Repository navigation
Side chats disappear and cannot be reopened from history or mobile #40262
Description
What issue are you seeing?
Side chats / side conversations in Codex can effectively disappear after leaving them. I can start a side chat, use it normally, and then later have no obvious way to return to it.
The conversation is not exposed like a normal persistent Codex thread in history, and it is also not reliably available from ChatGPT on mobile. This makes side chats unsafe for any useful or important work because the user cannot tell whether the conversation will remain accessible after switching away from it.
Steps to reproduce
- Open Codex Desktop.
- Start a side chat / side conversation from an existing Codex conversation.
- Have a normal conversation in the side chat.
- Switch away from the side chat or return to the parent conversation.
- Try to find and reopen the side chat later from Codex history.
- Try to find the same conversation from ChatGPT on iOS / Remote.
Actual behavior
There is no clear, reliable way to find and reopen the previous side chat. From the user's perspective it appears to have disappeared.
This is especially confusing because the side chat behaves like a normal capable conversation while it is open, so there is no strong indication that it may be ephemeral or difficult/impossible to recover later.
Expected behavior
At least one of the following should be supported:
- Side chats should appear in conversation history and be reopenable.
- The parent conversation should expose a list of its side chats.
- Side chats should have a persistent ID/deep link that can be copied and reopened.
- There should be a "Promote to normal chat" action.
- If a side chat is intentionally ephemeral, the UI should clearly warn the user before they put important work into it.
- Ideally, persistent side chats should also be visible/reopenable from mobile when the associated Codex conversation is available there.
Why this matters
The current behavior makes it very easy to lose access to useful context, decisions, or work performed in a side chat. It also makes users hesitant to use the feature at all.
Related: #40199, which asks for documentation of side-conversation identity, lifecycle, persistence, and limitations. This issue is specifically about the user-facing inability to reliably return to an existing side chat after leaving it.
Environment
- Codex Desktop on macOS
- ChatGPT iOS for mobile access
- Observed August 23, 2026
Activity
eldenmoon commentedon Aug 26, 2026
I can reproduce this specifically across a full app restart on macOS:
26.820.60940The side chat is not present in history and I cannot recover it. This is stronger than merely switching away: the context is lost across a full process restart.
I would strongly prefer side chats to be persistent first-class threads that can be reopened after restart, ideally with a parent-chat relationship and a “Promote to regular chat” option. If side chats are intentionally ephemeral, the UI should clearly warn users and offer an explicit save/promote action.
Posting this as a comment here rather than creating a duplicate issue because this report appears to cover the same persistence request.
EdwardBlair commentedon Sep 2, 2026
Side chats are ephemeral by design #26227
kernelpanic888 commentedon Sep 11, 2026
Additional macOS report (2026-09-11), potentially related to this retention issue:
no rollout found for thread id <redacted>.Read-only diagnostics for the affected side conversation:
thread/readrequest followed bythread/resumefailing with-32600,rollout_not_found, during thread hydration. A subsequent composer submission failed with the same error.ephemeral threads do not support thread/turns/list.These observations establish loss of access, not irreversible deletion or a confirmed root cause. I have not reproduced the exact trigger in a clean session and am preserving the affected state instead of resetting it. The UI does warn that side chats are temporary; the remaining need is an explicit way to preserve important work before it becomes unreachable.
Requested lifecycle contract:
This also relates to the lifecycle documentation request in #40199. Posting here rather than opening another duplicate.
Attribution: the account owner supplied the observation and retention requirement; Lina, an AI assistant, performed the read-only diagnostics and drafted this comment with the owner's authorization. No conversation identifiers, transcripts, screenshots, or raw logs are included.
AMGMNPLK commentedon Sep 15, 2026
And why to make them not recoverable?? what advantage does this give us??? I lost many hours of work after a crash of the app!!!