[Windows] Codex Desktop crashes on launch in chrome.dll with 0xC0000005

What version of the Codex App are you using (From “About Codex” dialog)?

148.00.7778.179

What subscription do you have?

Pro x20

What platform is your computer?

Windows 10

What issue are you seeing?

Codex Desktop on Windows starts and immediately exits. No visible UI appears.

Launching through Start menu / shell:AppsFolder starts a process briefly, then the AppX container is destroyed. Launching Codex.exe manually from the package copy also exits immediately.

ProcDump captures an unhandled access violation:

C0000005.ACCESS_VIOLATION

Visual Studio dump inspection shows the crash in chrome.dll.

Call stack:

chrome.dll!00007ff94bb9963b()
chrome.dll!00007ff94a235ad3()
chrome.dll!00007ff94a20b3f6()
chrome.dll!00007ff94a16b761()
chrome.dll!00007ff947745994()
chrome.dll!00007ff9476f566a()
chrome.dll!00007ff9476f4d21()
chrome.dll!00007ff9476f3184()
Codex.exe!00007ff7eed18011()
Codex.exe!00007ff7eed15f66()
Codex.exe!00007ff7eeebfed2()
kernel32.dll!00007ffaa25d7374()
ntdll.dll!RtlUserThreadStart()

Version / environment

Codex Windows Store app: 26.527.3686.0
Package: OpenAI.Codex_26.527.3686.0_x64__2p2nqsd0c76g0
AppID: OpenAI.Codex_2p2nqsd0c76g0!App

Codex.exe version: 148.00.7778.179
chrome.dll version: 148.00.7778.179

OS Windows 10.0.19041.*

What have you tried?

Reinstall attempted.
Start menu / shell launch tested.
Direct Codex.exe launch tested from copied package folder.
ProcDump captured crash.
Visual Studio dump inspection points to chrome.dll.
No useful Codex logs found.
Application event log did not show a normal crash event.
AppModel-Runtime/Admin shows process creation followed by AppX container destruction.

Tested Chromium flags; all crash the same:

--disable-gpu
--disable-gpu-compositing
--disable-direct-composition
--disable-features=Vulkan,UseSkiaRenderer,CanvasOopRasterization
--no-sandbox

Loaded modules / injection check

No obvious third-party injected DLLs were present in the module list. The module list appears to contain only Codex/Chromium DLLs and Windows system DLLs.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Starting the app via icon does nothing (app crashes immediately).

What is the expected behavior?

No response

Additional information

No response

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

no longer open codex desktop #25358

Powered by Codex Action

You can check whether your system has this environment variable set:
NODE_OPTIONS=--openssl-legacy-provider
If it exists, try deleting it and then see if Codex launches normally.

Well, I'll be damned - it worked. How? What?

That variable was probably set for some dev project, but it ends up affecting everything else on the machine — including Codex, which is an Electron app (Electron runs on Node). Electron doesn't allow --openssl-legacy-provider in NODE_OPTIONS, so when it sees that flag it exits immediately, before showing any window. That's the silent "won't launch."

Kudos, really.

I am seeing the same immediate launch crash on the Microsoft Store Windows app.

Environment

OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Home Single Language 10.0.26200 build 26200, 64-bit
Codex package: OpenAI.Codex_26.609.3341.0_x64__2p2nqsd0c76g0
Codex app version/package version: 26.609.3341.0
Package status: Ok
AppID: OpenAI.Codex_2p2nqsd0c76g0!App

Behavior

Launching Codex from the Start Menu / shell:AppsFolder\OpenAI.Codex_2p2nqsd0c76g0!App creates the app process briefly.
No visible window appears.
The process exits immediately.
A new Crashpad .dmp is created on every launch under:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\OpenAI.Codex_2p2nqsd0c76g0\LocalCache\Roaming\Codex\web\Codex\Crashpad\reports

Crash metadata from latest minidump

Exception code: 0xc0000005
Exception address: 0x7ffb3c5509ab
Exception parameters: 0x0, 0x1f0
Faulting module: chrome.dll
Module path: ...\OpenAI.Codex_26.609.3341.0_x64__2p2nqsd0c76g0\app\chrome.dll

Troubleshooting already tried

Checked Microsoft Store/winget update: no newer package available.
Re-registered the AppX package with Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register AppxManifest.xml.
Retested launch: still created a new dump immediately.
Renamed the UI cache folder so Codex recreated a fresh cache.
Retested launch: still created a new dump immediately.
Ran Reset-AppxPackage for OpenAI.Codex.
Retested launch: still created a new dump immediately.
Uninstalled and reinstalled Codex from Microsoft Store via winget.
Retested launch: still created a new dump immediately.

Latest post-reinstall dump was generated at 2026-06-12 20:13:26 Asia/Jakarta. I am not attaching the dump publicly by default, but it is available if maintainers need it through a safer channel.

