ChatGPT macOS Codex view repeatedly white-screens at ~120% CPU; killing renderer process restores it
Bibbo24 · ghdev · 2026-09-19
A new issue on openai/codex reports that the ChatGPT macOS desktop app (26.915.31945) frequently gets stuck on a white screen in the Codex view, blocking normal work.
- Environment: macOS 26.6.2 on Apple Silicon (ARM64)
- When stuck, Codex (Renderer) shows 120% CPU, Codex (Service) 37.5% CPU and 11% GPU
- A process sample shows a 3.2 GB physical footprint (4.7 GB peak) minutes after launch, with heavy V8 serialization, compositor, GC and PNG/EXIF activity
- Workaround: force-quit only the high-usage Codex (Renderer) process (com.openai.codex.helper.renderer) in Activity Monitor — no need to quit the whole app, and the Codex UI recovers instantly, though the issue recurs
- The reporter asks OpenAI to auto-recover instead of requiring manual process kills
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