Unable to open past conversation history in VS Code extension #18993
Description
What version of the IDE extension are you using?
1.117.0
What subscription do you have?
plus
Which IDE are you using?
vs code
What platform is your computer?
Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.26200.0 x64
What issue are you seeing?
Recently, I have been unable to open any past conversation records. When I click on a history item in the sidebar, the interface does not respond, and the previous chat content fails to load. There are no explicit error pop-ups, but the chat window remains blank or stuck.
What steps can reproduce the bug?
What steps can reproduce the bug?*
Open VS Code and ensure the GPT Codex extension is logged in.
Click on the "History" icon/tab to view past conversations.
Click on any specific historical conversation title from the list.
Observe that the chat interface does not update or display the selected history.
What is the expected behavior?
What is the expected behavior?
The extension should correctly fetch and display the full chat history of the selected conversation when clicked.
Additional information
No response
Activity
github-actions commentedon Apr 22, 2026
Potential duplicates detected. Please review them and close your issue if it is a duplicate.
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rafaelsg-01 commentedon Apr 23, 2026
I had the same issue, but it looks like the chat wasn’t actually lost — it was just loading very slowly.
What happened in my case:
Meanwhile, the same conversation in the right sidebar was still empty, but after a few minutes, it eventually loaded there as well.
So it seems like the issue is related to how the chat is rendered in the sidebar vs. when opened as a tab.
ChangeFWorld commentedon Apr 23, 2026
Hi, I wonder how can I open a chat in the chat tab you mentioned?
alex-jitbit commentedon Apr 23, 2026
Same issue in Cursor. Chat not loading from history.
Kai-Chen00 commentedon Apr 23, 2026
Same issue for me when I use code VScode extentions. I think this issue didn't happend on me in the past. Any idea to fix?
YodaEmbedding commentedon Apr 23, 2026
Some sessions load at a glacial rate (minutes–hours). It often says "Loading model" for a bit, too, though even once the model "loads", the screen stays blank for quite some time.
One eternity later:
Switching to certain chats (even if the chat has a much longer history) is instantaneous:
NCCYUNSONG commentedon Apr 24, 2026
Same. I wonder is it a new problem after the latest update?
metrax commentedon Apr 24, 2026
I had the same problem with the VS Code Codex extension: older history entries were still listed, but opening them resulted in an empty or stuck chat view.
In my case the actual session files were not empty or lost. The problem was that some older rollout JSONL files contained legacy event types that the current VS Code extension apparently no longer renders correctly, for example:
custom_tool_callcustom_tool_call_outputpatch_apply_beginpatch_apply_endweb_search_callweb_search_endI asked Codex itself to repair the local history. It created backup copies, generated filtered copies of the affected JSONL session files without those legacy event types, added the repaired copies back to
~/.codex/state_5.sqliteand~/.codex/session_index.jsonl, and then I removed the original broken entries after verifying the repaired ones opened correctly.This was the prompt that worked well for me:
After reloading VS Code (
Developer: Reload Window), the repaired conversations opened correctly again.wajdijurry commentedon Apr 24, 2026
It worked for me. Thanks
benapetr commentedon Apr 26, 2026
Hello, I have this problem too and from output it seems that it is happening when repo is not github hosted, I can see this:
Multiple times - this project is hosted on private git server not github, but codex for some reason has "url=/wham/environments/by-repo/github/" when looking up some resource (perhaps the context)
JosephWamulume commentedon Apr 27, 2026
Anyone have a solution for this? I attempted @metrax's solution but I didn't work consistently. The same issue still persists
iamhenryhuang commentedon Apr 27, 2026
same
26 remaining items
timohuovinen commentedon Jul 1, 2026
The problem is still not gone, deleting logs workaround sometimes doesn't work
cvasilatos commentedon Jul 3, 2026
Same issue..again deleting .codex folder does not work either..
julianofischer commentedon Jul 4, 2026
very frustrating
I've tried the workarounds here and they don´t work.
julianofischer commentedon Jul 4, 2026
well, this worked.
thanks
MahooX commentedon Jul 6, 2026
This worked for me.
env0j commentedon Jul 8, 2026
After removing the logs_2.sqlite* files doing this fixed it for me:
timohuovinen commentedon Jul 8, 2026
I was having that issue in linux ubunutu, but maybe applicable for windows.