Follow-up: on the same machine, launching through the Start Menu / shell:AppsFolder\OpenAI.Codex_2p2nqsd0c76g0!App still crashes immediately and creates a Crashpad dump.

However, directly launching the installed package executable works and does not create a new dump:

$pkg = Get-AppxPackage -Name OpenAI.Codex
$exe = Join-Path $pkg.InstallLocation 'app\Codex.exe'
Start-Process -FilePath $exe

After direct launch, multiple Codex.exe child processes remain alive, plus the bundled app\resources\codex.exe, and no new Crashpad dump is generated. This suggests the issue on this system is tied to the AppX/Start Menu activation path rather than the bundled app binary being completely unusable.

I can reproduce the same native Windows crash on a newer Codex Desktop build, with a stable fault offset across two independently captured dumps.

Environment and update

Codex Desktop/AppX: 26.707.9981.0
Updated from 26.707.9564.0 at 2026-07-14 08:44:46 local time
Get-AppxPackage reports Status: Ok; AppX deployment completed successfully

Crash evidence

Run	Local crash time	Desktop PID	Dump size	Dump status / SHA-256
1	`09:09:30`	`2764`	approximately 40 MB	rotated by Crashpad; hash unavailable
2	`09:33:04`	`25920`	`40,700,704` bytes	rotated by Crashpad; recorded SHA-256 `ec0eaf1a11d0129c325e71ba25ba61bdbb40ec85ab5e33c1c3d2e50831a88c65`
3	`09:57:19`	`10276`	`40,753,232` bytes	available; SHA-256 `9b240ec369f3c1e769c04a40255a8494ec0c91dcf1e98e5d0245c5f0f4bea1a2`

Crashes 2 and 3 have the exact same minidump signature: 0xC0000005 at chrome.dll+0x2E08F46. In run 3, the Desktop process stayed up for about 10 minutes, then the final log event was Browser Use's embedded webview reaching dom-ready on about:blank; the Crashpad dump followed about 1.3 seconds later. The log ends abruptly, with no normal shutdown sequence.

Sanitized log references for run 3:

lines 124-167: bundled Browser plugin reconciliation; the final config write preserves enabled=false
lines 948-977: embedded IAB/Browser Use lifecycle
lines 955-977: hidden Browser Use webview creation, attachment, and the final dom-ready event

Additional isolation performed:

chat_processes.json contained NUL bytes before run 1. It was quarantined; the associated parsing error disappeared and the file was not regenerated, but crashes 2 and 3 still occurred.
browser@openai-bundled remained enabled=false throughout run 3. Codex reconciled the plugin while preserving that state, but the separate embedded IAB subsystem still created its Browser Use webview and the crash persisted.
No OOM, GPU-process failure, render-process-gone, app-server exit/disconnect, or normal shutdown event appears immediately before the crash.
I did not reinstall because the AppX package is healthy, reinstalling would deploy the same build, and this issue already reports that reinstall did not change the failure.

This appears to rule out the corrupted chat-process state and the Browser plugin enable flag as sufficient explanations. It does not rule out the embedded Browser Use/Electron/Chromium path; the repeated chrome.dll offset immediately after webview readiness makes that path the strongest current correlation.

Would the maintainers like the latest dump, sanitized logs, and the parsed metadata retained from the rotated dumps through a private channel? Also, is 26.707.9981.0 known to contain either a fix or a regression related to this Chromium/IAB crash signature?

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[Windows] Codex Desktop crashes on launch in chrome.dll with 0xC0000005 #25376

What version of the Codex App are you using (From “About Codex” dialog)?

What subscription do you have?

What platform is your computer?

What issue are you seeing?

What issue are you seeing?

Version / environment

What have you tried?

Loaded modules / injection check

What steps can reproduce the bug?

What is the expected behavior?

Additional information

Environment

Behavior

Crash metadata from latest minidump

Troubleshooting already tried

Metadata

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[Windows] Codex Desktop crashes on launch in chrome.dll with 0xC0000005 #25376

Description

What version of the Codex App are you using (From “About Codex” dialog)?

What subscription do you have?

What platform is your computer?

What issue are you seeing?

What issue are you seeing?

Version / environment

What have you tried?

Loaded modules / injection check

What steps can reproduce the bug?

What is the expected behavior?

Additional information

Activity

github-actions commented on May 31, 2026

leiyan commented on Jun 6, 2026

mosmondor commented on Jun 6, 2026

leiyan commented on Jun 6, 2026

mosmondor commented on Jun 6, 2026

ImamHub commented on Jun 12, 2026

Environment

Behavior

Crash metadata from latest minidump

Troubleshooting already tried

ImamHub commented on Jun 12, 2026

josemanuelflorezgaviria-max commented on Jul 14, 2026

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