Rollout JSONL grew to 98 GB from inline Base64 PNG payloads #40111

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{"type":"response_item","payload":{"type":"message","role":"user","content":[{"type":"input_image","image_url":"data:image/
png;base64,iVBORw0KGgo...<redacted>"}]}}
png;base64,iVBORw0KGgo...<redacted>"}]}}

Early individual image-bearing records were approximately 5.15 MB, 7.76 MB, and 6.76 MB. Image payloads continued accumulating throughout the rollout.

### Impact

- Approximately 92 GB consumed by one session log
- Disk nearly exhausted
- Risk of application or system failure/data loss
- File had to be permanently deleted
- Deleting it increased available disk space from approximately 13 GB
  to 105 GB

### Expected behavior

- Image payloads should be referenced or deduplicated instead of repeatedly
  embedded in rollout history.

- Session logs should have rotation or maximum-size limits.
- Codex should warn or stop before a session log exhausts the disk.
- Old or redundant image payloads should be compacted or pruned safely.

### Additional information

The file was deleted after confirming that no process had it open, because
the machine was critically low on disk space. OpenAI Support has also noted
the incident in a support conversation.

### What steps can reproduce the bug?

I have not attempted to reproduce the full 98 GB growth because doing so could exhaust the disk again.

Observed workflow:

1. Start Codex CLI 0.148.0 in a project.
2. Keep the same session active/resumable across multiple days.
3. Attach PNG moodboard/reference images.
4. Perform an image-heavy design and PDF workflow involving rendered pages and image-returning tool calls.
5. Inspect the session rollout under `~/.codex/sessions/`.

The rollout contained complete PNG payloads inline in both user-image and tool-output records:

```json
{"type":"response_item","payload":{"type":"message","role":"user","content":[{"type":"input_image","image_url":"data:image/
png;base64,iVBORw0KGgo...<redacted>"}]}}

{"type":"response_item","payload":{"type":"custom_tool_call_output","output":[{"type":"input_image","image_url":"data:image/
png;base64,iVBORw0KGgo...<redacted>"}]}}

Early individual image-bearing records were approximately 5.15 MB, 7.76 MB, and 6.76 MB. These payloads continued accumulating as the session was used.

The resulting rollout reached exactly 98,277,570,375 bytes (~91.5 GiB).

### What is the expected behavior?

```markdown
Image payloads should be referenced, deduplicated, compressed, or pruned instead of allowing a session rollout to grow without bounds.

Codex should enforce a reasonable maximum size or rotation policy for rollout files and warn the user before local session data can exhaust the
disk.

Resuming an image-heavy session should not repeatedly persist unnecessary copies of full Base64 image payloads.

### Additional information

The project itself occupied only 584 MB, while this single rollout consumed approximately 92 GB.

The disk reached 97–98% capacity, leaving only 12–13 GiB free. After confirming that no process had the rollout open, I permanently deleted it. Available disk space increased from approximately 13 GB to 105 GB.

`codex doctor --json` now reports a stale state-database row pointing to the deleted rollout:

- `state.rollout_db_parity`: warning
- Cause: state DB rows point at missing or unusable rollout files
- Measured: 1 stale row

The original rollout could not be retained or attached because the machine was critically low on disk space. OpenAI Support has also recorded the incident in a support conversation.