Hi everyone, we made a change addressing an issue where Codex sign-in requested verification of an old or inaccessible phone number after you had already successfully signed in to your account. If this describes your situation, please try signing in to Codex again.
If you still encounter the same issue, reply with your existing support case number so we can review it further. Please do not post your email address, phone number, verification codes, or other personal information publicly.
Valid and normal phone number are not able to receive the verification code. An account that already bind the phone number in ChatGPT account then not able to change the SMS receive code to WhatsApp. SMS not able to receive the verification code.
Country: Malaysia
Hi OpenAI Support / Codex team,
I’m having the same kind of Codex client authorization issue described in a few recent community threads.
Case number: 10071024
ChatGPT web login works for my account, but the Codex desktop app / Codex client login flow still forces verification through an old inactive phone number. The verification screen asks for a code sent to an old U.S. number ending in 1075. That phone number is no longer active, so I cannot receive SMS or WhatsApp verification codes.
This does not appear to be a general request to change the phone number on my account. The issue is specific to the Codex client authorization flow. I can still access ChatGPT on the web, but Codex does not offer another method such as “Try with email”.
Environment:
I opened a Help Center case, but the first response treated this as a general phone recovery issue and said Support cannot reset the phone verification requirement. Similar Codex-specific cases in the community appear to have been escalated internally and fixed by removing/resetting the Codex client’s legacy phone/SMS verification prompt.
Could OpenAI Support please review Case 10071024 as a Codex/Auth client authorization issue and route it to a human support specialist or the appropriate Codex/Auth engineering team?
Related community threads:
Thank you.
Thank you for flagging this @chenzhe9622
We are aware of the issue and have escalated this to our team for investigation.
I'll share an update as soon as I hear back from them.
Thank you for your patience.
~ Smith
I’m facing the same issue.
My ChatGPT account works normally: I can sign in, I have access to my account email, and Authenticator App MFA is enabled. SMS MFA is disabled in my account settings.
The problem only happens with Codex CLI. When I run codex login or codex login --device-auth, the OpenAI login succeeds, but then Codex redirects me to a “Confirm phone number” page and requires verification of an old phone number that I no longer have access to. There is no option to use my email, Authenticator App, passkey, billing verification, or any other secure recovery method.
I contacted OpenAI Support, but the answer I received was basically to create a new account with my current phone number. That does not solve the issue for me, because my existing account has an active ChatGPT subscription, history, settings, and account data. It also does not address the actual Codex-specific authentication problem.
This does not look like a normal “change my phone number” request. It looks like Codex client authentication is forcing a legacy phone verification step even though the account already has valid MFA and works normally in ChatGPT web.
My support case number is: 10080635.
Following up on this issue.
My support case (10080635) is still unresolved.
The issue remains exactly the same:
I have also noticed that new reports describing the same issue continue to appear in the official openai/codex GitHub repository.
Could someone from OpenAI please confirm whether this issue is being actively investigated and whether there is any recovery path available for affected paid users?
Thank you.
I’m experiencing the same issue.
My ChatGPT web login works, and my account email is accessible, but when I try to log in to Codex, the authentication flow redirects me to phone OTP verification and asks me to receive a code on a phone number I do not recognize.
In my case, the number shown is an unknown +91 phone number. I did not register my OpenAI account with this phone number, and I have no access to it.
This does not seem like a normal “change phone number” request. It appears to be a Codex/Auth login flow issue where Codex is requiring verification through stale, incorrect, or unknown phone data, even though the main ChatGPT account is still accessible.
Creating a new account is not a workable solution for me because my existing account is important and is tied to my Team/Business workspace, Codex work, project history, and work-related activity.
Could OpenAI Support please confirm whether this issue is still being investigated and whether affected accounts can be escalated to the Codex/Auth or account recovery team?
I can log into ChatGPT web normally with this account, including MFA. In ChatGPT settings, my phone number is already attached under Security and login → Text message MFA.
However, when I try to sign into Codex with the same ChatGPT account, both the normal login flow and:
codex login --device-auth
send me to a “Phone number required” page.
