Already deleted cloud chats remain in desktop Recents #44898

App: ChatGPT desktop 26.903.71938, macOS

Problem: Cloud chats that have already been deleted remain in the desktop app's Recents list. Opening or deleting one returns HTTP 404 with errorCode=conversation_deleted and the message “Conversation has been deleted. Start a new chat.” Archive also fails. Quitting and reopening the app does not clear the entries.

Expected: When the cloud service explicitly confirms that a conversation is deleted, remove its stale local Recents entry and refresh the sidebar.

Observed cause: The installed app waits for the cloud delete request to succeed before cleaning its local thread catalog. An already deleted response rejects that request, so the local cleanup is skipped and the stale record survives restarts.

Suggested fix: Treat the specific 404 / conversation_deleted response as an authoritative local removal. Update the catalog revision and any in-progress scan removal marker using the normal index-removal path. Invalidate the relevant sidebar caches. Apply equivalent cleanup when opening or archiving a chat returns the same explicit deletion status. Do not hide records merely because of a timeout, authentication error, or an ambiguous not-found response.

Validation: Cover successful deletion, deletion from another client, repeated deletion, sidebar refresh after restart, and non-deletion errors. A local repair that removed only independently confirmed deleted catalog entries cleared the saved index while preserving current conversations.

Please address this in a desktop app update so the stale entries do not return and manual local repairs are no longer needed.

No account identifiers, chat titles, or conversation contents are included in this report.