Thanks for clarifying. Your case is different from what I described above. You need to bring Codex back as a separate icon in the left sidebar, but it gets stuck under Explorer and you can’t pull it out.
The reason is the warning you shared:
WARN [openai.chatgpt]: View container 'codexSecondaryViewContainer' does not exist and all views registered to it will be added to 'Explorer'.
Codex’s extension manifest package.json still registers its view in the Secondary Side Bar container, which Cursor doesn’t have anymore. So the view falls back into Explorer, and the usual drag to the Activity Bar doesn’t work. So this isn’t caused by your settings.
For your setup, where you want Codex as its own icon in the left Activity Bar, the closest option right now is the local workaround from @mischevious_scamp in the same thread, post #27. It edits the Codex extension package.json so Codex always contributes to the primary Activity Bar. Important, this is an unofficial local patch, and you’ll probably need to reapply it after Codex updates.
About timing, I don’t have an exact ETA. I shared your feedback and this warning case with the team. I’ll post here if there’s an update.
If this decision is “product-driven”, then my decision to go back to VS Code will be “user-driven”.
Cursor became valuable to me because it kept the flexibility of VS Code while adding excellent AI features on top. Restricting parts of the IDE to Cursor’s own tools, and increasingly forcing the product around the Agent/Chat experience, removes exactly what made Cursor compelling in the first place.
I don’t want an AI chat app with an editor attached to it. I want a great IDE where AI tools integrate into my workflow and where I decide how the interface is organized.
If Cursor keeps moving away from that, switching back to VS Code is unfortunately the obvious user-driven response.
Temporary Fix for this issue:
go to Cursor settings
go into the VS Code settings
search for Activity Bar: Orientation
switch it to vertical
restart then drag and drop Codex extension from explorer to the activity bar it should create a user view container where Codex is in. Codex is working again you can pin it in the activity bar again and so on but it doesn’t have the OpenAI logo but it is what it is
when it’s working and you want the orientation to be horizontal again then do it it should still work in horizontal
at least it does for me
26 days since and still no official fix btw …
here a picture. you see this user view container is now Codex. good job Cursor(ironic):