When I enter the same phone number that is already attached to my account, I get:
This phone number is already linked to the maximum number of accounts.
So Codex appears to be treating my existing verified ChatGPT account as if it needs first-time phone enrollment, even though ChatGPT web already recognizes the number and lets me log in normally with MFA.
Support has been very unhelpful. Has anyone figured out a solution to this?
@OpenAI_Support I am experiencing the same Codex old-phone-number verification issue.
I can access ChatGPT normally, but when I try to log in to Codex, I am forced to verify using an old phone number that has been permanently deactivated. I cannot receive SMS or WhatsApp codes, and no alternative verification method is offered.
This issue happened a few times in the past, but later Codex stopped requiring the old phone verification and I was able to use it normally again. Recently the old-phone verification requirement appeared again, and now I am fully blocked from Codex.
My account has an active ChatGPT Plus subscription and is important for my work.
Support case number: 10909171
Could you please review my case for the same account-specific Codex unblock/change mentioned in this thread?
Thank you.
@OpenAI_Support this case got merged into this thread but my case has nothing to do with my old phone number. the auth flow rejects my current number that is tied to my account. this is very frustrating
I am also facing the same issue.
I think there needs to be an immediate change to this to change the phone number or allow multiple accounts to have the same numbers.
please we need solution to this, i have been emailed support non stop, but always a generic reply. please help
I believe at this point the only way to get attention to this issue is to pull some strings and get Wired.com to do a write up about this odd limitation many paying users aren’t aware of. Once the word gets out there will be a huge wave of paying customers realizing they are under a risk of losing access w/out a warning AND without a way to mitigate the situation ahead of time.
I am also facing the same issue.
i bought codex pro in google play，but i cannot use codex
Same issue here on a paid (Pro) account. ChatGPT web and platform.openai.com sign-in work fine (Google SSO + passkey), but the Codex CLI/desktop OAuth flow forces phone verification against an old number I no longer control — after passing the passkey it still lands on “Verify your phone number”. The phone field at platform.openai.com/settings/profile/user is read-only, and adding my current number fails with “This phone number is already linked to the maximum number of accounts”, so it needs to be removed/reset, not replaced. I’ve opened a Help Center case referencing this thread. Please escalate to the Codex/Auth team — this blocks a paid feature. Also tracked in openai/codex GitHub issues #25749 and #25831.
@OpenAI_Support mentioned on a separate thread the devs are looking for a solution. You should post your case # there so they can refer to it when some resolution arrives. Until they find it, there’s absolutely nothing that can be done.
Adding my case number so the devs can reference it: Case 11116129. Same problem — the Codex client OAuth sign-in forces legacy phone verification against a number I no longer control, while ChatGPT web and platform.openai.com work fine with Google SSO + passkey. Support confirmed it was escalated to a specialist. Thanks @imdb2 for the pointer. Hoping the Codex/Auth team can remove/reset the client’s phone-verification requirement. Also tracked in openai/codex GitHub issues #25749 and #25831.
I also experienced the same issue. I only have one phone number in use, and I thought it would be better to disconnect all accounts linked to the recently logged-in GPT account and then reconnect to Codex.
However, when I tried to log in to the Codex CLI through the browser in order to connect it again, it said phone verification was required. When I entered the phone number I use, it said the maximum number of uses had already been reached, so I was unable to log in.
The docs say that a phone number can be used for up to three accounts, but I do not think I have used it enough times to reach that limit. If the number is being used elsewhere, shouldn’t there be a way to disconnect it from other places or otherwise allow it to be used with my current account?
I tried looking for various solutions but eventually gave up and borrowed a friend’s phone number for the time being. I think there needs to be a way for users to manage or update their personal information.
I also blocked with verifying my mobile phone number which I don’t have access to. I’m paid pro user and I can’t access Codex App
Great inventions often have one thing in common: they change the way users behave. In that sense, OpenAI’s phone-verification system may be even more transformative than GPT-5.6, because it completely overturns the normal expectation that a customer should be able to update a phone number while retaining the same account, subscription, purchase history, and payment identity.