Cursor displays a blank layout after opening the project

Support Bug Reports
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1

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

When I open a project using the cursor, the entire desktop application is blank; there’s nothing there. There’s nothing clickable.
It’s worth noting that before this, in version 2.4, I wanted to understand the layout modes, so I quickly switched between several layout methods. After each switch, I closed and reopened the window. On the last attempt, the entire window was completely blank. Uninstalling and reinstalling didn’t solve the problem. Later, I opened two windows in a row, and the second window was normal.

Steps to Reproduce

The error steps are difficult to describe.

Screenshots / Screen Recordings

Snipaste_2026-02-25_09-59-50.png
Snipaste_2026-02-25_09-59-50.png1661×1091 103 KB

Operating System

Windows 10/11

Version Information

Version: 2.5.20 (user setup)
VSCode Version: 1.105.1
Commit: 511523af765daeb1fa69500ab0df5b6524424610
Date: 2026-02-19T20:41:31.942Z
Build Type: Stable
Release Track: Default
Electron: 39.4.0
Chromium: 142.0.7444.265
Node.js: 22.22.0
V8: 14.2.231.22-electron.0
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.19045

Does this stop you from using Cursor

Yes - Cursor is unusable

3

Hey, thanks for the report. This is a known issue with the workspace layout state. Switching between layout modes can leave an invalid state in the workspace database.

Workaround without reinstalling:

  1. Find state.vscdb for this project:
    C:\Users\<Username>\AppData\Roaming\Cursor\User\workspaceStorage\<workspace-id>\state.vscdb

  2. Open it in DB Browser for SQLite and run:

    DELETE FROM ItemTable WHERE key = 'cursor/editorLayout.auxiliaryBarVisible';

  3. Restart Cursor.

If you don’t want to deal with SQLite, you can just delete the <workspace-id> folder for this project. You’ll only lose the chat history for that workspace.

For now, I’d recommend avoiding “Open Chat as Editor”. This feature often triggers this issue.

More details: Workspace-specific blank window