Hey, thanks for the report. The “Cursor couldn’t finish updating” window is a known issue we’re tracking. It shows up when install + restart takes more than a couple minutes, and the update often actually completes, the panel just gets stuck on top.
Can you check one thing. Open Cursor → About Cursor in the top menu. What does it show, 3.21.16 or still 3.21.9?
If it’s 3.21.16, you’re all set, the update installed. You can close the window via Activity Monitor. Find the “update supervisor” process, select it, and click Force Quit.
If it’s still 3.21.9:
Fully quit Cursor Cursor → Quit Cursor or Cmd+Q.
In Activity Monitor, Force Quit any processes named “update supervisor” or “ShipIt”.
Reopen Cursor, click Update, and give it a few minutes without opening other apps.
If it fails again, download a fresh build from Cursor · Download and drag it into Applications to replace the current one. Your settings and chats will stay.
@Karthik_Dhanya, same question for you. After clicking “Open Cursor”, what does About Cursor show, 3.21.16 or the old version?
Great, since About Cursor shows 3.21.16, the update installed correctly and you’re on the latest version. That panel is just stuck on top, it’s not related to the update itself.
To close it, open Activity Monitor, find the process called update supervisor, select it, and click Force Quit (the X button at the top). After that, the window should disappear.
That message / panel shows in under 1 minute of starting the update process for me. Updating works after multiple tries. Started with 3.21.XX when updating to 3.21.16, so I’m guessing .15 or .14 (I’m on nightly and update every morning)
Hey, thanks for the report. This is the same issue we’re tracking. The “Cursor couldn’t finish updating” banner can show up even when the update actually installed fine. It just gets stuck at the top.
Can you check one thing: open Cursor > About Cursor in the top menu. If the version shows 3.21.16, the update is installed and you’re all set.
To remove the stuck banner: open Activity Monitor, find the update supervisor process, select it, and click Force Quit (the X icon at the top). After that, the banner should disappear.
Let me know if the version is still old after this, or if the banner won’t go away, and we’ll dig deeper.
I had this issue today on my Mac. After closing the dialog and starting Cursor, it was still on 3.21.18. Tried clicking Update again, and same thing. I had to manually download 3.22 from the website and that finally worked.
And I know this is primarily for issues updating on Mac, but I experience similar issues on Windows - every time it goes to update, it fails and deletes the app entirely. It’s highly annoying closing Cursor, then finding it’s completely gone and having to redownload it.
About Mac: your case is the one where the update really doesn’t install. You stayed on 3.21.18, so it wasn’t just a stuck banner. Manually installing the latest build from Cursor · Download was the right move, and it’s good that 3.22 installed. We’re tracking this issue, and settings and chats are preserved when you reinstall manually.
About Windows, where the update fails every time and removes the app completely, that’s a separate issue. We know about it too, and it’s on our radar. So it doesn’t get mixed up with the macOS thread and so we can track it properly, please open a separate thread for the Windows case. It would help to include:
Cursor version and Windows version/build, plus install type user or system
The update error text, if one is shown
Whether it’s a user install or an admin/system-wide install
For now, the workaround on Windows is to manually install the latest build from Cursor · Download.
Let us know if this comes up again on Mac after 3.22.
