Bug Report: Approval dialog not visible after command timeout

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1

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

Summary

When a shell command times out or is aborted, the user cannot see the approval prompt that the agent is waiting for, causing a deadlock state.

What happened (from user perspective)

  • Agent requested a shell command that requires approval
  • No approval dialog appeared in the UI
  • Agent appeared to be waiting/stuck
  • User had to send another message to break the deadlock

What happened (from agent perspective)

  1. Agent sent a tool call: gh pr create ... with required_permissions: ["all"]
  2. Agent received back: Error: Command failed to spawn: Aborted
  3. This suggests the command was interrupted before the user could approve it

Observed behavior pattern

  • This seems to happen after network timeouts or long-running operations
  • The agent receives an “Aborted” error but the user sees nothing
  • Sending a new message allows the conversation to continue and retry works

Steps to Reproduce

Hard to reproduce reliably, but seems more likely with:

  • Commands that require required_permissions: ["all"]
  • Network instability or slow connections
  • Commands issued after the conversation has been idle
    Network instability or slow connections
    Commands issued after the conversation has been idle

Expected Behavior

If a tool call is aborted/times out, the UI should either:

  • Show the approval dialog so the user can approve/deny, OR
  • Show an error message explaining the timeout, OR
  • Automatically surface that the agent needs to retry

Operating System

MacOS

Version Information

Version: 2.4.21 (Universal)
VSCode Version: 1.105.1
Commit: dc8361355d709f306d5159635a677a571b277bc0
Date: 2026-01-22T16:57:59.675Z
Build Type: Stable
Release Track: Default
Electron: 39.2.7
Chromium: 142.0.7444.235
Node.js: 22.21.1
V8: 14.2.231.21-electron.0
OS: Darwin arm64 25.2.0

For AI issues: which model did you use?

Lately I used Opus 4.5 but it happens with all models I’ve tried

Additional Information

I’ve seen this behaviour for at least the last 3 months so it’s not a specific version issue.

Does this stop you from using Cursor

No - Cursor works, but with this issue

3

Hey, thanks for the report. This looks like a bug with the approval dialog for terminal commands.

Here’s what we know:

  • A few users have run into cases where the approval dialog doesn’t show up after a timeout or abort (149310, 148698)
  • The team is aware of an issue with the approval flow
  • A workaround is to start a new chat (like you’re already doing)

To help with debugging, could you share:

  1. Request ID from the stuck chat: chat menu (three dots in the top right) > Copy Request ID

  2. Console errors: when the dialog doesn’t appear, open DevTools (Help > Toggle Developer Tools), go to the Console tab, then take a screenshot or copy the errors

Let me know if you can grab this info, it’ll help the team dig in faster.