I’m using cursor 2.5.14 and I cannot get the browser automation to work. If I try using the built-in browser and ask the agent to do something with the browser, I get “Snapshot returned only metadata (no element refs). Trying to fill the login form using common ref patterns:” and it eventually just fails. I tried using the external browsermcp with extension installed in my Chrome browser and that never worked at all. The REALLY frustrating thing is that the internal browser worked perfectly, driving the web application and navigating and filling everything out….once. It worked once and I’ve never been able to get it to work again. I don’t know if I’ve made things worse with my thrashing but clearly something’s not right. Not sure if this is a bug or not.
hi @Robert_Neville and welcome to Cursor Forum.
Could you try following?
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Toggle Browser Automation. Go to Settings > Tools & MCP > Browser Automation, turn it off, wait about 10 seconds, then turn it back on and set it to “Browser Tab”. After that, fully restart Cursor, not just Reload Window.
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After restarting, open a new Agent chat and try again.
I’d recommend posting issues in Support > Bug Reports as that way we get full info to investigate.
Ok, tried that and same thing. It opens the app but then it can’t log in (even though like I said, it did it great one time). I wasn’t sure if this is a bug or not so didn’t want to clog up the bug reports for something that I’m potentially doing wrong. Here’s the transcript where you can see it eventually gives up and then decides it’ll just start writing playwright scripts to do what I’m asking (I stopped it here before it kept going):
Navigating to the login page again:
Checking a previous browser automation transcript for tool usage:
Checking the E2E test for login selectors and trying a different approach:
Trying interactions using refs; snapshot may return refs in a format we’re not seeing. Checking available tools:
Trying refs that might match the login form (ref-0, ref-1 for inputs, ref for the Sign in button):
Taking a fresh snapshot and checking the raw response for refs:
Checking for a JavaScript evaluation or other way to interact without refs:
Checking whether the snapshot tool accepts parameters that return refs in a different format:
Snapshot returns only metadata (no element refs), so we can’t target the email/password fields or buttons. Adding a Playwright E2E test to verify login as ACME admin and product CRUD, then running it.
FWIW, I gave up and just installed playwright mcp and that works perfectly. I can confirm that the latest build of cursor, this still doesn’t work.