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[Windows] Computer Use turn-ended helper leaves persistent blank white desktop surface #32783
Description
What happened
After Codex Desktop runs for a while, a large blank white borderless rectangle appears near the upper-left of the Windows desktop. It has no title bar or close control and cannot be dismissed normally.
Closing Codex/ChatGPT and its visible background processes does not remove the rectangle. It is not listed as a normal application window, which makes it appear to be an orphaned native capture/compositor surface rather than a regular app window.
The issue first appeared on Codex Desktop 26.707.3748.0. The client has since updated to 26.707.8479.0, but the already-orphaned surface remains. The active and newly bundled Computer Use helper are byte-for-byte identical:
- Computer Use package: @oai/sky 0.4.20
- codex-computer-use.exe SHA-256: F2B2F56FCD1699B0FA32DEC3214A56A1D36B937A2ECF58CC822AB4A904551E03
What I expected
The turn-ended notification/capture helper should exit without leaving any visible desktop surface. Any helper-created surface should be destroyed when the helper or Codex Desktop exits.
Steps to reproduce
- On Windows 10 build 19044, enable the Codex Computer Use plugin.
- Configure Codex's turn-ended notification to invoke codex-computer-use.exe with the turn-ended argument.
- Use Codex Desktop for an extended session with multiple completed turns.
- Observe that a blank white borderless rectangle eventually appears on the desktop.
- Close Codex Desktop and its visible background processes.
- Observe that the rectangle remains and offers no normal way to close it.
The appearance is intermittent rather than tied to one known prompt.
Additional context
- OS: Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC, x64, build 19044.
- Disabling only the turn-ended notify command prevents further notifier invocations while leaving Computer Use available.
- The existing rectangle can survive process exit; removing it appears to require restarting the Windows graphics compositor or rebooting.
- No compositor reset or reboot was performed because other long-running work was active.
- The public Codex changelog does not identify a specific fix in the newer client builds, and the native helper binary is unchanged.
- A screenshot showing the rectangle is available if maintainers need it.
Possibly related:
- Windows Computer Use screenshot fails on Windows 10 22H2 when SetIsBorderRequired is called #25178 — Windows 10 Computer Use capture calls an API unsupported below build 20348
- Windows Desktop hangs/exits after turn-complete notification path #22655 — Windows turn-complete notification path hangs/exits
- Windows: Codex App UI renders as transparent/blank white content area #25236 — blank/transparent Windows UI
- Codex Desktop on Windows: rendering freezes/transparency when maximized #25513 — Windows DWM/rendering behavior
Activity
Jack-zhuo123 commentedon Jul 14, 2026
I am seeing a closely related, but not identical, rendering artifact on Windows Codex Desktop 26.707.8479.0 and 26.707.9981.0.
Local window and process inspection shows:
Chrome_WidgetWin_0ChatGPT.exeIsWindowVisible=falseChatGPT.exeThis indicates that the white rectangle is not necessarily removed by destroying the Chromium window. It may instead be a stale Chromium/DWM rendering surface that disappears after a compositor or focus refresh.
A black terminal window sometimes closes at approximately the same time that the white surface disappears. This is only a timing correlation; I cannot confirm that the terminal causes or fixes the rendering artifact.
The behavior occurred in two Store versions with approximately the same auxiliary-window dimensions, so it does not appear to be a one-time corrupted window state.
Platform:
The separate bundled-plugin and Computer Use native-pipe issue on this installation is documented here:
#32589