Chat history disappears from the UI on a recurring basis when working on a WSL project from Windows 11. The chats are not actually lost: agent transcripts and workspace storage data still exist on disk, but they are split across multiple workspace IDs because the same physical folder can be opened with different path representations.
Steps to Reproduce
On Windows 11 with WSL2 (Ubuntu), create/open a project at /home//
Open the project in Cursor using different methods across sessions:
Windows Explorer: \wsl$<distro><user><project-name>
WSL terminal: cursor . from inside the project folder
Optionally: vscode-remote://wsl+/home//
Start one or more Agent/Chat sessions and interact normally
Close Cursor and reopen the same project (possibly using a different opening method than before)
Observe that previous chats are missing from the chat history sidebar
Expected Behavior
The same physical project folder should always map to a single workspace ID, regardless of how it is opened (Windows WSL path vs. WSL terminal vs. remote URI). Previous chats should remain visible and accessible in the UI.
Hey, great breakdown, and you’re basically right: chats aren’t getting lost. Cursor currently derives the workspace identity from the full folder path or URI, so the same location under WSL can end up with different workspace IDs depending on how you open it:
Explorer \\wsl$\<distro>\... → file:// UNC path
cursor . from a WSL shell or Connect to WSL → vscode-remote://wsl+<distro>/...
Each of these is treated as a separate workspace, so chat history and agent transcripts in ~/.cursor/projects/ get bucketed separately. The data is still on disk.
What to do for now:
Open the project the same way every time. I’d recommend using WSL remote, via cursor . from a WSL shell or Connect to WSL…, and don’t mix in the \\wsl$\... UNC path from Explorer.
To get the chats that seem missing back, reopen the folder using the same method you used when those chats were created.
This is a known limitation in how WSL paths are currently resolved for workspace identity, not data corruption. I’ve reported it internally as a bug. I can’t share an ETA for a fix yet. If there’s an update, I’ll follow up in the thread.
Hey @Naim_Emam checking in on the thread. There isn’t a fix yet that would merge different representations of the same WSL path into a single workspace identity, so the approach is the same as I described above:
Always open the project the same way, ideally via WSL remote cursor . from a WSL shell or Connect to WSL…, and don’t mix in the UNC path \\wsl$\... from Explorer.
To bring back chats that seem to be missing, open the folder the same way it was opened when those chats were created. The data on disk is intact, it’s just stored in different buckets.
If this is still getting in the way on the latest version, let me know and, if you can, share details on how exactly you open the project in each session. I’ll reply in the thread if there’s an update.