Cursor Composer does not change code. instead tells me what to do and lies?

Bug Report
1

at first composer was really helpfull. but every now and then and especially today it just says it edits code but doesnt. or tell me what to do instead. its so frustrating

1 Like
2

Hi @Gunspire ,

Please provide relevant information from these steps:

https://docs.cursor.com/troubleshooting/troubleshooting-guide

Also, is the chat that you are having with Composer particularly long?

Or does it happen at the start of the chat?

3

Hi thanks for the response

  1. at this point i ask it to do anything at all and it will give me a response like in the screenshot

  2. Version: 0.41.3
    VSCode Version: 1.91.1
    Commit: 51c8aff7cb5a89f4a0e462fbacab938bdbfaf140
    Date: 2024-09-25T17:13:50.377Z
    Electron: 29.4.0
    ElectronBuildId: undefined
    Chromium: 122.0.6261.156
    Node.js: 20.9.0
    V8: 12.2.281.27-electron.0
    OS: Darwin arm64 23.5.0

4.no

tell me if you also need the other information right i dont get the Toggle Developer Tools working

Screenshot 2024-10-01 at 01.02.57
Screenshot 2024-10-01 at 01.02.57527×1356 89.9 KB

4

about the chat length, it also happends when i restart cursor comepletly. but when i started working on this project it almost never happend. does restarting cursor restart the chat?

5

Hi @Gunspire ,

From your screenshot, it seems that your prompt may have been fairly complex and involves multiple files, pieces of ‘logic’, and a file/folder restructure?

I tried to recreate what I guessed to be causing the issue (the file/folder restructure) and have captured the prompts and responses below in case it assists the devs in troubleshooting.

I was using the gpt-4o model in the Ctrl + Shift + I Composer (Control Panel view).

Prompt 01:

add two folders to this project named folder_1 and folder_2 and put some dummy .js files in there, the files don’t need to contain any content

Response 01:

To add two folders named folder_1 and folder_2 with dummy .js files, you can create the following structure:

project_root/
│
├── folder_1/
│   └── dummy_1.js
│
├── folder_2/
│   └── dummy_2.js
│
└── js/  (note this folder and file already existed)  
    └── script.js

I then clicked Accept All and it created the new folders and files as desired.

Prompt 02:

I then attempted to move the files around with this prompt:

move the file in folder_2 to folder_1

At some point I got a connecton error, it could have been my network issue:

Problem reaching OpenAI:
Your request ID is 8fab555d-9809-4df3-b375-2e31ce90a430.

I clicked on Try Again and the request went through.

Response 02:

To move the file dummy_2.js from folder_2 to folder_1, you will end up with the following structure:

project_root/
│
├── folder_1/
│   ├── dummy_1.js
│   └── dummy_2.js
│
├── folder_2/
│   (empty)
│
└── js/
    └── script.js

I then clicked Accept All and it resulted in this folder content:

project_root/
│
├── folder_1/
│   ├── dummy_1.js
│   └── dummy_2.js
│
├── folder_2/
│   └── dummy_2.js
│
└── js/
    └── script.js

So it didn’t fully achieve the objective (the dummy_2.js file is also in folder_2.

Personally, if I was getting this behaviour, I would try and break my desired behaviour into smaller requests - a request for each piece of logic I wanted applied.

You have said, however, that this behaviour is happening when you restart Cursor and regardless of the chat length or request complexity.

So it might be a matter of waiting to see if a future update resolves the issues you are experiencing.

6

thanks for the in depth response!

I do have to mention this is my first cursor project.
whenever i let composer work its magic i give him acces to all my files in my project thats a total of 45 files. is that to much for the ai to handle?

7

Personally, I get a sense when I’m giving a single chat too many things to do, across too many files.

I used to be more ‘precious’ about chats, but now I start a new chat for each task I want to achieve, and I keep them short, and I often delete them soon afterwards (unless they relate to a major paradigm shift in the code that I want to keep for reference).

As soon as I find the chat starts giving less valuable responses, I start a new chat.

But this is just my personal experience, after coding quite intensively directly with LLM chat bots and Cursor over the past several months.

I’ve experienced days when I get heaps done, have clear thoughts and actions and get good results, as well as weeks when I get a lot less done (because the LLM just doesn’t know the answer, as much as it might try).

I suspect this is the experience of most developers working with these new AI tools, and it takes time, patience and reflection to be able to balance the anticipation of all the possibilities with the limitations that arise from time to time, and find a way forwards.

But there is a way, and yes I think it helps if you break things down into smaller parts.

With all that said, the limitations that exist now, may not exist in 12 months time given the pace of development, refinement and human ingenuity that is taking place.

In regards to Composer, it should work as described on the tin, but if I find I am having some issues with a particular release, I just switch to using Chat and Ctrl + K so I can continue making progress, and find the next release usually improves on the last one etc.