Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?
Cursor IDE
Describe the Bug
After Cursor blocked the Microsoft Dev Containers extension, I’m experiencing consistent failures when trying to create and run dev containers on remote servers accessed via SSH. The Microsoft extension worked flawlessly in this setup, but the Anysphere replacement completely fails during the Cursor Server installation phase.
The error I encounter is the following:
2025-08-20 12:01:52.999 [info] Server install command exit code: 1
2025-08-20 12:01:52.999 [error] Failed to install remote server in container: Error: Couldn’t install Cursor Server, install script returned non-zero exit status
2025-08-20 12:01:53.002 [error] Error resolving dev container authority Couldn’t install Cursor Server, install script returned non-zero exit status
Steps to Reproduce
-
Extension: @id:anysphere.remote-containers (1.0.22)
-
Extension: @id:anysphere.remote-ssh (1.0.25)
The .devcontainer.json file is the following:
{
“name”: “my-docker”,
“build”: {
“dockerfile”: “../Dockerfile”
},
“workspaceFolder”: “/workspace”,
“postCreateCommand”: “pip install --upgrade pip”,
“customizations”: {
“vscode”: {
“extensions”: [
“ms-python.python”,
“ms-toolsai.jupyter”
],
“settings”: {
“terminal.integrated.defaultProfile.linux”: “bash”
}
}
},
“mounts”: [
“source=${localWorkspaceFolder},target=/workspace,type=bind”
],
“runArgs”: [
“–gpus”, “all”,
“–pid=host”
]
}
Dockerfile: TensorFlow 2.10.0-gpu base image with Python dependencies
What I’ve Tried:
Uninstalled Microsoft Dev Containers extension (was forced to)
Installed @id:anysphere.remote-containers extension
Cleared ~/.cursor/extensions directory
Rebuilt container multiple times
Verified Docker image builds successfully outside of Cursor
Tested with simplified devcontainer.json configurations
Tried different base images (Ubuntu, Python official)
The issue appears to be that the Anysphere extension cannot properly install the Cursor Server inside containers running on remote SSH-connected servers. This is a critical regression because:
-
The Microsoft extension handled this SSH → Container chain flawlessly
-
The same setup works perfectly with VS Code + Microsoft Dev Containers extension
-
The failure occurs specifically during the Cursor Server installation phase
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION TO REPRODUCE:
Dockerfile:
FROM tensorflow/tensorflow:2.10.0-gpu
ARG USERNAME=ubuntu
ARG USER_UID=1000
ARG USER_GID=$USER_UID
RUN apt-get update
&& apt-get install -y sudo
&& groupadd --gid $USER_GID $USERNAME
&& useradd --uid $USER_UID --gid $USER_GID -m $USERNAME
&& echo $USERNAME ALL=(root) NOPASSWD:ALL > /etc/sudoers.d/$USERNAME
&& chmod 0440 /etc/sudoers.d/$USERNAME
COPY requirements.txt /tmp/requirements.txt
WORKDIR /workspace
RUN pip install --upgrade pip
RUN pip install --no-cache-dir -r /tmp/requirements.txt
RUN pip install jupyterlab ipykernel
ENV TZ=UTC
RUN echo ‘export PS1="\u@\h ($(date +%H:%M)):\w$ "’ >> /home/$USERNAME/.bashrc
RUN chown -R $USERNAME:$USERNAME /workspace
USER $USERNAME
CMD [“/bin/bash”]
requirements.txt:
setuptools
wheel
packaging
Cython==0.29.36
scikit-surprise==1.1.3 --only-binary=all
typing_extensions
scikit-learn
pandas
pyyaml
tqdm
retrying
nltk
tensorflow[and-cuda]==2.10.0
matplotlib
seaborn
Operating System
Linux
Current Cursor Version (Menu → About Cursor → Copy)
Version: 1.4.2
VSCode Version: 1.99.3
Commit: d01860bc5f5a36b62f8a77cd42578126270db340
Date: 2025-08-07T17:16:23.005Z
Electron: 34.5.1
Chromium: 132.0.6834.210
Node.js: 20.19.0
V8: 13.2.152.41-electron.0
OS: Linux x64 6.8.0-52-generic
Does this stop you from using Cursor
Sometimes - I can sometimes use Cursor
