Cloud chat subagent status flickers between "Starting up" and "Stopped" while work still completes

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1

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

In a cloud chat, when the parent agent spawns a subagent, the subagent status UI repeatedly flips between “Starting up” and “Stopped”. The footer stays on “Waiting for subagent”. The subagent still does the work and finishes. The bad signal is visual only, but it looks like the subagent is crash-looping.

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Open a cloud agent chat in Cursor 3.14.27 on Linux.
  2. Run a prompt that spawns a subagent (Task / nested agent).
  3. Watch the subagent status row while it works.
  4. Confirm the underlying task still finishes despite the start/stop flicker.

Expected Behavior

While the cloud subagent is running, show one stable in-progress state (for example “Running” / tool activity). Only show “Stopped” when that subagent has actually ended. “Waiting for subagent” should clear once the subagent is up, or at least not sit next to “Stopped”.

Screenshots / Screen Recordings

Recording 2026-08-04 at 09.35.09.gif

Operating System

Linux

Version Information

Cursor 3.14.27 (stable), commit 047548b00c1a
OS: Linux Mint 22.3 (Zena), kernel 7.0.0-28-generic, x86_64
Display: X11 (XDG_SESSION_TYPE=x11)
Update track: stable
Chat type: cloud chats only (not observed in local agent chats)

Notes:

Repro’d on cloud chats. I have not seen this on local chats.
This is not new in 3.14.27. I’ve seen the same start/stop flicker on earlier Cursor versions as well.
Looks like a status-projection / UI state bug, not a failed subagent run.
Happy to grab logs or another recording if useful.

Does this stop you from using Cursor

No - Cursor works, but with this issue

7

Hey @AndrewSalzer,
What you’re seeing isn’t intended, and it isn’t caused by anything in your setup. While the status line flips between “Starting up” and “Stopped”, the subagent is still running - the footer staying on “Waiting for subagent” matches that, and the work finishing is the reliable signal.

This is an issue we’re tracking on the cloud-chat side of the subagent status UI. Same family as Sub-agents UI flickers while running (local chats use different status labels). No timeline to share yet, but I’ll post here when there’s an update.

8

Thank you. Glad you guys are aware of it.

I also notice sometimes my local chats do not show up on the sidebar only cloud agents even though I have both types of chats selected in the filtering so they should show up.

9

Yup same issue, and now my agents have stopped loading their information within them as a whole…

10

My subagents also seem dumber; like this thinking process is killing their intelligence to reason?