When cursor runs terminal commands it often gets stuck and the only way to proceed is to “move to background”. Even then sometimes it doesnt get those results and thinks it was cut-off so will try again, and then get stuck again.
Steps to Reproduce
have cursor run terminal commands while SSH is active.
Expected Behavior
The terminal command should finish and cursor should move on with the results.
Operating System
Windows 10/11
Current Cursor Version (Menu → About Cursor → Copy)
Same here. Experiencing it now while working with python.
MacOS
From search:
Common Issues with PTY Host in Cursor
Timeouts and Disconnections: Users have reported that after using features like Agent or Ask, all open terminals in Cursor may lose connection or timeout, especially in development container environments. This may be due to aggressive cleanup routines or process management bugs that terminate PTY sessions prematurely5.
PTY Host Errors with Long Scripts: Running long or resource-intensive scripts (notably in R) can trigger “pty host” errors, particularly on macOS. This interrupts analytical workflows and forces users to break tasks into smaller chunks67.
Unresponsive PTY Host: When running multiple or large code blocks (e.g., loading/manipulating large dataframes in R), the PTY host can become unresponsive, especially on certain hardware or OS configurations7.
Orphaned Processes and High CPU Usage: On remote connections (e.g., SSH to a server), Cursor may leave behind orphaned bash processes tied to the PTY host, causing high CPU usage even after the editor is closed. This indicates issues with process cleanup and resource management4.
yeah this is currently the most annoying issue with cursor and I also having a lot of abandoned terminals I cant access. also using WSL but on Windows 11
It’s been notably worse the past few days since latest Cursor upgrade. Even the most basic commands (pwd, ls) run fine and then the Cursor terminal just hangs there waiting for completion.
It is intermittent - very occasionally it will recognise the command has completed and continue the agent loop, but completely unreliable.
This is making Cursor unusable for me. Our company got us licenses yesterday and I’ve burned through 140 out of our 500 monthly requests because 70% of those are trying to find a workaround for not being able to do something in terminal. I will be out of requests before the end of the week at this rate.
The rest of our devs are probably going to start trying it soon and they will no doubt be frustrated by the same thing because we all use similar work patterns. We use work issued Windows laptops and ssh to remote Linux containers where we have the actual code and services running. So terminal commands are 100% vital.
Optional: Comment block
