Codex appears to leave orphaned git.exe processes on Windows. #25935

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1. DasEtwa

   added

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

   on Jun 2, 2026
2. github-actions

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   bugSomething isn't workingSomething isn't working

   windows-osIssues related to Codex on Windows systemsIssues related to Codex on Windows systems

   tool-callsIssues related to tool callingIssues related to tool calling

   on Jun 2, 2026
3. github-actions commented on Jun 2, 2026

   

   github-actionsBot

   on Jun 2, 2026 – with GitHub Actions

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

   • Codex Desktop on Windows can leave git diff --numstat readers causing user-mapped section write failures during edits #24681

   Powered by Codex Action
4. DasEtwa commented on Jun 2, 2026

   

   DasEtwa

   on Jun 2, 2026

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   I think this is related, but not an exact duplicate.

   My issue is not mainly about file rewrite failures or “user-mapped section open” errors. My issue is about Codex leaving many orphaned git.exe and Windows shell processes alive after a session/PR workflow.

   Codex sometimes reports that a process was closed, but Windows Task Manager / PowerShell still shows the process running.

   So this may share an underlying Windows process-management cause, but the symptom and expected behavior are different. Could this be tracked as a separate process-cleanup/orphaned-child-process issue?
5. brepublic commented on Jun 26, 2026

   

   brepublic

   on Jun 26, 2026

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   I am seeing what appears to be the same issue, but at a much larger scale on Windows 11 Pro with 32 GB of RAM.

   After using the Codex Desktop App, my physical memory usage eventually reached approximately 29.9 / 31.2 GB (95–96%).

   RAMMap showed:

   • Page Table: 9,359,280 KB
   • Unused / Active: 9,185,084 KB
   • Nonpaged Pool: 3,376,648 KB
   • Process Private: only approximately 5 GB

   The RAMMap Processes tab contained an extremely large number of git.exe and conhost.exe entries with:

   • Private: 0 KB
   • Standby: 0 KB
   • Modified: 0 KB
   • Page Table: usually 8–32 KB

   

   These entries were no longer visible as normal running processes in Task Manager or Get-Process.

   I also compared the Windows process-object performance counter with the number of live processes:

   $objects = [int64](Get-Counter '\Objects\Processes').CounterSamples.CookedValue
   $live = @(Get-Process).Count

   The result was:

   ProcessObjects: 289,371
   LiveProcesses:       345
   Difference:      289,026
   

   This suggests that approximately 289,000 terminated process objects were still being retained. The retained git.exe and conhost.exe objects account for several gigabytes of page-table memory and appear to be the main reason the system memory became exhausted.

   This is slightly different from simply having a few live orphaned git.exe processes: most of these processes appear to have terminated, but their process objects and page tables were not released.

   Rebooting clears the retained objects and restores the memory. I have saved a RAMMap .RMP snapshot and screenshots and can provide them if they would help with diagnosis.

   I do not yet have a minimal reproduction, but Codex was repeatedly launching Git and shell commands before the object count accumulated.
6. suiyuebaobao commented on Jul 22, 2026

   

   suiyuebaobao

   on Jul 22, 2026 – with ChatGPT Codex Connector

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   The orphaned git.exe behavior reported here closely matches the process churn I reproduced.

   I published a single-file Windows launcher for the original Microsoft Store/MSIX Codex app:

   • Repository: https://github.com/suiyuebaobao/codex-git-refresh-workaround
   • Direct download: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/suiyuebaobao/codex-git-refresh-workaround/main/Codex-Git-Disabled.cmd

   It starts Codex with a process-scoped GIT_DIR=NUL. On my machine, the stable trace changed from 247 new git.exe and 137 new taskkill.exe processes per 10 seconds to 0 and 0 over 15 seconds; WMI Provider Host fell from about 6.6% to 0.9%.

   Usage: fully exit Codex from the Windows system tray, then run the script.

   This is an unofficial workaround, not an upstream fix. It deliberately disables or limits Review, Changes, branch detection, commit, and other Git-backed Codex features. It does not patch Codex, modify repositories or Git configuration, write system environment variables, require elevation, terminate processes, or remove chat history. Launching Codex normally restores Git integration.