Cursor takes a very long time at start downloading VSCode Server

Bug Reports
1

Hello, Cursor Seems to take very long time to start in my Windows + WSL configuration.

I see a message "Starting VSCode in WSL (Ubuntu). The log shows something like this:

[2025-02-04 12:34:42.245] Probing result: x86_64
[2025-02-04 12:34:42.245] No server install found in WSL, needs linux-x64
[2025-02-04 12:34:42.245] Getting server from client side
[2025-02-04 12:34:42.247] Downloading VS Code Server stable - cce0110ca40ceb61e76ecea08d24210123895320 into C:\Users\sudha\AppData\Local\Temp\vscode-remote-wsl\cce0110ca40ceb61e76ecea08d24210123895320\vscode-server-stable-linux-x64.tar.gz.
[2025-02-04 12:34:44.021] Download checksum: undefined

And it stays here for 10+ minutes.

My VSCode starts right away. Not sure why Cursor is stuck here.

How do I resolve this.

2

Hey, have you installed Cursor inside your WSL distribution, or is Cursor on your Windows machine, connecting to your WSL install?

Unlike VSCode, you cannot install Cursor inside WSL, and use cursor . to run it.

3

I have Windows, and I am using WSL for Linux terminal.
I’ve installed vs code and cursor using exe. Every time i open cursor(pro user) it starts vs code in wsl and starts downloading. is there a fix for it once and for all?

In downloading i see this log

No server install found in WSL, needs linux-x64
[2025-02-21 09:07:33.437] Getting server from client side
[2025-02-21 09:07:33.438] Downloading VS Code Server stable - fe574d0820377383143b2ea26aa6ae28b3425220 into C:\Users\RAJAT~1.JAI\AppData\Local\Temp\vscode-remote-wsl\fe574d0820377383143b2ea26aa6ae28b3425220\vscode-server-stable-linux-x64.tar.gz.
[2025-02-21 09:07:34.630] Download checksum: undefined

Since it is installing in temp after every shutdown it’ll download again i think. And I want to avoid it.

4

I also had the same issue for a while, mainly after a Cursor update. The logs seems to hang on “Download checksum: undefined”

1 Like
5

same here! the issue started the last couple days and now is very difficult to open wsl2 with cursor. Most of the times it fails to download server and cannot connect.

1 Like
6

@danperks is there a fix for below - it stuck always for 15-20 minutes on every startup.

 New commit detected: 0.46.10
[2025-03-07 05:46:35.411] Recently used WSL platforms: linux-x64
[2025-03-07 05:46:35.412] Downloading VS Code Server stable - 0.46.10 into C:\Users\RAJAT~1.JAI\AppData\Local\Temp\vscode-remote-wsl\0.46.10\vscode-server-stable-linux-x64.tar.gz.
[2025-03-07 05:46:36.980] Problems getting update information Failed to download VS Code Server from https://cursor.blob.core.windows.net/remote-releases/0.46.10/vscode-reh-linux-x64.tar.gz: HTTP 404 - The specified blob does not exist.
7

I do not see this anymore

8

I’m still seeing this when connecting from my machine via ssh to my local linux server :confused:
It takes so long to download (+15 min) and rare cases the download fails.

9

Same issue for me. Dose any solve?

10

CURSOR ADMINS, THIS NEEDS TO BE SOLVED! Everytime I restart Cursor, it looks for a different checksum, which is not present in ~/.cursor-server/bin and re downloads cursor server, taking a long time to restart.

11

@everyone the absolutely best thing you all can do, untill the Cursor Team fixes it, you can open the cursor in windows only navigating to the WSL project directory you are working. you can code from cursor, but you have use the WSL terminal separately

12

Hi all, we recently released our own extension for WSL, anysphere.remote-wsl. If you are running into issues with ms-vscode-remote.remote-wsl, I would recommend switching to this one. The downloads should be much faster as it will first attempt to download inside WSL, falling back to a client-side download only if that fails.

You can find it by searching for @id:anysphere.remote-wsl in the extension search box. Attaching a screenshot. Please share if you continue to run into issues on this extension.

image
image797Ă—245 17.6 KB

13

Hey ravirahman, I’m using the last version of this custom plugin, but I’m still seeing the same issue after each update (for example the one to get to 0.50.7 this morning).

It took a solid 10 min to complete (with a powerful computer and a 1Gbps internet connection), so it did not change anything for me.

I’m using Cursor with WSL 2.3.26.0 and Windows 11 Pro 24H2.

15

Hi @Thomas-3454, every Cursor update does require a new server download. It does sound like the downloads are quite slow for some reason; next time it happens, could you share the logs for the “Remote - WSL” output? This will give more context on what part is taking so long (downloading, extracting, copying, …).

