Codex desktop app on macOS continuously creates zombie SkyComputerUseService processes

Codex
1

Summary

The Codex desktop app on macOS continuously launches SkyComputerUseService for the Computer Use picture-in-picture feature. Each helper exits but remains as a zombie process (Z <defunct>), while the app launches another helper approximately every 1.6 seconds.

Environment

  • App: ChatGPT/Codex desktop app for macOS
  • Version: 26.730.61639
  • Build: 6234
  • Bundle ID: com.openai.codex

Steps to reproduce

  1. Launch the Codex desktop app.
  2. Leave the app running. No active Computer Use task is required.
  3. Check for zombie processes:
ps -axo pid,ppid,stat,etime,comm | awk '$3 ~ /Z/'
  1. Observe new zombie processes being created continuously under the ChatGPT main process.

Hiding the Codex pet and restarting the app did not stop the issue.

Actual behavior

In one run, 30 zombie processes were created within 55 seconds. In another run, 31 were created within 61 seconds.

Eventually, local command execution intermittently failed with:

Resource temporarily unavailable (os error 35)

The application log repeatedly showed:

Refreshing managed Computer Use service for PiP
Refreshed managed Computer Use service for PiP processIdentifier=<PID>

The reported processIdentifier values matched zombie PIDs shown by ps.

Crash reports identified the exiting executable as:

~/.codex/computer-use/Codex Computer Use.app/Contents/MacOS/SkyComputerUseService

This appears to be related to the Computer Use picture-in-picture service rather than a specific pet.

Expected behavior

The PiP helper process should be reused, or exited child processes should be properly reaped. The application should not continuously accumulate zombie processes while idle.

Workaround

Adding the following setting to ~/.codex/config.toml and fully restarting the app stopped the continuous leak:

[desktop]
computerUseAlwaysHidePictureInPicture = true

After restarting:

  • The zombie count attributed to the app stopped increasing.
  • Repeated process snapshots showed no new zombies.
  • The recurring PiP refresh messages disappeared from the application log.

Please let me know if sanitized logs or crash dumps would help with further investigation.

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