Cursor crashes on opening, after reinstall

Support Bug Reports
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1

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

System Info:

Mac: Apple Silicon (M1/M2)

macOS: 26.2 (Tahoe), also tested on 25.x (Sequoia)

Cursor was working fine on macOS 25.x (Sequoia) but suddenly started crashing. Updating to 26.2 (Tahoe) did not resolve the issue. Even after a complete uninstall and reinstall, Cursor crashes immediately on launch.

So far I have:

  1. Removed Cursor app and all user data:

sudo rm -rf “/Applications/Cursor.app”
rm -rf “~/Library/Application Support/Cursor”
rm -rf “~/Library/Caches/Cursor”
rm -f “~/Library/Preferences/com.cursor.Cursor.plist”
rm -rf “~/.cursor”
rm -rf “~/Library/Saved Application State/com.cursor.Cursor.savedState”
rm -f ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.cursor.Cursor.*.plist

  1. Verified no leftover files remain using:

sudo find / -iname “cursor” 2>/dev/null

Only unrelated system headers and man pages were found.

  1. Attempted to launch with Option key held to prevent macOS Resume from restoring windows — old files/folders still opened immediately.

  2. Tried multiple versions (2.3.41, 2.2.44), all crashed immediately.

  3. Checked Console and system logs — no crash reports or relevant log entries generated by Cursor.

After reinstall, old files and folders persist on launch even with all known user data cleared.

The crash occurs before the app creates Application Support/Cursor, suggesting a pre-init failure in the Electron runtime or binary.

This behavior happens regardless of macOS version (tested on 25.x and 26.2).

No logs, crash reports, or system messages are produced — app fails silently.

The issue may be Apple Silicon + current Cursor binary related, not leftover state or macOS Resume.

A complete clean reinstall does not resolve the problem.

Requesting guidance on whether this is a known issue and if a macOS 26.x / Apple Silicon–compatible build is available or planned, or if there is a simple fix that I’m missing completely.

Steps to Reproduce

I dont know how you could reproduce this, I was just working with the agent to edit some straightforward python scripts and it completely crashed and closed out of the app.

Operating System

MacOS

Current Cursor Version (Menu → About Cursor → Copy)

Versions 2.3.41 and 2.2.44

Does this stop you from using Cursor

Yes - Cursor is unusable

3

Hey, thanks for the report. This looks like a known issue on macOS Tahoe. The team is already working on a fix for 26.2.

A few things to help us debug:

  1. Try launching from Terminal and check the output:
open -a Cursor --stdout --stderr
  1. Try launching with GPU disabled, this sometimes helps on Tahoe:
open -a Cursor --args --disable-gpu --disable-gpu-compositing
  1. What kind of network are you on, a home router with NAT, or a static IP? In a similar macOS 26.1 bug, the issue was specifically related to masquerade NAT.

It’s also interesting that you said this started back on Sequoia (25.x). Can you share what happened right before it started, like a Cursor update, installing an extension, or any network changes?

4

Thanks! I tried both of the commands you suggested - neither was successful, and there’s no further output in the terminal.
I’m using eduroam (which I think functions as a masquerade NAT) and a home network, Cursor crashes on both.
Right before the crash, on Sequoia, I wasnt updating/installing/changing anything manually, just editing syntax of some scripts. However, maybe Cursor was automatically updating and that caused it?

5

Since the terminal isn’t showing any output, try some deeper diagnostics:

  1. Run it with verbose logging:
ELECTRON_ENABLE_LOGGING=1 ELECTRON_LOG_ASAR_READS=1 /Applications/Cursor.app/Contents/MacOS/Cursor 2>&1 | tee ~/cursor_debug.log
  1. Check the system crash reports. Sometimes macOS catches crashes that the app doesn’t log:
ls -la ~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/ | grep -i cursor
  1. Can you share the exact Mac model (M1, M2, or M3)?

One interesting detail: in a similar thread (Cursor Extension Host Crashes on macOS 26.1 (Tahoe) - Nightly Build) on Tahoe 26.1, they found that masquerade NAT (like on eduroam) conflicts with Cursor. Static NAT helped there, but I get that you can’t control eduroam.