After reinstalling vscode and all of codex with all cache clearing, it still didn't work, so after an hour of debugging with Fable and failing and then another hour of debugging with codex cli, I managed to fix it, quoting what it outputted:
julianofischer commentedon Jul 9, 2026
Thanks.
It was suddenly happening here again and these changes worked.
Tonny24Wang commentedon Jul 9, 2026
it works for me !
newest codex plugin!
版本: 1.127.0
提交: 4fe60c8b1cdac1c4c174f2fb180d0d758272d713
日期: 2026-06-30T10:52:33+02:00
Electron: 42.2.0
ElectronBuildId: 14159160
Chromium: 148.0.7778.97
Node.js: 24.15.0
V8: 14.8.178.14-electron.0
OS: Linux x64 6.17.0-35-generic
Dimensione4 commentedon Jul 9, 2026
After installing an other version of Codex (not the lastest), it works for me. Easy peasy lemon squeezyy ;)
rostidev commentedon Jul 11, 2026
Please reopen this issue again, because it still happens to me.
I tries the workaround with
"disable-hardware-acceleration": true,and"ozone-platform": "x11",in the~/.vscode/argv.jsonfile, but it doesn't help. Most of the time Codex can't start properly in my VS Code, but sometimes it can. Seems like a race condition or something like that.I use Fedora 44 Linux with the proprietary 580xx NVIDIA drivers from RPM Fusion. My desktop environment is Cinnamon under X11 (Wayland isn't officially supported by Cinnamon as yet).
My hardware:
I use the latest version of VS Code, installed from the official Microsoft RPM repository:
Dimensione4 commentedon Jul 11, 2026
Try installing an other version of Codex (not the lastest) in the Extensions of VS code, it works for me. Easy peasy lemon squeezyy ;)
brownbr84 commentedon Jul 19, 2026
Muito bom, aqui funcionou no win
thatsuman commentedon Aug 5, 2026
Codex VS Code Blank Webview on Windows 10: Investigation and Fix
I had an issue where the OpenAI Codex VS Code extension opened to a blank dark webview with only the OpenAI logo visible. The Codex panel never reached the sign-in/chat UI.
In my case, the final root cause was not GPU rendering, VS Code cache, VS Code profile state, Codex extension version, or VS Code version. The actual issue was corrupted/broken local Codex state under the user
.codexfolder, which caused the Codex app-server to crash during startup.Environment
1.131.01.130.026.727.40816Symptom
The Codex extension page loaded normally in VS Code, but the Codex panel itself opened to a dark blank webview with only the OpenAI logo in the center.
The UI stayed stuck there and never loaded the sign-in/chat screen.
Things I Tried That Did Not Fix It
I first tried the usual extension, webview, and VS Code fixes:
--user-data-dirand--extensions-dir1.131.0to1.130.0None of those fixed the issue.
Debugging Steps
I checked the webview console using:
Developer: Open Webview Developer Tools
The console showed some VS Code/webview warnings, but they did not clearly explain why Codex was stuck on the logo.
View -> Output -> CodexImportant Error Log
The Codex output log showed that the extension was activating and trying to start the Codex app-server, but the app-server crashed immediately because SQLite state initialization failed under the user
.codexdirectory:After that, later logs showed that the webview kept trying to communicate with Codex, but the Codex process was already gone:
Root Cause
The Codex app-server could not initialize its local SQLite state runtime under:
C:\Users\<WindowsUser>\.codexBecause of that, the app-server exited immediately with code
1.The webview was not the actual root cause. It stayed blank because the backend process it depends on had crashed.
So in my case, the issue was a corrupted, locked, or otherwise unusable Codex local state folder:
C:\Users\<WindowsUser>\.codexFix That Worked
I closed VS Code, killed any running Codex process, and renamed the existing .codex folder so Codex could create a fresh one.
Run this in PowerShell:
Then reopen VS Code and open Codex again.
This fixed the blank logo screen immediately for me.