[macOS] Sidebar no longer shows blue unread dots when background tasks finish #50856

What version of the Codex App are you using?

Codex desktop 26.930.31730 (build 12947), production channel. The updater reports the app is up to date.

What platform is your computer?

macOS 14.8.9 (23J631), Apple Silicon (arm64).

What issue are you seeing?

After the recent desktop app update became active following a Mac restart, completed background tasks stopped showing the blue unread dot in the left sidebar.

The task itself completes normally. Its spinner stops, and the app's thread inventory still reports the task as unread, but the sidebar does not render the blue unread indicator. This makes it difficult to notice which long-running tasks have finished without opening tasks individually.

The problem appears to be presentation of unread state rather than loss of the underlying state: in a direct check, at least one task was returned with isUnread: true while no blue dot was visible in the sidebar.

The user noticed the regression after restarting the Mac, likely when an already-downloaded app update first launched. A separate local read-only notification automation was installed around the same time, but it does not open tasks, mark them read, or modify sidebar state; no causal link to that automation is established.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

1. Open Codex desktop on macOS.
2. Start work in a task.
3. Switch to another task or leave the original task unopened while it runs.
4. Wait for the background task to complete.
5. Observe that the task's spinner stops.
6. Check the left sidebar: the completed task has no blue unread dot.
7. A supported task inventory can still report that task as unread.

What is the expected behavior?

When a background task completes and has not been opened, the sidebar should show its blue unread indicator until the user reads it.

What actually happens?

The unread state can exist internally, but the sidebar omits the blue dot. The only visible completion signal is that the spinner stops, which is easy to miss when several tasks are running.

Impact

This is a serious workflow regression for users who run multiple tasks in parallel. They must inspect tasks one by one to discover completed work.

Related issues

• [macOS][ChatGPT Desktop][Cloud Projects] Web-created Chats stay out of last-active order and omit unread dots #40731 reports missing unread dots for ordinary ChatGPT Cloud Project chats plus stale ordering.
• macOS remote Codex app misses unread indicator for completed task marked unread on Linux host #48444 reports a missing unread dot for a remotely completed task across hosts.
• [Windows app] Previously read completed threads become unread after restart and outrank active threads #37033 and Codex task list needs timestamps and sorting settings, and unread status issues fixed #37784 concern different read-state persistence problems.

This report concerns a local macOS Codex desktop sidebar where the unread state is still present but its blue indicator is not rendered after local task completion.

The user explicitly authorized this sanitized public report. It contains no chat contents, private project names, account identifiers, local paths, or credentials.