Codex Chronicle generated 572 background summaries overnight and consumed quota

Codex
1

I am posting this here because the forum banner explicitly allows Codex developer-tool discussion, and this appears to be a Codex background-task bug.

After enabling Chronicle in the Codex desktop app, my local machine generated a large number of persisted Chronicle memory summaries during non-working hours. This appears to have consumed my 20x usage quota without explicit user turns.

Evidence summary:

  • Date/time zone: 2026-05-14, Beijing time
  • Chronicle resource location: ~/.codex/memories/extensions/chronicle/resources
  • Total persisted Chronicle summaries generated that day: 572
  • Time range: 2026-05-14 00:00:00 to 2026-05-14 11:40:00 Beijing time
  • Records generated before the visible 11:30:16 Chronicle launch: 571
  • From 00:00 to 09:00 Beijing time, Chronicle generated 60 summaries per hour, i.e. one persisted file per minute, even though the files are named 10min-memory-summary.

Hourly count:

```text
60 2026-05-14 00:00
60 2026-05-14 01:00
60 2026-05-14 02:00
60 2026-05-14 03:00
60 2026-05-14 04:00
60 2026-05-14 05:00
60 2026-05-14 06:00
60 2026-05-14 07:00
60 2026-05-14 08:00
30 2026-05-14 09:00
2 2026-05-14 11:00
```

Direct log evidence shows automatic summary sessions:

```text
2026-05-14T03:30:16.739Z … codex_chronicle starting
2026-05-14T03:30:16.783Z … screen recording starting
2026-05-14T03:40:36.867Z … starting summary session … level=“10min” bucket=2026-05-14T03-30-00Z
2026-05-14T03:40:36.868Z … starting codex exec summary session … model=gpt-5.5 reasoning_effort=medium
2026-05-14T03:42:36.890Z … starting summary session … level=“10min” bucket=2026-05-14T03-30-00Z
2026-05-14T03:42:36.891Z … starting codex exec summary session … model=gpt-5.5 reasoning_effort=medium
```

The logs also show repeated screen-recording permission failures while Chronicle was active:

```text
ERROR screen recording reconcile failed kind=PermissionRequired state=Unsupported
No shareable content available: Content unavailable: user denied TCC screen capture
```

Why this looks like a bug:

  1. The persisted summary files show one 10min-memory-summary per minute for long periods.
  2. 571 persisted summaries existed before the visible 11:30:16 Chronicle process launch.
  3. Logs show repeated automatic codex exec summary sessions using gpt-5.5.
  4. Logs also show repeated screen-capture permission failures, but Chronicle still started or retried summary-related work.
  5. This background behavior appears to consume quota without explicit user requests.

I have also submitted this through OpenAI Help Center and asked support to investigate and restore/refund the consumed quota. I can provide screenshots, the full exported TSV record list, and local log excerpts privately if OpenAI staff need them.

2

Sorry for the late reply! The current Computer History feature replaces Chronicle and has different collection controls: https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/customization/computer-history. That doesn’t settle the quota loss you reported. Please keep the timestamps and summary-session evidence in your existing Support case for a usage review.