Built-in search (rg) fails with ENOENT on macOS (arm64)

Support Bug Reports
, ,
1

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor CLI

Describe the Bug

Issue: Cursor’s internal Grep/Search tool fails because the bundled ripgrep binary can’t be found.

Notes / Workaround:
Restarting Cursor did not fix it.
Installing system ripgrep via Homebrew (brew install ripgrep) allows terminal searches with rg, but Cursor’s built-in Grep tool still fails (it tries to use the bundled path above).
Repro steps:
Open any workspace.
Run the built-in Grep/search tool (any pattern).
Observe ENOENT for the bundled rg path.
Hypothesis: Bundled @vscode/ripgrep/bin/rg is missing from the app bundle or not accessible at runtime on this build.

Steps to Reproduce

Error running tool: spawn /Applications/Cursor.app/Contents/Resources/app/node_modules/@vscode/ripgrep/bin/rg ENOENT

Expected Behavior

Expected: Built-in search works (ripgrep invoked successfully).
Actual: Any built-in Grep call fails with ENOENT (file not found).

Operating System

MacOS

Version Information

Version: 2.4.21 (Stable)
VSCode Version: 1.105.1
Commit: dc8361355d709f306d5159635a677a571b277bc0
Date: 2026-01-22T16:57:59.675Z
Release Track: Default
OS: Darwin arm64 24.3.0
Electron: 39.2.7 / Node: 22.21.1

Does this stop you from using Cursor

Sometimes - I can sometimes use Cursor

3

Hey, thanks for the report.

Can you check if the binary is actually missing from the app bundle? In Terminal:

ls -la "/Applications/Cursor.app/Contents/Resources/app/node_modules/@vscode/ripgrep/bin/"

If the folder is empty or the rg file isn’t there, it’s most likely a corrupted install. Please try:

  • Fully delete Cursor.app from Applications
  • Download a fresh DMG from cursor.com
  • Reinstall

If the file is there but you still get ENOENT, please share the output of the command above and the result of:

file "/Applications/Cursor.app/Contents/Resources/app/node_modules/@vscode/ripgrep/bin/rg"

Let me know what you get.

4

miles@Rumbling-Rodriguez ~ % ls -la “/Applications/Cursor.app/Contents/Resources/app/node_modules/@vscode/ripgrep/bin/”

total 7976

drwxr-xr-x@ 3 miles staff 96 Jan 22 17:22 .
drwxr-xr-x@ 9 miles staff 288 Jan 22 17:19 ..
-rwxr-xr-x@ 1 miles staff 4083568 Jan 22 17:22 rg

miles@Rumbling-Rodriguez ~ % file “/Applications/Cursor.app/Contents/Resources/app/node_modules/@vscode/ripgrep/bin/rg”

/Applications/Cursor.app/Contents/Resources/app/node_modules/@vscode/ripgrep/bin/rg: Mach-O 64-bit executable arm64

5

The binary is there and looks correct. It’s weird that Cursor can’t find it.

Try a couple of things:

  1. Check permissions. Try running it directly:
"/Applications/Cursor.app/Contents/Resources/app/node_modules/@vscode/ripgrep/bin/rg" --version
  1. Check if Gatekeeper added a quarantine attribute:
xattr "/Applications/Cursor.app/Contents/Resources/app/node_modules/@vscode/ripgrep/bin/rg"

If you see com.apple.quarantine, try removing it:

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/Cursor.app/Contents/Resources/app/node_modules/@vscode/ripgrep/bin/rg"

You can also try clearing quarantine for the whole app bundle:

xattr -cr /Applications/Cursor.app
  1. Collect logs: press CMD+Shift+I > Console tab > reproduce the error > copy what shows up in the console.

Also, does this happen in all projects or only a specific one?

6

running it directly yields this >

miles@Rumbling-Rodriguez ~ % “/Applications/Cursor.app/Contents/Resources/app/node_modules/@vscode/ripgrep/bin/rg” --version

ripgrep 15.1.0-cursor4 (rev 07f36110f4)

features:+pcre2
simd(compile):+NEON
simd(runtime):+NEON

PCRE2 10.45 is available (JIT is available)

checking permissions yields this >

miles@Rumbling-Rodriguez ~ % xattr “/Applications/Cursor.app/Contents/Resources/app/node_modules/@vscode/ripgrep/bin/rg”

com.apple.provenance

miles@Rumbling-Rodriguez ~ %

There is no quarantine file, but there is a provenance file. I left it in place.

Running the same search again, yields this from cursor itself >

Error running tool: spawn /Applications/Cursor.app/Contents/Resources/app/node_modules/@vscode/ripgrep/bin/rg ENOENT