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Computer Use unavailable when Codex is updated under a different macOS user #20211

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Computer Use unavailable when Codex is updated under a different macOS user#20211
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appIssues related to the Codex desktop appbugSomething isn't workingcomputer-useskillsIssues related to skills

Description

@alexander-k-1
alexander-k-1
opened on Apr 29, 2026

What version of the Codex App are you using?

26.422.71525

What platform is your computer?

macOS, Apple Silicon

What issue are you seeing?

Computer Use showed as unavailable after Codex was updated while logged in as a different local macOS user account than the one later using Codex.

This appears to be a per-user bundled marketplace/cache sync issue. The installed app bundle contained the computer-use plugin, but the active user's ~/.codex bundled marketplace/cache did not.

Local evidence

The installed app bundle contained:

/Applications/Codex.app/Contents/Resources/plugins/openai-bundled/plugins/computer-use

But the active user's per-user bundled marketplace/cache only had:

browser-use
latex-tectonic

The active user's generated bundled marketplace did not list computer-use, even though the installed app bundle's bundled marketplace did.

The active user's ~/.codex/config.toml also did not include:

[plugins."computer-use@openai-bundled"]
enabled = true

The app bundle appeared to have been updated/owned from another local macOS account, which may be relevant.

Local workaround used

I repaired the active user's local state by:

  1. Copying the bundled computer-use plugin from the installed app bundle into:
~/.codex/plugins/cache/openai-bundled/computer-use/1.0.758

  1. Ensuring the active user's bundled marketplace metadata included computer-use.

  2. Adding:

[plugins."computer-use@openai-bundled"]
enabled = true
  1. Pointing [marketplaces.openai-bundled].source at:
/Applications/Codex.app/Contents/Resources/plugins/openai-bundled
  1. Verifying the copied Codex Computer Use.app remained signed/notarized by OpenAI.

Expected behavior

When Codex starts after an app update, each macOS user's per-user bundled plugin marketplace/cache should be refreshed from the installed app bundle if the installed bundle has newer or additional bundled plugins.

Computer Use should not remain unavailable just because another macOS user account performed the app update.

Suggested fix

On startup or plugin list refresh, Codex could compare the active user's cached bundled marketplace against the installed app bundle's bundled marketplace.

If bundled plugins differ, Codex should resync the active user's per-user marketplace/cache, or read bundled plugin metadata directly from the app bundle instead of relying on a stale per-user copy.

Related issues

This is related to the broader Computer Use unavailable family, but appears to be a distinct multi-user update/cache-sync case:

Activity

  1. github-actions
    added
    bugSomething isn't working
    appIssues related to the Codex desktop app
    skillsIssues related to skills
    on Apr 29, 2026

  2. github-actions commented on Apr 29, 2026

    @github-actions
    github-actionsbot
    on Apr 29, 2026 – with GitHub Actions
    Contributor

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

    Powered by Codex Action

  3. alexander-k-1 commented on Apr 29, 2026

    @alexander-k-1
    alexander-k-1
    on Apr 29, 2026
    Author

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

    Powered by Codex Action

    They don't look as duplicates, because in my issue specific detail is "a different macOS user"

  4. etraut-openai
    added
    computer-use
    on May 3, 2026

  5. IgorGanapolsky commented on May 5, 2026

    @IgorGanapolsky
    IgorGanapolsky
    on May 5, 2026

    This is a useful distinct case from the broader "Computer Use unavailable" bucket because the app bundle and the active user's ~/.codex state can disagree after a different macOS user updates Codex.

    The diagnostic split I would use here:

    # app bundle source of truth
ls /Applications/Codex.app/Contents/Resources/plugins/openai-bundled/plugins/
cat /Applications/Codex.app/Contents/Resources/plugins/openai-bundled/.agents/plugins/marketplace.json

# active user's generated/cache state
ls ~/.codex/plugins/cache/openai-bundled/
cat ~/.codex/.tmp/bundled-marketplaces/openai-bundled/.agents/plugins/marketplace.json

# active runtime view
codex mcp list

    If the bundle contains computer-use but the active user's cache or generated marketplace omits it, then the fix path is different from a normal TCC permissions reset. You need to repair/resync the active user's bundled marketplace/cache, then verify with a real runtime tool call such as computer-use/list_apps.

