Arch/CachyOS: opening modal/overlay windows crashes Cursor when cursor-bin uses generic system Electron; fixed by pinning wrapper to electron39

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1

Describe the Bug

On Arch-based Linux (CachyOS), Cursor freezes/crashes whenever it tries to open certain modal or overlay windows.

Examples:

  • Help -> About Cursor
  • Jupyter / Python kernel restart dialogs
  • other small overlay dialogs

The main window becomes unresponsive and I have to terminate Cursor manually.

This initially looked like a Wayland / rendering bug, but after debugging it turned out to be caused by the Arch cursor-bin wrapper using the generic system Electron instead of the Electron major expected by this Cursor build.

On my system, changing:

/usr/bin/cursor
/usr/share/cursor/cursor

from:

name=electron

to:

name=electron39

made the issue disappear immediately. After that, Help -> About Cursor opened normally and Cursor stopped crashing on those overlay/modal windows.

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Install Cursor from AUR using cursor-bin
  2. Launch Cursor normally on Arch/CachyOS
  3. Open a workspace
  4. Trigger a modal/overlay window, for example:
    • Help -> About Cursor
    • restart a Python/Jupyter kernel so that a confirmation dialog appears
  5. Observe that Cursor freezes/crashes and the process has to be killed

Expected Behavior

Cursor should open modal/overlay windows normally without freezing or crashing.

Operating System

Linux

Version Information

Version: 3.3.30
Build Type: Stable
Session type: Wayland
Kernel: 7.0.5-2-cachyos
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080
Driver: 595.71.05

Additional Information

Relevant observations from cursor --verbose before the fix:

  • stderr included: Error: unrecognized flag --nodecommit_pooled_pages
  • the crash was reproducible via:
    menubar#runActionInRenderer { type: 'commandId', commandId: 'workbench.action.showAboutDialog' }
  • after that, crashpad errors appeared and the window terminated

The issue did not reproduce anymore after installing electron39 and changing the Cursor launcher wrapper from name=electron to name=electron39.

Does this stop you from using Cursor

No - Cursor works, but with this issue

5

Hey, thanks for the detailed writeup and workaround. It’s super helpful, especially the specific debugging via --nodecommit_pooled_pages (that’s a V8 flag from Electron 39.x that older major versions don’t know about).

Quick context: cursor-bin is a community-maintained AUR package, and it’s not maintained by our team. The official Linux distribution (tarball/AppImage from Cursor · Download) bundles the correct Electron version, so you won’t hit this kind of mismatch there.

Cursor 3.3.30 is indeed built against Electron 39, so the fix with name=electron39 is correct. It’d also be worth messaging the cursor-bin AUR maintainer so they can add electron39 as a dependency in an updated PKGBUILD. That would fix it for everyone on Arch or CachyOS, not just locally for you.

We’ve seen a similar case before: Crash on Arch Linux Hyprland after updating to Cursor 1.6.23 (TypeError: Class constructor Fi cannot be invoked without 'new'). Same root cause, just a different Electron major version installed on the system.

6

Hello! You could use this AUR package I have made instead, its Electron is bundled, no need for extra work, just install and run
AUR: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/cursor-ai-bin

Let everyone know and reinstall to this version, since perhaps cursor-bin package seems to be no longer maintained, it has been technically abandoned

10

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

Every time I click the “Sign in to GitHub” button (e.g., in the Source Control view or via the agent notification), the application immediately crashes with a Segmentation Fault (Signal 11). This happens regardless of the workspace, project, or startup flags (like --disable-gpu or --no-sandbox).

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Start Cursor via terminal.
  2. Navigate to ‘Source Control’ or click the GitHub auth prompt in the agent/notifications.
  3. Click the ‘Sign in to GitHub’ button.
  4. Application crashes immediately and terminates (SIGSEGV).

Expected Behavior

The browser-based authentication flow should open and allow GitHub authorization without crashing the main editor process.

Operating System

Linux

Version Information

Cursor IDE: 3.5.17
AUR Package: cursor-bin 3.5.17-1

For AI issues: which model did you use?

Not model specific (Auth crash).

For AI issues: add Request ID with privacy disabled

f9a7046a-279b-47e5-ab48-6e8dc12daba1

Additional Information

System: CachyOS (Kernel 7.0.9-1-cachyos)
DE: KDE Plasma 6.6.5 (Wayland)
GPU: NVIDIA RTX 2060
Problem: Coredumpctl reports Signal 11 (SEGV) in /usr/lib/electron42/electron. GDB analysis returns: “warning: core file may not match specified executable file”, suggesting a severe ABI mismatch between the AUR package ‘cursor-bin’ and the system-provided ‘electron42’.

Does this stop you from using Cursor

No - Cursor works, but with this issue

Ref: Cursor (cursor-bin) crashes on GitHub Auth - Electron/ABI incompatibility? - Bugreports - CachyOS Forum

11

Hi, Any news about this problem? I have the same problem, I can’t delete, show cursor version, copy and paste files in the same ide,

ay 23 23:41:34 zero-tuf systemd[1269]: app-cursor@4a6e9f7ea4964193a7a928576ce5fe7b.service: Consumed 1.223s CPU time over 1.974s wall clock time, 214.3M memory peak.
may 23 23:43:21 zero-tuf systemd-coredump[22499]: Process 17909 (cursor) of user 1000 terminated abnormally with signal 11/SEGV, processing…
may 23 23:44:42 zero-tuf systemd-coredump[22500]: Process 17909 (cursor) of user 1000 dumped core.
may 23 23:44:45 zero-tuf systemd[1269]: app-cursor@226184cdc4ff4b4aa73a3ad88168409b.service: Consumed 3min 48.515s CPU time over 7min 8.515s wall clock time, 1.7G memory peak, 185.2M memory swap peak.
may 23 23:44:48 zero-tuf systemd[1269]: app-cursor-17909.scope: Consumed 4min 22.988s CPU time over 7min 10.080s wall clock time, 4.7G memory peak, 1.7G memory swap peak.
may 23 23:45:04 zero-tuf systemd[1269]: Started Cursor - Text Editor.
may 23 23:45:05 zero-tuf systemd[1269]: Started app-cursor-22927.scope.

12

Can you try downgrade the electron version to v41.7.0? I’m using cachy os and downgrade the node version is working for me now :slight_smile: Install the package downgrade for archlinux with paru

13

Hey, we won’t have any updates on our side. This isn’t a Cursor bug, it’s a packaging issue in cursor-bin, which is a community-maintained AUR package and not ours. The wrapper uses the system electron, but Cursor 3.5.x is built for Electron 42. If your system Electron package is a different major version, you get an ABI mismatch and a SIGSEGV.

Options:

  1. Use the official build from Cursor · Download tarball or AppImage. It bundles the correct Electron version, so there’s no mismatch.
  2. AUR workaround. Your downgrade to the matching Electron major version works. Same as the fix from post #1, set name=electron42 in /usr/bin/cursor and /usr/share/cursor/cursor if electron42 is installed.
  3. Long term, please message the cursor-bin maintainer and ask them to pin electron42 in the PKGBUILD dependencies for the current Cursor release. That should fix it for everyone on Arch and CachyOS.

More details on the root cause are in post #5 above.