Summary
Following the recent automatic update to version 1.1.1 of the anysphere.remote-ssh extension, remote SSH connections fail completely. The extension’s local setup script misinterprets or malforms the string arrays when constructing the remote server’s initialization command. This forces the remote Node.js environment to evaluate separate flag values as a single hostname string, causing an immediate crash. Root Cause Analysis
In default TCP loopback mode, the local extension builds a startup shell command containing --host=127.0.0.1 and --port 0. Due to a bug introduced in v1.1.1, these arguments are passed to the remote terminal inside a single bundled string array element or with improper escaping.
When the server attempts to spin up via Node.js, the internal DNS/networking lookup (getaddrinfo) receives "127.0.0.1 --port 0" as a literal hostname string instead of interpreting them as an IPv4 address and a port flag. Relevant Log Snippet
[Extension host agent started.
Error occurred in server
Error: getaddrinfo ENOTFOUND 127.0.0.1 --port 0
at GetAddrInfoReqWrap.onlookup [as oncomplete] (node:dns:109:26) {
errno: -3008,
code: 'ENOTFOUND',
syscall: 'getaddrinfo',
hostname: '127.0.0.1 --port 0'
}
ErrorMessage==Code server did not start successfully==
[error] Error installing server: [o [RemoteSSHError]: Couldn't install Cursor Server, install script returned non-zero exit status: Code server did not start successfully
Environment
Local Machine: macOS
Remote Machine: Linux x64
Cursor Remote-SSH Version: 1.1.1 (Broken)
VS Code Behavior: Works perfectly (standard VS Code Remote-SSH does not suffer from this custom argument grouping bug).
Temporary Workaround
Downgrading the local anysphere.remote-ssh extension to a prior stable version (e.g., 1.0.54) completely resolves the issue, confirming the regression is hardcoded into the latest extension bundle.
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Additional Information
Add any other context about the problem here.
Does this stop you from using Cursor?
Yes - Cursor is unusable
Sometimes - I can sometimes use Cursor
No - Cursor works, but with this issue
The more details you provide, the easier it is for us to reproduce and fix the issue. Thanks!
hey @Chenyang_Xu, thanks for the detailed report. This indeed seems a new regression in version 1.1.1, which is separate from the recent v1.0.51 authority parsing issues. It would be great of you could share your Cursor version (Help → About), macOS version, remote Linux distro, and the full Output → Remote - SSH log from a failed 1.1.1 attempt, that’ll help the team track it down.