16

Hey @ravirahman, here’s the output with the latest version (1.0.0)

[Info  - 21:54:15.43] Resolving wsl remote authority 'wsl+ubuntu-24.04' (attempt #1)
[Trace  - 21:54:15.44] Installing cursor-server with options: {"id":"145162e24bdfc1b002831e8c","commit":"53b99ce608cba35127ae3a050c1738a959750860","line":"production","extensionIds":[],"serverApplicationName":"cursor-server","serverDataFolderName":".cursor-server","forceReinstall":false,"killRunningServers":false}
[Trace  - 21:54:16.8] WSL stdout: Downloading server from https://cursor.blob.core.windows.net/remote-releases/53b99ce608cba35127ae3a050c1738a959750860/vscode-reh-linux-x64.tar.gz

[Trace  - 22:01:05.281] WSL stderr: 2025-06-05 00:01:05 URL:https://cursor.blob.core.windows.net/remote-releases/53b99ce608cba35127ae3a050c1738a959750860/vscode-reh-linux-x64.tar.gz [68394992/68394992] -> "/tmp/tmp.9KQvGrYSe1" [1]

[Trace  - 22:01:06.348] WSL stderr: your 131072x1 screen size is bogus. expect trouble

[Trace  - 22:01:06.351] WSL stdout: Checking to see if should kill running procs: SERVER_RUNNING_PROCESS=

[Trace  - 22:01:06.354] WSL stdout: Starting server

The output is slighly different than the previous “Download checksum: undefined” I had (without the custom Cursor WSL extension).

Here it took 7 minutes to complete, which is not that bad, but it was after a previous failed attempt where I waited 10 minutes stuck on the downloading step.

As a comparaison, I just did an update of VS Code, and here the output.

