codex - 💡(How to fix) Fix Codex Desktop: blank overlay covers Plugins and Skills at certain window widths/display scaling on macOS [1 comments, 2 participants]

What version of the Codex App are you using (From “About Codex” dialog)?

Unknown from the UI. Local logs show:

• Codex app-server: 0.128.0-alpha.1
• Runtime bundle observed in logs earlier: 26.430.10722
• Packaged desktop app on macOS (buildFlavor=prod, platform=darwin)
• Bundled Node reported in logs: v24.14.0

What subscription do you have?

Unknown.

What platform is your computer?

macOS 26.3.1 (a), build 25D771280a, Intel Mac with:

• Intel UHD Graphics 630
• AMD Radeon Pro 5500M

What issue are you seeing?

On the Codex Desktop Plugins and Skills pages, a large blank dark rectangle overlays the list at certain wide window sizes / display scaling configurations.

The rectangle appears in front of the plugin/skill list and extends all the way to the bottom of the list. It looks like an empty modal/panel/overlay column, but it cannot be dismissed with Escape, clicking outside, tab switching, back navigation, or restarting.

This appears to be a responsive layout or display-scaling bug rather than plugin data failing to load:

• plugin/list and skills/list complete successfully in local logs.
• The same issue appears on both Plugins and Skills.
• Narrowing the Codex window makes the rectangle disappear.
• Widening the window makes it reappear.
• Pressing Ctrl+- several times, effectively zooming out, removes the rectangle on both pages.
• The Skills page has to be made much smaller / more zoomed out than the Plugins page before the rectangle disappears.
• Moving the Codex app window to a second display makes the blank rectangle disappear entirely.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

1. Open Codex Desktop on macOS on the affected primary display.
2. Navigate to Plugins.
3. Use a sufficiently wide Codex window.
4. Observe a large blank rectangle overlaying the plugin list.
5. Switch to Skills.
6. Observe the same class of blank rectangle overlaying the skills list.
7. Narrow the window substantially, or press Ctrl+- several times.
8. Observe the blank rectangle disappears.
9. Widen the window again.
10. Observe the blank rectangle returns.
11. Move the same Codex window to a second display.
12. Observe the blank rectangle no longer appears.

What is the expected behavior?

The Plugins and Skills pages should render their lists without an empty overlay/panel covering content at any supported window size, zoom level, display scale, or monitor.

What did you try locally?

Tried without success:

• Escape
• Clicking outside the blank rectangle
• Switching between Plugins and Skills
• Back navigation and returning to the page
• Quitting/reopening Codex
• Renaming/clearing Electron render/cache state:
  • GPUCache
  • DawnGraphiteCache
  • DawnWebGPUCache
  • Session Storage

The following workarounds do help:

• Make the Codex window narrower.
• Press Ctrl+- several times to zoom out.
• Move the window to a second display.

Local log evidence

plugin/list and skills/list requests are succeeding, for example:

response_routed ... method=skills/list ... errorCode=null
response_routed ... method=plugin/list ... errorCode=null

There are also repeated startup errors that may or may not be related:

unsupported feature enablement `workspace_dependencies`: currently supported features are apps, memories, plugins, remote_control, tool_search, tool_suggest, tool_call_mcp_elicitation

Earlier logs also showed:

ResizeObserver loop completed with undelivered notifications.

That seems consistent with a layout measurement/resize loop or responsive breakpoint issue.

Additional notes

The strongest reproduction clue is that the issue is tied to effective viewport/display scaling:

• Smaller window: fixed
• Zoomed out: fixed
• Second display: fixed
• Wider window on primary display: broken

This suggests the empty rectangle may be a right-side details/preview/filter panel, sticky layer, or responsive column that is being rendered above the scrollable list when a particular width/device-pixel-ratio breakpoint is hit.