Further investigation of the sqlite incidents showed that the problems
are due to corruption from the older version of SQLite that we recently
upgraded, and that the data is truly corrupted in the root database --
recovery of all data is not possible. Given that the data is
reconstructable from the rollouts on disk, we should just auto-backup
the database and let codex rebuild the rollout info from the disk
rollouts.
The new behavior is that appserver auto-backs-up and rebuilds (with logs
reflecting that behavior). The CLI now pops a message letting you know
this happened and the paths of the backed-up corrupt db and the new
database. There is also context added so that the desktop app can read
the rebuild info from it and inform the user with it.
## Why
#22580 made app-server startup fail when the local SQLite state database
cannot be initialized. Embedded/local TUI startup still continued on the
permissive path, which left the CLI inconsistent and could hide a real
startup problem behind unrelated UI. This brings local TUI startup onto
the same fail-closed behavior while keeping recovery humane for the two
failure modes we are seeing in practice: damaged database files and
startup stalls caused by another process holding the database write
lock.
## What changed
- Embedded TUI startup now uses `state_db::try_init(...)` and returns a
typed `LocalStateDbStartupError` that preserves the affected database
path plus the underlying failure detail.
- CLI startup handles that failure before entering the interactive TUI:
- lock-contention failures tell users to quit other Codex processes and
try again
- failures consistent with a broken local database offer a safe repair
that backs up Codex-owned SQLite files, rebuilds local database files,
and retries startup once
- declined or unsuccessful repairs print concise guidance plus technical
details
- Shared startup error plumbing lives in `tui/src/startup_error.rs`,
while CLI recovery policy and focused recovery tests live in
`cli/src/state_db_recovery.rs`.
## Verification
- `cargo test -p codex-tui
embedded_state_db_failure_is_typed_for_cli_recovery`
- `cargo test -p codex-cli state_db_recovery`
- Manually held an exclusive SQLite lock on `state_5.sqlite` and
confirmed the CLI shows lock-specific guidance without offering repair.
- Manually exercised the repair path with a deliberately invalid
`sqlite_home` and confirmed it backs up the blocking path and resumes
startup.
David de Regt ·
Eric Traut ·