Also try using a mobile hotspot (no university network NAT). That can help rule out or confirm a network-related issue.

6

I’m using an M4 chip. The diagnostic you suggested was pretty helpful I think, here’s some of the output:

<— Last few GCs —>

[10366:0x13400500000] 1360 ms: Mark-Compact 63.6 (80.0) → 59.8 (79.5) MB, pooled: 0.0 MB, 3.25 / 0.00 ms (+ 2.1 ms in 73 steps since start of marking, biggest step 0.3 ms, walltime since start of marking 28 ms) (average mu = 0.994, current mu = 0.995[10366:0x13400500000] 2668 ms: Scavenge 80.7 (87.4) → 63.7 (84.4) MB, pooled: 0.0 MB, 5.29 / 0.04 ms (average mu = 0.994, current mu = 0.995) allocation failure;

[10366:0120/185215.362977:ERROR:electron/shell/common/node_bindings.cc:179] OOM error in V8: Zone Allocation failed - process out of memory

I did try with mobile data, but Cursor still crashes

7

Thanks for the details. This is a known issue on macOS Tahoe with Electron and the V8 engine - the team is already working on a fix.

Your logs show “OOM error in V8: Zone Allocation failed” - this is system-level, not config-related.

You’ve already tried the right steps. Temporary workarounds:

  • Downgrade to 2.2.44 (might be more stable on your M4)
  • Wait for the fix in Tahoe 26.2+

This isn’t a bug from your reinstall - Electron on Tahoe has memory allocation issues with V8.

8

I have a similar issue with latest cursor IDE.
I’m on sequoia with m1.

% /Applications/Cursor.app/Contents/MacOS/Cursor --disable-extensions --disable-gpu

[main 2026-01-28T11:00:15.583Z] updateURL https://api2.cursor.sh/updates/api/update/darwin-arm64/cursor/2.4.22/a9bd24cc5776d80cfa1699b91a0f03fa4c0b2689fcba400aed30ddcc83077802/stable

[main 2026-01-28T11:00:15.586Z] update#setState idle

[main 2026-01-28T11:00:16.528Z] [Tray] getMacOSIconPath: hasNotifications: false

[main 2026-01-28T11:00:21.021Z] [CursorProclistService] Config enabled feature (subsample every 10s)

[main 2026-01-28T11:00:21.391Z] [CursorProclistService] Config enabled feature (subsample every 10s)

[40896:0128/130040.601229:ERROR:gpu/ipc/service/gles2_command_buffer_stub.cc:278] ContextResult::kFatalFailure: Failed to create context.

[main 2026-01-28T11:00:45.595Z] update#setState checking for updates

[main 2026-01-28T11:01:01.702Z] UpdateService onUpdateNotAvailable()

[main 2026-01-28T11:01:01.703Z] update#setState idle

<— Last few GCs —>

[40889:0x10c006d0000]   148816 ms: Scavenge 35.7 (37.9) → 34.9 (37.1) MB, pooled: 2.8 MB, 0.66 / 0.00 ms (average mu = 0.999, current mu = 0.999) allocation failure;

[40889:0x10c006d0000]   148818 ms: Scavenge 35.8 (37.9) → 34.9 (38.1) MB, pooled: 1.8 MB, 0.30 / 0.00 ms (average mu = 0.999, current mu = 0.999) allocation failure;

[40889:0x10c006d0000]   151491 ms: Scavenge 36.1 (39.3) → 35.3 (38.0) MB, pooled: 2.0 MB, 1.14 / 0.00 ms (average mu = 0.999, current mu = 0.999) allocation failure;

[40889:0128/130245.953227:ERROR:electron/shell/common/node_bindings.cc:181] OOM error in V8: Zone Allocation failed - process out of memory

[0128/130245.962974:WARNING:third_party/crashpad/crashpad/util/process/process_memory_mac.cc:94] mach_vm_read(0x16f6d8000, 0x8000): (os/kern) invalid address (1)

zsh: trace trap  /Applications/Cursor.app/Contents/MacOS/Cursor --disable-extensions