At boot cursor shows a thin horizontal spinner in the current tab and “no source control providers registered” and is stuck, and nothing can be done about it except reloading and praying. The bottom part where the terminal is shows three tabs: problems, output and terminal. The three of them are totally empty; so is the main side panel, whereas the agent chat receives input but does not wokr.
Steps to Reproduce
start cursor
Expected Behavior
cursor starts and shows all app contents correctly
Hey, thanks for the report. This is a known bug. The Extension Host doesn’t finish initializing when the window starts, so you get No source control providers registered, empty Problems Output Terminal panels, and Agent chat not working. Your symptoms match exactly.
You don’t need to wipe the whole cache. You can clean it only for the specific workspace:
Fully quit Cursor and make sure all Cursor processes are stopped. You can check in Activity Monitor
Open ~/Library/Application Support/Cursor/User/workspaceStorage
You’ll see a bunch of subfolders, one per workspace, with hash names. Find the one where workspace.json points to your project path anymatix
Delete that folder, or back it up first, then start Cursor again
Only that workspace state will reset layout, open tabs, chat history. Your code and git won’t be touched.
If it happens again in other projects, let me know and we’ll collect more data.
We’re tracking the bug, but I can’t share a precise ETA for a fix yet. Let me know if the workaround helped.
Hey @vincenzoml quick update on this bug. The fix has already been merged and will be included in Cursor 3.8. It’s not in the current stable release 3.7.21 yet.
Once you update to 3.8, please check if the startup freeze still happens. Until then, if you hit the same state again, the same workaround from my previous message applies, delete the specific workspaceStorage folder.
Happens whenever I close Cursor with an active “Working Tree” file open on my MAC. Cursor doesn’t connect to GIT, nor enable chat. Close the file, and reopen Cursor, then it works again.
@Kevin_Schubach thanks, your note about the active Working Tree file when closing is helpful. The symptoms match the ones in this thread. This is a known bug with Extension Host initialization. The fix is already merged and will ship in Cursor 3.8. It’s not in the current stable 3.7.21 yet.
Until the update is out, a temporary workaround is to close the file and restart Cursor, or delete the specific workspaceStorage folder as described earlier in the thread. After you update to 3.8, let me know if the freeze happens again.
