codex - 💡(How to fix) Fix Codex Desktop replay/fork hides steered user messages and leaves some previous-message bodies expanded [1 comments, 2 participants]

Summary

Codex Desktop appears to have a replay/fork rendering issue for local session history:

1. Mid-turn steered/guided user messages are present in the raw session JSONL, but the Desktop UI can omit the user message bubble when replaying the session history or viewing a forked session.
2. When replaying, reopening, or forking an existing session, some prior message bodies are not consistently collapsed into the compact previous messages/earlier messages history UI. Instead, individual message bodies from the previous history can remain expanded inline, making the resumed or forked session harder to inspect.

This looks like a UI/session replay bug rather than data loss: the raw JSONL still contains the relevant user messages and history entries.

Environment

• App: Codex Desktop
• Version observed: 26.422.3464.0
• Platform: Windows
• Session source in JSONL metadata: vscode
• CLI version in JSONL metadata: 0.125.0-alpha.3

What I observed

During an active assistant turn, I sent a steering message. The raw session JSONL contains both entries for the message:

{
  "type": "response_item",
  "payload": {
    "type": "message",
    "role": "user",
    "content": [
      {
        "type": "input_text",
        "text": "<redacted steering message>\n"
      }
    ]
  }
}

and:

{
  "type": "event_msg",
  "payload": {
    "type": "user_message",
    "message": "<redacted steering message>\n",
    "images": [],
    "local_images": [],
    "text_elements": []
  }
}

However, when viewing the session in Codex Desktop, the UI may show the steering marker/status area and then the following assistant response, while the actual user bubble is missing.

I also reproduced this around session branching/forking. The forked session JSONL includes:

{
  "type": "session_meta",
  "payload": {
    "id": "<fork-session-id>",
    "forked_from_id": "<original-session-id>"
  }
}

The copied history in the fork still contains the same response_item user message and event_msg:user_message records. A thread_rolled_back event appears after the copied history and before the new branch turn:

{
  "type": "event_msg",
  "payload": {
    "type": "thread_rolled_back",
    "num_turns": 1
  }
}

In the Desktop UI, that forked/replayed history can still omit the guided/steered user bubble even though the raw data is present.

Separately, historical message content around replay/fork/resume is not consistently collapsed. I expected prior history to be hidden behind the compact previous messages/earlier messages affordance. Instead, some individual message bodies from the prior history can remain expanded inline, including normal assistant/user text and surrounding historical context. The core problem here is not command output verbosity; it is that some message bodies from previous history are not collapsed as previous-history content.

Expected behavior

• If the JSONL contains a user steering message as response_item with role=user and/or event_msg:user_message, the Desktop replay should render the corresponding user bubble.
• Forked sessions should render copied historical steered/guided messages the same way the original session does.
• When reopening, replaying, or forking a long session, prior message bodies that belong to collapsed history should remain behind the normal previous messages/earlier messages UI instead of expanding inline.

Actual behavior

• The raw JSONL contains the steered/guided user message, but the Desktop replay/fork UI can omit the user bubble.
• Forked session history appears to be reconstructed around copied history plus thread_rolled_back, and that path seems to lose some rendering state for steered/guided messages.
• Some previous-history message bodies can remain expanded inline instead of being collapsed into the compact previous-message/history block.

Notes

I found related public issues around steering, queued prompts, compaction, conversation-state desync, and fork/resume history, but I did not find an exact duplicate for this specific Desktop replay symptom where the raw user message exists and only the rendered bubble is missing.

Related examples I found:

• #9734
• #17876
• #19951
• #10952
• #14930

The key diagnostic point is that this does not appear to be session data loss. It appears to be a renderer/replay conversion issue for Desktop session history, especially around steered/guided messages, fork/rollback reconstruction, and previous-history message body collapse state.