[2025-06-04 22:14:57.835]   1%  2%  3%  4%  5%  6%
[2025-06-04 22:14:54.138] Extension version: 0.99.0
[2025-06-04 22:14:54.138] L10N bundle: none
[2025-06-04 22:14:54.143] authorityHierarchy: wsl+ubuntu-24.04
[2025-06-04 22:14:54.143] WSL extension activating for a local WSL instance
[2025-06-04 22:14:54.149] Resolving wsl+ubuntu-24.04, resolveAttempt: 1
[2025-06-04 22:14:54.150] NodeExecServer run: C:\WINDOWS\System32\wsl.exe --status
[2025-06-04 22:14:54.157] Download in background is enabled
[2025-06-04 22:14:54.199] WSL feature installed: true (wsl --status)
[2025-06-04 22:14:54.199] NodeExecServer run: C:\WINDOWS\System32\wsl.exe --list --verbose
[2025-06-04 22:14:54.244] 2 distros found
[2025-06-04 22:14:54.245] Starting VS Code Server inside WSL (wsl2)
[2025-06-04 22:14:54.245] Windows build: 26100. Multi distro support: available. WSL path support: enabled
[2025-06-04 22:14:54.245] Scriptless setup: false
[2025-06-04 22:14:54.246] No shell environment set or found for current distro.
[2025-06-04 22:14:54.333] WSL daemon log file: 
[2025-06-04 22:14:54.335] Probing if server is already installed: if [ -d ~/.vscode-server/bin/258e40fedc6cb8edf399a463ce3a9d32e7e1f6f3 ]; then printf 'install-found '; fi; if [ -f /etc/alpine-release ]; then printf 'alpine-'; fi; uname -m;
[2025-06-04 22:14:54.336] NodeExecServer run: C:\WINDOWS\System32\wsl.exe -d Ubuntu-24.04 -e sh -c if [ -d ~/.vscode-server/bin/258e40fedc6cb8edf399a463ce3a9d32e7e1f6f3 ]; then printf 'install-found '; fi; if [ -f /etc/alpine-release ]; then printf 'alpine-'; fi; uname -m;
[2025-06-04 22:14:54.428] Probing result: x86_64
[2025-06-04 22:14:54.429] No server install found in WSL, needs linux-x64
[2025-06-04 22:14:54.429] Getting server from client side
[2025-06-04 22:14:54.429] Downloading VS Code Server stable - 258e40fedc6cb8edf399a463ce3a9d32e7e1f6f3 into C:\Users\Thomas\vscode-remote-wsl\stable\258e40fedc6cb8edf399a463ce3a9d32e7e1f6f3\vscode-server-stable-linux-x64.tar.gz.
[2025-06-04 22:14:54.673] Download checksum: e770f8236653fba2afb28eb737908409af4d5cdfa3174e1f6373c212c925a02d
[2025-06-04 22:14:55.673] Download checksum verified
[2025-06-04 22:14:55.673] Download length verified
[2025-06-04 22:14:55.674] Server available at C:\Users\Thomas\vscode-remote-wsl\stable\258e40fedc6cb8edf399a463ce3a9d32e7e1f6f3\vscode-server-stable-linux-x64.tar.gz
[2025-06-04 22:14:55.674] NodeExecServer run: C:\WINDOWS\System32\wsl.exe -d Ubuntu-24.04 sh -c '"$VSCODE_WSL_EXT_LOCATION/scripts/wslServer.sh" 258e40fedc6cb8edf399a463ce3a9d32e7e1f6f3 stable code-server .vscode-server --host=127.0.0.1 --port=0 --connection-token=21011971-1486860957-1967340742-364088638 --use-host-proxy --without-browser-env-var --disable-websocket-compression --accept-server-license-terms --disable-telemetry --telemetry-level=off'
[2025-06-04 22:14:55.983] Setting up server environment: Looking for /home/thomas/.vscode-server/server-env-setup. Not found.
[2025-06-04 22:14:55.983] WSL version: 5.15.167.4-microsoft-standard-WSL2 Ubuntu-24.04
[2025-06-04 22:14:55.983] Updating VS Code Server to version 258e40fedc6cb8edf399a463ce3a9d32e7e1f6f3
[2025-06-04 22:14:55.983] Removing previous installation...
[2025-06-04 22:14:55.983] Installing VS Code Server from tar available at /mnt/c/Users/Thomas/vscode-remote-wsl/stable/258e40fedc6cb8edf399a463ce3a9d32e7e1f6f3/vscode-server-stable-linux-x64.tar.gz
[2025-06-04 22:14:57.225] Unpacking:   0%
[2025-06-04 22:14:58.138]   7%  8%  9% 10% 11% 12% 13% 14% 15% 16% 17% 18% 19% 20% 21% 22% 23% 24% 25% 26% 27% 28% 29% 30% 31% 32% 33% 34% 35% 36% 37% 38% 39% 40% 41% 42% 43% 44% 45% 46% 47% 48% 49% 50% 51% 52% 53% 54% 55% 56% 57% 58% 59% 60% 61% 62% 63% 64% 65% 66% 67% 68% 69% 70% 71% 72%
[2025-06-04 22:14:58.439]  73% 74% 75% 76% 77% 78% 79% 80% 81% 82% 83% 84% 85% 86% 87% 88% 89% 90% 91% 92% 93% 94% 95% 96% 97% 98% 99%100%
[2025-06-04 22:14:58.439] Unpacked 2042 files and folders to /home/thomas/.vscode-server/bin/258e40fedc6cb8edf399a463ce3a9d32e7e1f6f3.
[2025-06-04 22:14:58.439] Looking for compatibility check script at /home/thomas/.vscode-server/bin/258e40fedc6cb8edf399a463ce3a9d32e7e1f6f3/bin/helpers/check-requirements.sh
[2025-06-04 22:14:58.439] Running compatibility check script
[2025-06-04 22:14:58.439] Compatibility check successful (0)
[2025-06-04 22:14:58.439] WSL-shell-PID: 19105
[2025-06-04 22:14:58.439] Node executable: /home/thomas/.vscode-server/bin/258e40fedc6cb8edf399a463ce3a9d32e7e1f6f3/node
[2025-06-04 22:14:58.439] Starting server: /home/thomas/.vscode-server/bin/258e40fedc6cb8edf399a463ce3a9d32e7e1f6f3/bin/code-server --host=127.0.0.1 --port=0 --connection-token=21011971-1486860957-1967340742-364088638 --use-host-proxy --without-browser-env-var --disable-websocket-compression --accept-server-license-terms --disable-telemetry --telemetry-level=off
[2025-06-04 22:14:58.439] *
[2025-06-04 22:14:58.439] * Visual Studio Code Server
[2025-06-04 22:14:58.439] *
[2025-06-04 22:14:58.439] * By using the software, you agree to
[2025-06-04 22:14:58.439] * the Visual Studio Code Server License Terms (https://aka.ms/vscode-server-license) and
[2025-06-04 22:14:58.439] * the Microsoft Privacy Statement (https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-US/privacystatement).
[2025-06-04 22:14:58.439] *
[2025-06-04 22:14:58.439] Server bound to 127.0.0.1:36489 (IPv4)
[2025-06-04 22:14:58.439] Extension host agent listening on 36489
[2025-06-04 22:14:58.439] 
[2025-06-04 22:14:58.451] Started local proxy server on 59582.
[2025-06-04 22:14:58.452] WSL resolver response: 127.0.0.1:59582

From the timestamp, we can see that it took a lot less time to achieve the update.

After some more digging, I found that if I try to manually download the server file (at https://cursor.blob.core.windows.net/remote-releases/53b99ce608cba35127ae3a050c1738a959750860/vscode-reh-linux-x64.tar.gz), it’s extremely slow, around 150 kb/s on a 1Gpbs connection, and would take 7 minutes to download, which checks about with the time needed to do the update.

17

Hi @Thomas-3454, it looks like the download within the WSL environment is much slower (which is what our extension attempted) than the downloads outside of it (which is what the VSCode extension did). Do you have a proxy or different networking configuration inside WSL? The server package is same.