Apr 5, 2026
I am seeing what looks like the same underlying class of bug on Windows, but with a very specific and reproducible interaction pattern during streaming output.
Environment
What I am seeing
In a multi-turn conversation, while the assistant is still streaming a reply, if I use the mouse wheel to scroll upward and inspect earlier chat history, newly streamed output starts to "eat" or overwrite a few lines of the older content that I am looking at.
As the new streamed reply continues growing, more and more of the older visible history appears to get swallowed / shifted / overwritten. The longer the streaming reply runs, the more old lines disappear from the visible region I had scrolled back to inspect.
This does not look like a simple cosmetic flicker. It behaves more like Codex is continuing to restructure the visible terminal region while I am no longer visually anchored at the bottom.
Expected behavior
Once I scroll up to inspect previous history, new streaming output should not progressively overwrite the older visible lines I am currently looking at.
At minimum, scrolling back should remain visually stable while generation continues.
Actual behavior
Reproduction pattern
fix(tui): reflow scrollback on terminal resize (#18575)
Update codex fork to upstream 0.128.0 (#14)
fix(tui): reflow scrollback on terminal resize (openai#18575)
cowwoc commentedon May 27, 2026
#18575 claims to fix this issue. Should it be closed?
3 remaining items
janrysavy commentedon May 31, 2026
019e7f49-1b52-7362-9a2b-4fee5ce5a3eb
cowwoc commentedon May 31, 2026
@fcoury-oai I posted an automated testcase at #24849 for what could be the same issue. Can you please take a look?
grnbtqdbyx-create commentedon May 31, 2026
fcoury-oai commentedon May 31, 2026
I will!
cowwoc commentedon Jun 10, 2026
@fcoury-oai @etraut-openai I provided an automated testcase but have yet to hear back.
This issue is causing data loss in the sense that I can't read the agent's response unless I halt it (hit ESC) immediately after I receive the response; otherwise, the output always gets clobbered. Transcript view isn't useable for this either because it is too slow to navigate and there is no way to search for text within it.
Please provide a status update. Have you been able to reproduce the problem on your end? Is anyone actively working on it?
fix(tui): reflow scrollback on terminal resize (openai#18575)
etraut-openai commentedon Oct 12, 2026
(response from codex)
Closing as likely addressed in the current default TUI (CLI v0.162.1). The fullscreen transcript keeps and scrolls its own history (#46721, #46733); #45271 also fixes a viewport-growth loss. If it persists, please reopen with the current version and /tui mode so we can distinguish it from inline issue #27644.