[macOS Desktop] UI freezes for ~30 seconds immediately after every launch

[Daniel-K-Ivanov]

What version of the Codex App are you using?

Codex Desktop / ChatGPT app bundle version 26.727.40816 (build 6067).

What platform is your computer?

macOS 15.6.1 (build 24G90), Apple Silicon / arm64.

What issue are you seeing?

On every launch, the Codex desktop UI renders normally and then becomes completely unresponsive for about 30 seconds:

• The initial ChatGPT/Codex logo is visible for roughly 2–3 seconds.
• The sidebar, conversations, and prompt input then appear.
• About one second later, the whole Codex window freezes.
• The prompt caret stops blinking and clicks/typing do not work.
• After roughly 30 seconds, the UI recovers by itself and works normally.

There is no visible error, crash, or macOS hang report. The behavior reproduces on every restart.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

1. Fully quit Codex Desktop.
2. Launch it again.
3. Wait for the main UI (sidebar, conversations, and composer) to appear.
4. About one second later, observe that the window stops repainting and accepting input for approximately 30 seconds.
5. After the pause, observe that it recovers without an error.

What is the expected behavior?

The desktop window should remain responsive while startup services, plugins, apps/connectors, and conversation state initialize in the background.

Diagnostic observations

The following checks were performed without attaching raw logs or account/profile data:

• Main-window readiness is logged in roughly 0.4–0.6 seconds, well before the visible freeze ends.
• Local auth/config/thread database calls complete quickly.
• Disabling the Apps feature and restarting did not remove or shorten the UI freeze.
• A first app/list request can take roughly 13–19 seconds, but the freeze still occurs when Apps is disabled, so connector credentials do not appear to be the cause.
• MCP Docker startup was separately repaired and now completes in roughly 0.7–1 second; all configured MCP servers initialize, but the 30-second freeze remains.
• Sampling the native Electron parent process showed it idle rather than blocked. This suggests synchronous work or a loop in the renderer, although a renderer stack has not yet been captured during the exact frozen interval.
• No macOS watchdog event, GPU crash, or application crash report was found.

Related issues

• Codex macOS app renderer freezes at 100% CPU after auto-starting browser/node_repl runtime #28502 also reports a macOS renderer freeze, but there the renderer reaches 100% CPU after browser/node runtime startup and remains unusable; this report freezes much earlier, lasts about 30 seconds, and then recovers.
• Mac desktop app freezes on launch (blank screen, high CPU) — corrupted ~/.codex session; fixed by moving the folder aside #26507 reports a permanent blank-screen launch freeze fixed by moving corrupted local state; this report renders the full UI before freezing and always recovers.
• Codex Desktop meta-bug: unbounded session/turn state causes freezes, context bloat, and lost active-turn control #25779 tracks broader session/history-related desktop freezes, but does not document this consistent early-startup 30-second stall.

Privacy note

Raw logs are intentionally omitted because they can contain local paths, task identifiers, repository names, and other private data. Sanitized timing or stack data can be supplied if maintainers specify what fields are safe and useful.

[github-actions]

Potential duplicates detected. Please review them and close your issue if it is a duplicate.

• [macOS] Bundled plugin reconciliation causes 30-40s startup delay due to content variant mismatch #36100
• App freezes on startup. Takes minutes to be ready. #35531

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[e-simpson]

Having an odd, similar Mac desktop app (latest version) bug, same thing freezes heavy, cpu ramps up to like 130%, and can't even load chats in it just shows the loading shimmer icon, can barely access settings, right clicking on things takes a really long time. Had to delete the current app version and rollback to another version (Version 26.721.41059) I had as backup which is completely fine no issues. Will uninstall fully and re-install to see if that fixes it.