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The issue of dramatically increased Codex quota consumption. #26306

@ballytranshipper-eng

Description

@ballytranshipper-eng

What version of the Codex App are you using (From “About Codex” dialog)?

26.601。21317

What subscription do you have?

chat gpt plus

What platform is your computer?

"$([Environment]::OSVersion | ForEach-Object VersionString) $(if ([Environment]::Is64BitOperatingSystem) { "x64" } else { "x86" })"

What issue are you seeing?

After my Codex quota reset on June 4, 2026, token usage became abnormally high compared with the previous day, and the sidebar context also became much shorter.

This does not look like normal task variance.

On June 3, 2026, I started a new task and did a lot of heavy work, including scanning the whole project folder and identifying issues across the workspace. That kind of work usually consumes a lot of tokens. Even so, the total usage for the entire day was only about 4.6M tokens.

On June 4, 2026, after the quota reset, I only worked for about 2-3 hours and did only a few relatively small tasks, but usage already reached about 20.559M tokens.

So compared to yesterday:

  • the work was lighter
  • the working time was much shorter
  • but token usage was about 4.5x-5x higher

At the same time, I also noticed that the sidebar context became much shorter much earlier than before.

Because of that, this feels more like a regression in usage accounting, context compaction, repeated context processing, or some reset-related backend issue, rather than normal differences in task complexity.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Feedback ID: 019e8bff-cfa6-7972-8041-7a2d0d3eab75

I cannot provide a perfectly deterministic minimal repro, but I can provide a concrete timeline and a server-side reference that should make investigation easier.

I already submitted in-product feedback from the main working chat thread:

  • Feedback ID: 019e8bff-cfa6-7972-8041-7a2d0d3eab75

If this feedback ID lets the team inspect the underlying thread, usage accounting, and context behavior for that session, it should be possible to compare the abnormal behavior directly.

Observed timeline:

  1. June 3, 2026

    • I was working in my main Codex chat thread.
    • This was not a trivial session. I did relatively heavy work, including scanning the whole workspace / project folder and identifying problems.
    • Even with that heavier workload, total usage for the day was only about 4.6M tokens.
    • Overall behavior felt normal.
  2. June 4, 2026, after quota reset

    • I continued working again in Codex.
    • This time I only did a few relatively small tasks and worked for about 2-3 hours.
    • Despite the lighter workload, usage already reached about 20.559M tokens.
    • At the same time, the sidebar context became noticeably shorter much earlier than before.
  3. The abnormal pattern is therefore:

    • previous day: heavier work, lower total token usage
    • after reset: lighter work, much higher token usage
    • context retention also appeared worse after reset

This is why I suspect the issue may be related to:

  • usage accounting after quota reset
  • repeated context processing
  • context compaction / context reuse regression
  • or another backend issue affecting token accounting or effective context retention

This does not look explainable by normal task complexity differences alone.

What is the expected behavior?

Token usage after reset should be broadly consistent with the actual workload.

If I do lighter work for a shorter amount of time, token usage should not suddenly become 4.5x-5x higher than the previous day.

Context retention should also behave similarly unless there was an intentional product change.

Additional information

I already submitted feedback from the affected main chat thread:

  • Feedback ID: 019e8bff-cfa6-7972-8041-7a2d0d3eab75

If the team can inspect that thread internally, it may help verify:

  • actual token accounting per turn
  • whether context was repeatedly reprocessed
  • whether context compaction changed after reset
  • whether the session was routed differently after quota refresh

Important comparison:

  • June 3, 2026: heavy work, including scanning the whole workspace, about 4.6M tokens total
  • June 4, 2026: after quota reset, only 2-3 hours and a few smaller tasks, but about 20.559M tokens

So the issue is not just "high usage" in the abstract. It is a sharp day-to-day change that appeared immediately after quota reset.

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    appIssues related to the Codex desktop appbugSomething isn't workingcontextIssues related to context management (including compaction)rate-limitsIssues related to rate limits, quotas, and token usage reporting

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