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Conversations disappear from history after restarting Codex App #25397

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Description

@nine19een

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

26.527.30818

What subscription do you have?

Plus

What platform is your computer?

Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.19045.0 x64

What issue are you seeing?

Description

There is a highly frequent bug where entire conversations completely disappear after restarting the Codex app.

During an active session, everything works normally. The conversations remain visible and I can chat without issues. However, after I quit and restart the Codex App, some of my previous conversations completely vanish from the history list.

This happens very frequently. I have already lost 3 to 4 complete conversations due to this bug.

Steps to reproduce

  1. Open Codex App and create/interact with a few new conversations.
  2. Observe that everything works fine in the current session.
  3. Quit the app completely.
  4. Reopen/restart the Codex App.
  5. Check the chat history. Some previous conversations are now completely missing.

Expected behavior

All chat histories should be saved and persist normally after the app is restarted.

Actual behavior

Some conversations are permanently lost/deleted after restarting the app.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

  1. Open the Codex App and create a few new conversations (chatting and using it normally).
  2. Verify that they are saved and visible in the sidebar/history.
  3. Close/Quit the Codex App completely.
  4. Reopen/Restart the Codex App.
  5. Check the chat history list in the sidebar.
  6. Observe that some of the recently active conversations have completely vanished. (This happens with a very high frequency; I have already lost 3-4 complete conversations).

What is the expected behavior?

All chat histories and active conversations should be successfully saved, and they should persist in the history list/sidebar even after closing and restarting the Codex App.

Additional information

There are no explicit error messages or crash prompts when this happens. The app restarts normally, but some previous conversations simply fail to load or are lost entirely from the database/history. Since this bug occurs very frequently, it is highly disruptive as valuable chat context is lost.

Activity

  1. added
    appIssues related to the Codex desktop app
    on May 31, 2026
  2. added
    bugSomething isn't working
    sessionIssues involving session (thread) management, resuming, forking, naming, archiving
    windows-osIssues related to Codex on Windows systems
    on May 31, 2026
  3. liquidice04 commented on Jun 2, 2026

    @liquidice04

    Same thing happening on my end

  4. diegobonacolsi commented on Jul 7, 2026

    @diegobonacolsi

    Same thing here, I've found a workaround to recover lost chats. Below is my conclusion drafted with Codex itself.

    Root cause: the normal thread/list filesystem scan skipped sessions whose rollout started with an empty ## My request for Codex: wrapper. The threads were still present in SQLite, thread/read and codex resume worked, and thread/list with useStateDbOnly: true returned them correctly.

    Workaround: after backing up the rollout JSONL, I changed the empty wrapper to ## My request for Codex:. (added a single period). Both missing threads immediately reappeared in the Codex UI.

    This seems most likely when a new thread starts from pasted/attached context without an actual text instruction in the first message.

  5. mattLummus commented on Aug 31, 2026

    @mattLummus

    This is still occurring

  6. manifestcowboy commented on Sep 21, 2026

    @manifestcowboy

    Just happened to me too

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    appIssues related to the Codex desktop appbugSomething isn't workingsessionIssues involving session (thread) management, resuming, forking, naming, archivingwindows-osIssues related to Codex on Windows systems

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