CODEX REJECTED AN API KEY USERS NEVER PROVIDED
ChatGPT-authenticated Codex users got 401s naming an API key they said they never configured. The central GitHub issue hit 104 thumbs-up and 96 comments. OpenAI later called it a full Codex outage.
AI NEWS PAGE · PUBLISHED September 28, 2026
On September 25, ChatGPT-authenticated Codex users started filing near-identical reports: logged in with ChatGPT, but requests failed with 401 Unauthorized errors naming a masked sk-svcac service credential. By September 28, the central GitHub issue had 104 thumbs-up and 96 comments.
Not one client, not one OS. Users described the same failure across Desktop, CLI and Work, on Windows, Linux and macOS — including fresh logins and setups with no user-supplied OpenAI API key configured.
OpenAI's status page later recorded a full Codex outage — Codex Web, the Codex API, CLI and the VS Code extension. OpenAI said it had identified an internal issue, applied a mitigation and fully recovered the affected services by 11:54 PM on September 25.
WHAT WE DON'T KNOW
- The exact internal root cause behind the rejected sk-svcac credential.
- How many accounts were affected.
- Whether every 401 report in the cluster had the same backend cause.
SOURCES
- PUBLIC TRACE · ORIGINATING SIGNAL104 THUMBS-UP. 96 COMMENTS. THE SAME 401.unexpected status 401 Unauthorized issueOpenAI Codex GitHub
- PUBLIC TRACE · CORROBORATIONLOGGED IN WITH CHATGPT. STILL REJECTED FOR A BAD API KEY.[Windows] Codex Desktop/CLI returns 401 'Incorrect API key provided' after successful ChatGPT loginOpenAI Codex GitHub
- PRIMARY · CORROBORATIONOPENAI STATUS: FULL CODEX OUTAGE.Issues with CodexOpenAI Status