[Windows] Recent Codex session disappears from sidebar after restart during Remote Control troubleshooting #36341

Codex version

• Microsoft Store package: OpenAI.Codex_26.727.4816.0_x64__2p2nqsd0c76g0
• Windows 11 x64

Summary

A recently active Codex Desktop session disappeared from the UI after restarting the app while troubleshooting a separate Remote Control enable failure.

It is not yet confirmed whether the transcript was deleted or merely hidden by a sidebar/index/state mismatch. The product currently provides no supported recovery or reindex workflow, so the user cannot determine whether the work is recoverable.

Observed behavior

Before restart, the recent session was visible and active. After restarting Codex Desktop, the recent session no longer appeared in the sidebar/history.

Desktop logs before restart contained conversation-routing inconsistencies such as:

[electron-message-handler] Received turn/started for unknown conversation
[electron-message-handler] Received turn/completed for unknown conversation

At the same time, local app-server requests such as thread/list, account/read, config/read, and getAuthStatus were generally returning with errorCode=null.

Important troubleshooting context

During Remote Control troubleshooting, local Codex client state may have been reset or recreated. Therefore this report does not claim that an ordinary restart alone definitely deleted the transcript. The product problem is that:

1. Codex does not clearly distinguish durable transcripts from rebuildable UI/cache state.
2. Resetting client state provides no prominent warning that session visibility or local transcripts may be affected.
3. After restart, there is no supported repair/reindex/recover local sessions action.
4. The UI gives no indication whether a missing session still exists in state_5.sqlite, session_index.jsonl, or sessions/**/rollout-*.jsonl.

Expected behavior

• Recent sessions should remain visible after restart.
• Resetting UI/cache state should not remove durable conversation transcripts.
• Any operation that can delete local transcripts should require an explicit warning and confirmation.
• Codex Desktop should provide a supported recovery command or UI action that scans intact rollout files and rebuilds the sidebar/index.
• When a session is omitted from the sidebar, Search or a diagnostics page should state whether its local transcript still exists.

Impact

The user believes recent work has been lost and has no safe recovery path. This is especially damaging because the disappearance happened while troubleshooting another Codex feature failure.

Related reports include sidebar/history visibility and local-index divergence issues such as #19290, #26157, #33579, #34076, and #34446.