Cursor Dev Containers fail to attach (wget ENOENT) while VSCode works fine

Support Bug Reports
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1

Hi everyone,

I’m running into an issue when trying to attach Cursor to a running Docker container using the Dev Containers extension.

Setup

  • OS: Windows 11

  • Environment: WSL2 + Docker

  • Container: Debian-based image

  • Tooling: Cursor (latest version)

Issue

When I try to attach to a running container in Cursor, the remote server installation fails with the following error:

Failed to install remote server in container:
Error: [downloadFile] Command failed with exit code 1: spawn wget ENOENT

From the logs, it seems Cursor tries to download its server binary and falls back to using wget, which is not available.

Important detail

The exact same container works perfectly when using VSCode Dev Containers, it attaches without any issues.

Questions

  1. Does Cursor require additional system packages inside the container compared to VSCode?

  2. Is there a recommended base image or required dependencies list for Cursor Dev Containers?

  3. Is this expected behavior or a bug?

Any help would be appreciated, especially understanding why this works in VSCode but not in Cursor.

Thanks!

3

Same here! Broken on the latest update it seems. Had to default to creating the devcontainer in VS Code and then copen in Cursor.

4

I’m sorry to hear that I am not the only one experiencing this issue. I will definitely try to use your solution. Many thanks for the answer!

5

Hey, thanks for the report. This is a known issue with Dev Containers. Cursor tries to download its server binary using wget, which isn’t installed in the container.

A couple things to try first:

  1. What extension is installed? Open Extensions and check that you have anysphere.remote-containers, not ms-vscode-remote.remote-containers. If the Microsoft one is installed, remove it and install the Anysphere one.

  2. wget workaround: try adding wget to your Dockerfile:

    RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y wget

    Cursor uses it to download the server binary inside the container.

  3. Workaround from @Juan_Mata: as suggested, create the devcontainer in VS Code, then open it in Cursor via Dev Containers: Attach to Running Container.

Also, please share:

  • Your exact Cursor version from Help > About
  • Logs from View > Output > Dev Containers selected in the dropdown, right after the failed attempt

The team is aware of devcontainers issues on WSL, and your report helps with prioritization. Let me know if the wget workaround helped.

6

Worked! I was using the Anysphere extension and adding the apt-get install -y wget in the Dockerfile did the trick!

Thank you so much for the help :slight_smile: .