Critical - Cursor UNUSABLE - cannot open new chat!

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

the “+” icon which used to let us open new tabs, has again been removed.
Cursor also unexpectedly logged me out, and lost half my settings (set me up as if I was a new customer) - then it cannot load my last chat - which means I cannot use Ctrl-N to open a new chat, because the broken one will not load.

Steps to Reproduce

PUT THE “+” NEW-TAB ICON BACK IN THE CHAT UI !!!

Expected Behavior

Some way to open new tabs, even if existing tabs don’t work.

Screenshots / Screen Recordings

Operating System

Windows 10/11

Current Cursor Version (Menu → About Cursor → Copy)

Version: 2.3.21 (system setup)
VSCode Version: 1.105.1
Commit: 68e0a0385b87408d050869ea543e3778ad53f780
Date: 2026-01-02T23:46:13.381Z
Electron: 37.7.0
Chromium: 138.0.7204.251
Node.js: 22.20.0
V8: 13.8.258.32-electron.0
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.17763

Does this stop you from using Cursor

Yes - Cursor is unusable

have you tried an earlier version?

Hey, thanks for the report.

The “+” button is actually there. In your screenshot, it’s visible next to the tab name. The issue is that your chat is stuck on “Loading Chat”, which can lock up the UI.

Try restoring from a backup:

  • Fully close Cursor
  • Go to %APPDATA%\Cursor\User\globalStorage
  • Compare the file sizes of state.vscdb and state.vscdb.backup
  • If the backup is larger, rename it to state.vscdb (save a copy of the current file first)
  • Restart Cursor

If that doesn’t help, please share any red errors from the Developer Tools console.

After you manage to find the “+” in the Chat GUI, you can also try Doctor mode in Cursor Mover: Copy the workspace without losing the chats to recover chat history.

Awesome tip - thanks heaps for that one!

And yeah - my bad - black-on-black, didn’t notice that icon there - probably my fault for colour-coding my workspaces. oops!

If you use Cursor Mover to restore your chats, I would appreciate your feedback. I spontaneously vibecoded this last night :eyes:

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