Codex fails to start on Windows when the username contains special characters

Codex
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1

## Error
EPERM: operation not permitted, mkdir ‘C:\Users\C�sar\.codex\sqlite’

Environment

  • Windows 11
  • Username: contains special character (e.g. “César”)

Details

The path is incorrectly encoded (C�sar instead of César), which causes failure when trying to create directories.

Expected Behavior

The application should correctly handle Unicode paths on Windows.

Actual Behavior

Codex fails to initialize due to encoding issues in the filesystem path.

Notes

This seems to be a UTF-8 encoding issue when handling Windows user directories.

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1 Like
2

Hey,

I also have this issue, and it did not get fixed with the recent update to the app.

If you have a github account, I’d recommend replying to the open issue about this bug here, or if you just want to track if he developers pick up on it: Windows Store Codex app fails to start for Windows usernames containing non-ASCII characters. · Issue #13553 · openai/codex · GitHub

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