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Repeated Compact-related ERROR & Stuck in Working #20439

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Repeated Compact-related ERROR & Stuck in Working#20439
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CLIIssues related to the Codex CLIbugSomething isn't workingconnectivityIssues involving networking or endpoint connectivity problems (disconnections)contextIssues related to context management (including compaction)

Description

@qlagrangian
qlagrangian
opened on Apr 30, 2026

What version of Codex CLI is running?

0.125.0

What subscription do you have?

Plus

Which model were you using?

GPT-5.5

What platform is your computer?

Darwin 25.3.0 x86_64 i386

What terminal emulator and version are you using (if applicable)?

VSCode

What issue are you seeing?

This issue happens frequently when the remaining context capacity drops to around 10%. The following error keeps appearing repeatedly:

■ Error running remote compact task: stream disconnected before completion: error sending request for url (https://chatgpt.com/backend-api/codex/responses/compact)

In short, no matter how many times I retry, the session stays stuck on Working... and nothing moves at all. Just to double-check, I ran the Nettop command and confirmed there is zero communication with the server.

It looks like there is a bug in the automatic Compact function.

Restarting the session or clearing the cache does not fix the problem. With no other options, I had to create a new Session, pass the ID of the stuck session, and instruct it to continue from there. However, getting completely stuck in a state where I have no idea what caused it was an extremely unproductive and frustrating development experience.

Please fix this urgently.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Uploaded thread: 019dd7d4-365e-7fa0-a4bd-1b1a8dd09eb0

What is the expected behavior?

No response

Additional information

No response

Activity

  1. qlagrangian
    added
    bugSomething isn't working
    on Apr 30, 2026
  2. github-actions
    added
    CLIIssues related to the Codex CLI
    contextIssues related to context management (including compaction)
    connectivityIssues involving networking or endpoint connectivity problems (disconnections)
    on Apr 30, 2026

  3. github-actions commented on Apr 30, 2026

    @github-actions
    github-actionsbot
    on Apr 30, 2026 – with GitHub Actions
    Contributor

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

    Powered by Codex Action

  4. qlagrangian commented on May 5, 2026

    @qlagrangian
    qlagrangian
    on May 5, 2026
    Author

    chore: note NordVPN 300s timeout limit on Codex requests

    Confirmed that Codex "Remote Compact" fails consistently at exactly
    300s when NordVPN is active.     This is independent of the Codex server's
    actual response time and is enforced by the VPN layer.

    [Problem]
    Users accessing Codex via VPN encounter excessive wait times during
    "Remote Compact" operations when the context is large, leading to
    connection timeouts.

    [Cause]

    • The VPN server (specifically NordVPN) has a strict 300-second (5-minute)
      timeout threshold.
    • If the server-side processing exceeds this limit, the VPN terminates
      the connection regardless of the actual server status.

    [Workaround]

    • Temporarily pause the VPN and trigger a "continue" instruction.
    • This allows the process to recover and complete the server response.

  5. presidenzo commented on May 7, 2026

    @presidenzo
    presidenzo
    on May 7, 2026

    Also seeing this on Codex Desktop for macOS.

    Thread ID: 019e0390-d329-74c3-b8ab-13a32d339c9b
    Codex App: 26.429.61741 (2429)
    Error:

    Error running remote compact task: stream disconnected before completion: error sending request for url (https://chatgpt.com/backend-api/codex/responses/compact)

    This is still happening today (2026-05-07).

  6. qlagrangian commented on May 8, 2026

    @qlagrangian
    qlagrangian
    on May 8, 2026
    Author

    @codex Please fix this issue (Auto compact problem through VPN) ASAP.

  7. mshumski commented on May 8, 2026

    @mshumski
    mshumski
    on May 8, 2026
    Hit the same error.

Looks like NordVPN / some proxy path kills the long silent `/responses/compact` HTTPS request after ~5 minutes:


Error running remote compact task: stream disconnected before completion:
error sending request for url (https://chatgpt.com/backend-api/codex/responses/compact)

    Workaround that has been working fine for me:

    model_provider = "openai-chatgpt-stable"
model_auto_compact_token_limit = 230000

[model_providers.openai-chatgpt-stable]
name = "OpenAI ChatGPT Stable"
wire_api = "responses"
requires_openai_auth = true
supports_websockets = true
request_max_retries = 20
stream_max_retries = 20

    This keeps ChatGPT auth, but avoids the remote compact endpoint because the provider name is not exactly OpenAI, so Codex falls back to local/model-streaming compaction instead of POST /responses/compact.

    Would be good if Codex fell back to local compaction automatically when remote compact fails with a transport/network timeout.

  8. etraut-openai commented on Jun 29, 2026

    @etraut-openai
    etraut-openai
    on Jun 29, 2026
    Contributor

    Thanks for reporting this problem. Until recently, Codex used a separate endpoint and server-side logic for compaction. We recently switched to a more robust approach where the compaction logic is moved locally using the same endpoint as normal turns. This eliminates "remote compaction" errors and increases the stability and reliability of compaction operations. If you see further problems with compaction, please use /feedback and open a new bug report.

  9. etraut-openai
    closed this as completedon Jun 29, 2026
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