Codex on Windows falls back to a weaker sandbox and breaks patching
felipebsr · reddit · 2026-07-23
- A Windows user reports that the new ChatGPT/Codex desktop app falls back to an unelevated restricted-token sandbox.
- In that state, ordinary file writes work, but applypatch fails on existing files and Node child processes fail with EPERM.
- The poster includes a detailed repro: Windows build, Codex package version, sandbox user setup, and tests showing that the same project works outside the Codex sandbox.
- Their theory is that the elevated sandbox runner is installed, but the runtime is incorrectly falling back to a weaker sandbox that cannot enforce split writable roots.
- They ask whether others have seen the same exact error, and whether there is a supported fix, log, or Windows event that identifies the fallback cause.
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