OpenAI Codex stuck in a 9-hour compaction loop drained an entire weekly usage allowance

A user asked Codex to make a relatively small change to an existing project. Instead of completing it, the agent entered a continuously repeating loop: it announced the changes it was going to make, ran context compaction, re-explained the same plan, compacted again, and re-started - sometimes pulling previously completed work back into the workflow. The loop ran for roughly 9 hours unattended and took the account's weekly usage from 100% to 0% while the original task remained incomplete. The reporter asked for loop detection, no-progress timeouts, and a warning when a single task consumes an unusual share of usage.

What this means for youIf you pay for an AI tool with a usage limit, an agent can get stuck repeating itself and burn your whole allowance overnight. At work, someone should watch usage and set caps before letting agents run unattended. Check your usage dashboard for alerts or limits, and stop any agent task that runs for hours without finishing.