Bug: Cannot access Chatgpt after new update

ChatGPT Bugs
21

Changed to Private Network… it worked.

22

I first made a copy of the .codex folder.
Did a fresh install.
Copied back the backup codex contents.
Still it prompted and got struck.
Then did the rename of config.toml as mentioned here.
Restarted chatgpt desktop app and things worked fine.
Old projects and chat history is all available.

23

I ran into what appears to be a related Windows Codex desktop failure after the latest update. Renaming config.toml allowed the app to start again, but there are two important recovery details that may help others avoid losing organization data.

In my case, %USERPROFILE%\.codex\config.toml had been physically overwritten with null bytes; it was not merely malformed TOML. Before changing anything, fully exit Codex and back up the entire %USERPROFILE%\.codex directory.

The recovery that worked was:

  1. Fully close the Codex desktop app and VS Code.
  2. Back up %USERPROFILE%\.codex.
  3. In PowerShell, run: Rename-Item "$HOME\.codex\config.toml" "config.toml.corrupt-backup"
  4. Reopen Codex and let it generate a clean configuration.
  5. Do not delete the sessions or archived_sessions directories.

My conversations were still present afterward. However, the local project registry had also been reset, so existing tasks temporarily appeared under General Chat. The relevant global-state file contained an empty local-project list, and its automatic backup already contained the same empty state. The tasks were not gone; their working-directory metadata remained intact. Re-adding the local folders in Codex restored their project grouping.

If the app opens after renaming config.toml but projects appear missing, preserve .codex-global-state.json before doing anything else. Restore a known-good copy if available; otherwise re-add the folders through the app rather than deleting or recreating conversation files.

This happened on the Windows Codex desktop app, version 26.730.8199.0.

It would help if the app used atomic writes for configuration and global state, preserved the last known-good backup after a parse failure, and offered startup recovery when the configuration contains null bytes.