Disappearing chat history (sentences or paragraphs randomly vanishing) #20303

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1. nullbio

   added

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

   on Apr 30, 2026
2. github-actions

   added

   bugSomething isn't workingSomething isn't working

   CLIIssues related to the Codex CLIIssues related to the Codex CLI

   TUIIssues related to the terminal user interface: text input, menus and dialogs, and terminal displayIssues related to the terminal user interface: text input, menus and dialogs, and terminal display

   contextIssues related to context management (including compaction)Issues related to context management (including compaction)

   on Apr 30, 2026
3. github-actions commented on Apr 30, 2026

   

   github-actionsBot

   on Apr 30, 2026 – with GitHub Actions

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

   • Codex app output pane only shows about one screen and cannot scroll back #19645
   • Add a true append-only interactive mode that preserves terminal scrollback #18978
   • iTerm2 + zsh: --no-alt-screen still does not produce usable native scrollback #20063
   • TUI transcript scrolling can redraw above itself in long sessions #19584

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   👎React with 👎2Reacted by nullbio and felix
4. nullbio commented on Apr 30, 2026

   

   nullbio

   on Apr 30, 2026

   Last edited by nullbio

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   No, this isn't a duplicate of the above issues mentioned by the bot.

   I'm not talking about long sessions having disappering context, I'm talking about sentences or paragraphs in the middle of a previous reply (that just happened one or two replies ago) disappearing. For example:

   This is a description of the prompt.
   
   It involves a lot of steps.
   
   The steps are:
   1. Do this
   2. Do that
   

   Might get "compressed" to something like:

   This is a description of the prompt.
   
   2. Do that
   

   By the way, I'm happy to do a pull request for this and patch it myself if it's something that OpenAI is interested in. Just say the word. It shouldn't be too difficult to implement.
5. nullbio

   changed the title [-]Disappearing chat history[/-] [+]Disappearing chat history (sentences or paragraphs randomly vanishing)[/+] on Apr 30, 2026
6. OskarKasprzak commented on May 12, 2026

   

   OskarKasprzak

   on May 12, 2026

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   I have the very same issue when using codex CLI via Terminal (windows 10). I am surprised more people don't have similar issue

   👍React with 👍3Reacted by nullbio, Vitor Sampaio and Flint$ter
7. nullbio commented on May 12, 2026

   

   nullbio

   on May 12, 2026

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   So, turns out this is actually a display bug. I figured out that if I resize my terminal window, the content re-appears. Then it'll start getting truncated again as sessions continue.

   One thing to note, I use Windows Terminal split views for my WSL2 Ubuntu sessions. I'm not sure if that has any impact on this (i.e., press ctrl+alt+plus in a terminal and it'll split it).

   👍React with 👍3Reacted by Vitor Sampaio, Robin Grocott and felix
8. alita-moore commented on Jul 13, 2026

   

   alita-moore

   on Jul 13, 2026

   Last edited by alita-moore

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   same, super annoying. (vscode terminal mac)
9. TzuChieh commented on Jul 23, 2026

   

   TzuChieh

   on Jul 23, 2026

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   Same here in Windows Terminal. Basically chunks of previous chat history will randomly appear and disappear.
10. bc-openai commented on Aug 19, 2026

    

    bc-openai

    on Aug 19, 2026

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    Thanks for the report! A fix has been merged and will be included in the next release. Apologies for the regression. We’re improving our Windows testing to help prevent similar issues going forward.
11. bc-openai

    closed this as completedon Aug 19, 2026
12. nullbio commented on Aug 28, 2026

    

    nullbio

    on Aug 28, 2026

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    @bc-openai Thank you. Also can you please revert #38921 - this is not behavior power users want. Anthropic did this, and the community was rightfully very annoyed about it. Then they made it even worse by hiding basically EVERYTHING the model does. It's one of the main reasons I hate working with Claude, and a lot of other people too, and was actually one of the main reasons I switched to OpenAI+Codex as my main driver (I don't even have an Anthropic sub anymore now). See #39903 highly upvoted issue.
13. mattLummus commented on Aug 31, 2026

    

    mattLummus

    on Aug 31, 2026

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    @bc-openai This is still occurring. I just lost an entire conversation
14. nullbio commented on Aug 31, 2026

    

    nullbio

    on Aug 31, 2026

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    Really? I haven't seen it occur again. Although I do see it happen mid-output, like while it's spamming out the response it shortens it, but then when the response is finished it shows the full thing. But I haven't had to resize the window anymore.