Codex logging bug may write TBs to local SSDs

openai / codex Public Notifications You must be signed in to change notification settings Fork 13.7k Star 92.6k Code Issues 5k+ Pull requests 442 Discussions Actions Security and quality 1 Insights Additional navigation options Code Issues Pull requests Discussions Actions Security and quality Insights Codex SQLite feedback logs can write ~640 TB/year and rapidly consume SSD endurance #28224New issueCopy linkNew issueCopy linkOpenOpenCodex SQLite feedback logs can write ~640 TB/year and rapidly consume SSD endurance#28224Copy linkLabelsCLIIssues related to the Codex CLIIssues related to the Codex CLIbugSomething isn't workingSomething isn't workingperformanceDescription1996fanruiopened on Jun 14, 2026Issue body actionsCodex SQLite feedback logs can write ~640 TB/year and rapidly consume SSD endurance Issue Codex is continuously writing a large amount of data to the local SQLite feedback log database: On my machine, after about 21 days of uptime, the main SSD has written about 37 TB. Process/file-level checks show Codex SQLite logs are the main continuous writer. That extrapolates to roughly 640 TB/year. On a 1 TB SSD, that is about 640 full-drive writes per year. Some consumer SSDs are rated around 600 TBW, so this could consume roughly a full drive's warranted write endurance in less than a year. The top sources are mostly global TRACE logs, mirrored telemetry logs, and raw websocket/SSE payload logging. TRACE alone is about 70.7% of retained bytes. codex_otel.log_only + codex_otel.trace_safe add another 25.3%. Filtering these categories should remove roughly 96% of retained log bytes in this sample without fully disabling feedback logs. These are high-frequency retained samples. Raw websocket/SSE payload bodies are intentionally not included because they may contain private conversation content. 128,764x TRACE log: inotify event: ... mask: OPEN, name: Some("ld.so.cache") 37,982x TRACE log: inotify event: ... mask: OPEN, name: Some("locale.alias") 23,843x TRACE log: inotify event: ... mask: OPEN, name: Some("passwd") 3,639x TRACE log: /src/compat.rs:131 AllowStd.with_context 3,505x TRACE log: /src/lib.rs:245 WebSocketStream.with_context 3,362x TRACE log: /src/compat.rs:154 Read.read 3,356x TRACE log: /src/compat.rs:157 Read.with_context read -> poll_read 3,230x TRACE log: /src/lib.rs:294 Stream.poll_next 3,227x TRACE log: /src/lib.rs:304 Stream.with_context poll_next -> read() 3,213x TRACE log: inotify event: ... mask: OPEN, name: Some("nsswitch.conf") 2,001x TRACE log: WouldBlock 1,217x TRACE log: Masked: false 1,169x TRACE log: Opcode: Data(Text) 1,169x TRACE log: First: 11000001 Sanitized examples from frequent INFO sources The dominant INFO sources are mostly repeated OpenTelemetry mirror events. IDs are redacted. 843x INFO codex_client::custom_ca: using system root certificates because no CA override environment variable was selected ... 334x INFO codex_otel.trace_safe: session_loop{thread_id= }:submission_dispatch{otel.name="op.dispatch.user_input" submission.id= codex.op="user_input"}:turn{otel.name="session_task.turn" thread.id= ...} 333x INFO codex_otel.log_only: session_loop{thread_id= }:submission_dispatch{otel.name="op.dispatch.user_input" submission.id= codex.op="user_input"}:turn{otel.name="session_task.turn" thread.id= ...} 332x INFO codex_otel.log_only: session_loop{thread_id= }:submission_dispatch{otel.name="op.dispatch.user_input_with_turn_context" submission.id= codex.op="user_input_with_turn_context"}:turn{otel.name="session_task.turn" thread.id= ...} 332x INFO codex_otel.trace_safe: session_loop{thread_id= }:submission_dispatch{otel.name="op.dispatch.user_input_with_turn_context" submission.id= codex.op="user_input_with_turn_context"}:turn{otel.name="session_task.turn" thread.id= ...} Write amplification The retained DB size hides the real write volume. In a 15-second sample: About 36,211 rows were inserted in 15 seconds, while retained row count stayed flat. This suggests continuous insert-and-prune write amplification: rows are inserted, indexed, written to WAL, then pruned. The SQLite feedback log sink is installed with a global TRACE default: Targets::new().with_default(Level::TRACE) This persists all targets at TRACE level by default, including dependency/internal logs and large raw protocol payloads. Keep feedback logs enabled, but narrow what is persisted by default: An optional escape hatch such as sqlite_logs_enabled = false would still be useful, but the main fix should be better default filtering.

Codex logging bug may write TBs to local SSDs

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