Last Windows Codex App Update Causing Massive Device-wide lag

Codex Codex CLI
1

**My Whole computer is completely unusable and super laggy as soon as I start codex after the last update to the windows codex app. the below is the issue and solution (which shouldn’t have to be applied).

What is happening:** Codex Desktop’s Electron main process is running a background CPU/I/O loop. It is creating enough scheduler, cache, and page-fault pressure to delay mouse and keyboard handling across Windows. Your laptop is not short on RAM, and vmmem is no longer involved.

Why it started tonight: Windows forcibly upgraded Codex from 26.803.10989.0 to 26.810.4967.0 at approximately 12:57 AM. The old app was terminated for servicing and the new package launched immediately. Your reported onset and this package transition align exactly.

Direct evidence

For the main ChatGPT.exe process, PID 9736:

  • Sustained 1.15–1.22 full CPU cores.
  • Read 317–327 MiB/s continuously from cached/local data.
  • Generated 45,000–70,000 page faults per second.
  • A separate 10-second sample recorded 3.08 GiB read, 13.55 CPU-seconds, and 763,050 page faults.
  • Minimizing Codex made essentially no difference:
    • Visible: 1.15 cores, 327 MiB/s.
    • Minimized: 1.20 cores, 317 MiB/s.
    • Restored: 1.22 cores, 327 MiB/s.

Therefore this is not 4K rendering or cursor drawing. It is background work inside the Electron main process.

Additional defects found

Codex repeatedly launches reg.exe and conhost.exe to query the Windows default browser. I observed eight pairs in 22 seconds. That is unnecessary periodic process churn from the packaged application.

The new package also still contains the known Windows process-discovery and Git-origin code paths:

  • Win32_Process
  • Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfProc_Process
  • child-process-snapshot-worker
  • git-origins

Those paths have previously been tied to measured system-wide input stalls. A published controlled A/B reduced maximum mouse-event delay from 234 ms to 16 ms after suppressing those scans

2

Same problem here. I’m on Windows version 26.810.41047 and my whole PC gets extremely laggy

3

Same! It’s laggy and unable to function properly unless you close the app.
Hope it’ll get fixed

4

Yup. Exactly the same for me.

5

same problem here, after the latest update, pc lag till the point of cursor cant move smoothly.

6

I’m having the same problem on Windows 11

7

Same here. Win11. Totally unusable currently.

8

August now, still essentially makes the desktop app almost unusable and super annoying. This does not happen in Claude Desktop, Kimi Desktop, Jetbrains Air, Buzz, Claw Harnesses but the moment you try to use Codex, the system just starts sputtering and stalling and freezing like its trying to max every channel of the GPU, CPU and RAM just to load its Windows GU. Is this thing written in visual basic circa 2003?

9

I had a similar issue, what I did was refresh the sandbox login for codex and that solved my lag issues and workflows started working again. Ask ChatGPT to reset that and it will provide you a link and a code to reset the sandbox’s instance.

10

A recent Windows app update includes a fix for an issue that could cause significant system lag. Could you update to the latest version, restart the app, and let us know whether the problem is resolved?

11

Just got the update, It seems fine now.
It’d be helpful to optimize more the app for windows :slight_smile:
Because It’s still feel slow sometimes, no laggy but slow to load and stuck even if nothing is running.
Thank you anyway!

12

similar here, i’m using macos, from activity monitor can see a lot computer use.
1st it’s worst, and after update, seems ok, but today update again, happened again, super laggy.

13

Seems like the latest update has improved the performance. Thank you for flagging the issue in community!