Cursor randmonly stops auto-saving the file edits. It happens in about 10-15% of all sessions. It may happen immediately when starting the session or it may change part of the way through. This causes havoc in any kind of high-volume workflow. It’s far more disruptive that you might think at first, since it also causes completey uncertainty as to actual file states.
Second, perhaps related, and much worse - Curosr routinely autonomously opens large number of my files on launch and treats them all as unsaved. 50% of the time it doesn’t do it at all. Then I can simply close Cursor without having done anyhting at all, not even open any files, relaunch and there are be 5-15 files, all open, and all showing as unsaved even though they are current on disk. I can re-save them a hundred times and it won’t go away. Then for no reasons it stops. Then a whole different set of files shows up. This is beyond disruptive. It’s absolutely ridiculous. It’s been this way the entire time I’ve used Cursor. I thas no relation even to to which files I’ve recently been working on. Has nothing to with write-only restrictions, etc. It’s totally random and without any reason.
If I ask it why are you not saving to disk it says - “The changes are in the editor buffer but not saved to disk. Re-applying the same edit to force a save:” And then it is uynsuccessful 100% of the time and nothing changes.
I don’t care about or even want new features. I want the fundamentals of the software to perform correctly without disruptive bugs. Together these two make the experience of working with Cursor extremely unpleasant. I cannot just simply do my work.
Steps to Reproduce
It does it very frequently and randomly
Operating System
Windows 10/11
Current Cursor Version (Menu → About Cursor → Copy)
The file isn't read-only. The code is in Cursor's editor buffer (lines 386-391) but not saved to disk.
The issue: search_replace updates Cursor's editor buffer, but Cursor isn't writing to disk.
Exact Cursor version (Help > About, or Cursor Settings > About > Copy Version)
Are you using git worktrees?
Are your project folders synced with OneDrive, Dropbox, or another cloud service?
What antivirus are you using, and is it scanning the project folders in real time?
Does this happen in one specific project, or in all of them?
Also check the auto-save setting: File > Preferences > Settings, search for “Auto Save”. What value is set?
While I’m waiting for the info, try this:
Fully close Cursor
Delete the folder %APPDATA%\Cursor\User\workspaceStorage (this will reset the per-project state of open files) IMPORTANT: this will delete your chat history, so back it up first
Start Cursor again
Let me know how it goes and send your answers to the questions. It’ll help figure out what’s going on.
Hi Dean, thanks for responding. This is absolutely killing me. I can’t get any work done, I’m in a constant state of uncertainty about the state of my files (and my main project is large, more than 700 js files in the one project), and it’s already caused me to take reparative actions on two occasions that wound up destroying a bunch of my files due to wrong choices made due to uncertainty about file states.
I am using the very latest version of Cursor, but this has been happening since the first few days I started with Cursor. Both issue happen consistently about 20% of the time.
No git at all, no cloud interaction, no extensions at all. I update my servers via filezilla. I previously used Cursor in a git environment and all the issues were the same, no change at all.
I only use Windows Defender.
It happens in any project. I can go two-three days with zero issues, and then have a week where it’s non-stop bugs, where it refuses to save anything to disk completely, and where it will open up to 20 files at once on launch, acting as if they are unsaved - exactly like the other poster described - and there is no action I can take that will change it, and then all of a sudden it goes away. Then the next day it might be fine or it might open ten completely different files. It even opens files that I haven’t touched in months and claims they’re all unsaved.
Auto-save. And it does auto-save 80% of the time. The other 20% is catastrophically disruptive though. And no amount of manualy saving will change it. Like I said, Cursor itself says it is not saving the edits to disk, with no explanation why and no way to fix it.
It should go without mentioning but it’s definitely nothing to do with file permissions. I’ve been doing this long enough to know all the obvious things. Plus it will save all the files it refuses to save when the bug stops manifesting for some time, without any changes externally.
But there were reports that it still happens on some setups. Your case is interesting because you have no git and no extensions, which makes debugging easier.
If the issue still happens after clearing workspaceStorage and on the latest version (currently 2.3.30+), let me know and I’ll pass it to the team with details about your environment.
Thanks Dean, I don’t know, the problem that user describes (files open as unsaved on startup) is precisely one of the two issues I have been facing , as recently as an hour ago.
It’s really helpful that you have a clean setup with no Git and no extensions. That makes debugging a lot easier.
Can you check a couple things?
Auto Save setting: Settings > search “Auto Save”. What is it set to? (afterDelay, onFocusChange, off?)
Next time the bug happens, open DevTools (Help > Toggle Developer Tools) and check the Console for errors. A screenshot or the error text would help a lot.
When files refuse to save, what happens with File > Save (Ctrl+S)? Do you see any error, or does nothing happen?
I’ll pass this info to the team. Your case is valuable because there aren’t extra variables like Git or extensions that usually make debugging harder.
I have the same thing; everytime on startup, opens the same 3 files as “unsaved and modified”.
Cursor 2.4.21
ran cusor with disabled extensions. still opens unsaved files.
I am using a git repo with submodules, and here’s the devtools log for one of the files (LocationSearch) .. the other two files that open as “modified and unsaved” don’t appear in the logs.