Critical: All windows and AI chat close immediately after latest update

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

Environment:
OS: macOS (Apple Silicon)

Application: Cursor IDE

Version: Latest update (Post-update failure)

Steps to Reproduce:

Open Cursor after the recent update.

Try to open any panel, window, or the AI chat (via shortcut or UI button).

Expected Behavior:
The requested window or chat panel should open and remain open.

Actual Behavior:
The window/chat panel opens for a fraction of a second and immediately closes automatically. The IDE is completely unusable.

Steps to Reproduce

1 Open Cursor after the recent update.
2 Try to open any panel, window, or the AI chat (via shortcut or UI button).

Expected Behavior

The window/chat panel opens for a fraction of a second and immediately closes automatically. The IDE is completely unusable.

Screenshots / Screen Recordings

Operating System

MacOS

Version Information

Version: 3.4.20
VSCode Version: 1.105.1
Commit: 0cf8b06883f54e26bb4f0fb8647c9500ccb43310
Date: 2026-05-15T02:26:10.351Z
Layout: editor
Build Type: Stable
Release Track: Default
Electron: 39.8.1
Chromium: 142.0.7444.265
Node.js: 22.22.1
V8: 14.2.231.22-electron.0
OS: Darwin arm64 25.4.0

Does this stop you from using Cursor

Yes - Cursor is unusable

Hey, this is a known bug. The composer.composerHeaders key in local storage state.vscdb grows without limits, goes over the Electron IPC threshold, and crashes the panel right when it opens. You have a lot of requests through Composer, which makes it grow faster. The fix is on our side, but there’s no ETA yet.

Workaround is to delete only this key, all other settings and login will stay:

  1. Fully quit Cursor with Cmd+Q.
  2. Make a backup just in case:
cp ~/Library/Application\ Support/Cursor/User/globalStorage/state.vscdb ~/state.vscdb.backup
  1. Delete the problematic key:
sqlite3 ~/Library/Application\ Support/Cursor/User/globalStorage/state.vscdb "DELETE FROM ItemTable WHERE key LIKE 'composer.composerHeaders%';"
  1. Start Cursor.

The chat history sidebar will be empty, but the chats are stored separately and should load back.

If that doesn’t work, you can do a stronger reset. With Cursor closed, delete state.vscdb and state.vscdb.backup from ~/Library/Application Support/Cursor/User/globalStorage/ after making a backup. This resets some local state, but you can log in again and it should fix it for sure. This worked for another user in this thread:

Let me know how it goes.

Thanks! The sqlite3 command to delete the specific key worked perfectly. Back up and running.

hanks for the workaround, but unfortunately, it’s not a permanent fix. It only worked for about 30 minutes before the exact same crash started happening again.

Since I use Composer heavily, the composer.composerHeaders key in state.vscdb quickly builds up and hits the Electron IPC threshold again. Running the sqlite3 command fixes it temporarily, but it keeps breaking after a short period of intensive work.

Looking forward to the official fix on your side.

Yeah, that’s expected with your usage pattern. The key fills back up to the IPC threshold as you keep using Composer. The proper fix on our side is still in progress, and I can’t share an ETA yet.

Until then, the only workaround is to run the cleanup periodically. You can save it as a shell alias to make it less annoying, for example add this to your ~/.zshrc:

alias cursor-fix='osascript -e "quit app \"Cursor\"" && sleep 2 && cp ~/Library/Application\ Support/Cursor/User/globalStorage/state.vscdb ~/state.vscdb.backup && sqlite3 ~/Library/Application\ Support/Cursor/User/globalStorage/state.vscdb "DELETE FROM ItemTable WHERE key LIKE '\''composer.composerHeaders%'\'';" && open -a Cursor'

Then just run cursor-fix whenever it crashes again.

I’ve bumped the report internally with a note that heavy Composer usage triggers it within about 30 min, which helps with prioritization. I’ll post here once the proper fix lands.