Anysphere Remote Container Extension not working with docker on linux

Bug Reports
1

Describe the Bug

I was prompted to install the Anysphere Dev Containers extension which subsequently uninstalled my working VSCode Dev Containers extension. The new extension will not open any of my exisitng dev containers and shows the message:

Failed to connect to the remote extension host server (Error: Invalid DevContainerDestination JSON: {“hostPath”:“/home/mark/repositories/edu_assessment”,“localDocker”:false,“configFile”:{“$mid”:1,“fsPath”:“/home/mark/repositories/edu_assessment/.devcontainer/devcontainer.json”,“external”:“file:///home/mark/repositories/edu_assessment/.devcontainer/devcontainer.json”,“path”:“/home/mark/repositories/edu_assessment/.devcontainer/devcontainer.json”,“scheme”:“file”}})

Attempting to uninstall the Anysphere extension results in a dialog box with the same error, and the extension remains installed. This prevents rolling back to the VSCode extension.

Steps to Reproduce

When prompted to install Anysphere Dev containers extension on a working VSCode Dev Container Project, click ‘Install’ and follow the prompts, which includes removing the VSCode extension.

Expected Behavior

The Dev container should start, terminals, and project chats should be accessible, files should open in the editor etc. etc.

Operating System

Linux

Current Cursor Version (Menu → About Cursor → Copy)

Version: 1.2.2
VSCode Version: 1.99.3
Commit: faa03b17cce93e8a80b7d62d57f5eda6bb6ab9f0
Date: 2025-07-07T06:13:23.028Z
Electron: 34.5.1
Chromium: 132.0.6834.210
Node.js: 20.19.0
V8: 13.2.152.41-electron.0
OS: Linux x64 6.6.90-1-MANJARO

Does this stop you from using Cursor

Yes - Cursor is unusable

NOTES ON A WORK AROUND FOR ANYONE EXPERIENCING THIS ISSUE

I perform daily backups on my system and was able to restore the old ms-vscode-remote extension by restoring the ~/.cursor/extensions folder from the backup. This makes cursor useable again, you just have to ignore the continued prompts to install the anysphere extension.

1 Like
3

Hi @Prismo, thank you for this bug report. We have fixed this issue in version 1.0.9 of the Anysphere Remote Containers extension. The issue was that our extension uses a different format to encode the path, so opening folders from the recent history did not work. The new version of our extension adds compatibility for the format used with the VSCode Remote Containers extension.