    I wrote the broader Mac checklist here:
    https://igorganapolsky.github.io/openclaw-mac-ai-workstation-setup/troubleshooting.html

    I also added a paid $99 diagnostic for exactly this class of "is it TCC, bundle state, runtime routing, or cache sync?" failure:
    https://igorganapolsky.github.io/openclaw-mac-ai-workstation-setup/speed-to-lead.html

  6. IgorGanapolsky commented on May 14, 2026

    @IgorGanapolsky
    IgorGanapolsky
    on May 14, 2026

    This is the cleanest case of Symptom 5: an installer wrote to a per-user
    Codex home while the runtime that's actually answering uses a different
    $CODEX_HOME from your shell rc. The Computer Use plugin is in one home; the
    running process is reading the other.

    printenv | grep -i codex
    ls -la ~/.codex ~/Library/Application\ Support/Codex 2>/dev/null

    Then pick one canonical CODEX_HOME, remove the other from every shell rc,

    and re-run codex plugin marketplace add /Applications/Codex.app/Contents/Resources/plugins/openai-bundled

    Full walkthrough with the other 5 root causes that produce similar symptoms:
    https://igorganapolsky.github.io/openclaw-mac-ai-workstation-setup/troubleshooting.html

    Free script in the repo captures both homes + your env into a redacted bundle.
    If you want the bundle reviewed and the root cause confirmed in writing, $19
    quick read is on the same page.

  7. hindfa0a commented on May 18, 2026

    @hindfa0a
    hindfa0a
    on May 18, 2026

    Adding another data point that looks very close to this per-user bundled marketplace/cache sync failure.

    Environment:

    Codex app: 26.513.31313 (CFBundleVersion 2867)
Codex CLI: 0.131.0-alpha.9
macOS: 26.5 (25F71)
Architecture: arm64

    Visible symptom:

    Could not load this plugin right now.

    This appears when trying to install/load Computer Use from the Codex app/plugin flow. Earlier, before repairing stale local helper bits, Computer Use also produced a version-mismatch style failure, but after aligning the helper version the underlying MCP helper works directly.

    Local evidence, sanitized:

    1. The installed app bundle contains Computer Use in the bundled marketplace/plugin set.
    /Applications/Codex.app/Contents/Resources/plugins/openai-bundled/.agents/plugins/marketplace.json

    That bundle-side marketplace includes:

    browser
chrome
computer-use
latex
    1. The active runtime bundled marketplace generated under the user Codex home only contains:
    browser
latex
    1. The desktop log shows the app generating a reduced runtime marketplace and then uninstalling Computer Use because it is not present in that generated marketplace:
    [BundledPluginsMarketplace] bundled_plugins_runtime_marketplace_written pluginCount=2 pluginNames=["browser","latex"] targetMarketplaceRoot=~/.codex/.tmp/bundled-marketplaces/openai-bundled
[BundledPluginsMarketplace] bundled_plugin_uninstall_requested pluginId=computer-use@openai-bundled pluginName=computer-use reason=not_in_bundled_marketplace_plugin_names
    1. The local MCP registry can still see a direct Computer Use MCP server entry:
    codex mcp list
computer-use ... Status enabled ... Auth Unsupported
    1. Direct manual MCP launch of the helper succeeds and returns the expected Computer Use tools, including:
    list_apps
get_app_state
click
set_value
scroll
press_key
type_text

    A direct list_apps MCP call also succeeds and returns running macOS apps. So in this case the helper binary itself appears functional, and this does not look primarily like Screen Recording / Accessibility permission failure.

    Current working hypothesis:

    The Codex app startup/reconciler is generating or trusting a reduced per-user bundled marketplace that excludes computer-use, even though the installed app bundle includes it. Because computer-use is absent from the generated runtime marketplace, the app then garbage-collects / disables it and the UI install path ends with Could not load this plugin right now.

    This also resembles #21936, where the bundle-side marketplace contains additional bundled plugins but the active runtime marketplace/cache only exposes a subset, and the UI install path fails even after manual repair attempts.

    I have avoided posting full logs because they contain local user paths, but the key log lines above are exact except for path sanitization.

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