When opening the cursor chat, I see a blank space.
Steps to Reproduce
I believe that this happened because I previously used claude code extension in sidebar. And then there is a claude chat that is not closing, because I logged out of claude. so, this cursort chat is a ghost pane which cannot get associated to anything and shows up as a blank pane.
Hey, thanks for the report and the screenshots. I can see both, with the black area on the right and at the bottom.
It looks like this isn’t quite what it seems. The black area on the right isn’t the Claude Code chat itself. Your Claude session is open as a normal editor tab in the center Product navbar. The black zone is an empty layout panel that Cursor restored from the project’s saved state, so it has no content and no close button of its own.
Try these in order and tell me at which step the black area disappears:
Open the Command Palette with Ctrl+Shift+P and run Toggle Agents Side Bar. If it doesn’t show up by name, search for toggleUnifiedSidebar. If the black area disappears, run the command again and see if it comes back empty.
If it’s still there, click once inside the black area and run View: Close Editor Group. Default is Ctrl+F4.
If that didn’t help, run View: Reset View Locations from the Command Palette, then run Developer: Reload Window.
If it survives all three steps, run Developer: Toggle Developer Tools, open the Console tab, and send any red or yellow lines that include sidebar, layout, or Index out of bounds. Also let me know if this happens in all projects or only this one.
Quick note on shortcuts. The binding for Toggle Agents Side Bar differs by platform, so it’s more reliable to run commands from the Command Palette by name. You can always check the current shortcut on your machine in Keyboard Shortcuts with Ctrl+K Ctrl+S by searching for toggleUnifiedSidebar.
That did not work. In fact, none of the steps you provided worked. I uninstalled and installed curor again. I updated cursor using the in-app popup and the black part is still there. I am attaching two images - you can clearly see that there is an empty black part on the right side where there should be an agent panel. It is non clickable and there is nothing inside the panel!
I can resize it by dragging it left or right - but there is no X (close) button. and it does not close when I do Ctrl+F4 (I know this is the correct shortcut because I checked the shortcuts table in cursor)
I also tried the View: Reset View Location - Did not help.
The black panel is right there - ALWAYS
Hey, thanks for coming back with details and new screenshots. I can see both. The black area on the right is where the agent panel should be. There’s no X, and it doesn’t respond to Ctrl+F4.
One important thing: reinstalling and updating won’t help here, because panel layout is stored not in the Cursor install itself, but in the state of a specific workspace file state.vscdb. Reinstall doesn’t touch it, so the black area comes back. It looks like the state for the trusthq-in-website project is corrupted.
Let’s confirm first, then clean it up.
Isolation check: open a new window with Ctrl+Shift+N and open a completely new empty folder there. Does the black area appear in that empty folder, or only in trusthq-in-website? This is the key question.
If the empty folder is clean, then it’s the saved state for that project. Let’s reset it:
Fully close Cursor.
Open %APPDATA%\Cursor\User\workspaceStorage\ in File Explorer.
Inside you’ll see one folder per workspace. Find the one for trusthq-in-website you can open workspace.json inside and verify the path.
Move that folder somewhere else as a backup, don’t delete it yet, then open the project again in Cursor.
This resets the saved layout only for that project. It won’t affect chat history or your files.
If that still doesn’t help, open Developer: Toggle Developer Tools from the Command Palette, go to the Console tab, and send any red or yellow lines that include sidebar, layout, or Index out of bounds.
Let me know what you see in step 1, whether it happens in an empty folder. That decides the next step.
Yup. The empty panel does not show up when I open a new window using Ctrl+Shift+N
I found the workspace folder which contains the “trusthq-in-website” as the path.
I moved the folder from the workspaceStorage directory.
I reopened the trusthq-in-website in again in cursor - this time, the ghost pane showed up 6 seconds later as opposed to staying there permanently.
There was a brief period (maybe 2-3 seconds) when there was no ghost pane. And then it popped up on its own again.
Great diagnostics, thanks. This really narrows it down.
Bottom line: the panel isn’t tied to the project itself (it doesn’t show up in an empty folder via Ctrl+Shift+N), but resetting saved state doesn’t remove it either. It comes back on its own a few seconds after load, and it does that in two projects right away (trusthq-in-website and prismax-backend). That means something is recreating it on startup, not just a stuck UI state.
Both projects where it appears previously used Claude Code (and I still see EasyCode AI in the terminal). Looks like one of the extensions is re-registering the panel on activation. Let’s confirm that. We need two things:
Start Cursor with extensions disabled
Fully close Cursor, then run this from your terminal:
cursor --disable-extensions
Open trusthq-in-website. Does the black panel appear? If it doesn’t, turn extensions back on and then disable Claude Code and EasyCode AI one by one in Extensions > Disable, reload the window, and tell me which one makes the panel stop appearing.
Console logs when it appears
Open Developer: Toggle Developer Tools from the Command Palette, then go to the Console tab. Load the project and watch those ~6 seconds when the panel pops in. Please paste any red or yellow lines that include sidebar, layout, or Index out of bounds.
This is a known issue we’re tracking. Your details will help a lot, and the result from step 1 is the key one. Let me know what you find.
Any Extension makes 0 difference! When I start with disabled extensions or disabled claude chat - it made no difference and the ghost pane popped up after a few seconds. I am attaching the entire screen recording here.
When I toggle the developer console: Whatever I saw in red or yellow- I am pasting as a .txt file here
I also have an important question. Am I talking to a human? or an AI support agent?
Hey, sorry for the delay in replying, and yes, you’re hearing from a real person on the Cursor team.
Thanks for the recordings and logs, they helped a lot. We figured it out. The black area on the right is the Agents side bar. It opens, but it doesn’t render any content. That’s why there’s no close button, why Ctrl+F4 and Reset View Locations don’t affect it, and why it comes back after a couple seconds even with extensions disabled and with a fresh workspace folder.
This one’s on me. The command I mentioned earlier doesn’t show up in the Command Palette, so that first step wasn’t actually being done. It only works from the keyboard:
Open trusthq-in-website and wait until the black area appears.
Click once inside the code editor so the main window has focus.
Press Ctrl+Alt+U.
Fully close Cursor, open the project again, wait about 10 seconds, and check that the area didn’t come back.
Repeat the same steps in prismax-backend.
If Ctrl+Alt+U does nothing, open Keyboard Shortcuts with Ctrl+K then Ctrl+S, search for Toggle Agents Side Bar, check what key it’s assigned to or set your own, then try again.
Let me know if the black area disappears, and if it stays hidden after a restart. This is a known issue on Windows that we’re tracking, and I’ve added your report to it.
Good question, and your test actually explains it.
That black area is the Agents Side Bar in Cursor. Ctrl+Alt+U toggles it show and hide, so:
press once, the panel hides and the black area disappears
press again, the panel shows up again but the content doesn’t render, so you get an empty black block
The fact that it also appears in a brand new repo when you press Ctrl+Alt+U is expected. The command just enables that panel for the current project. So the issue isn’t a specific project or leftover Claude Code data, it’s that the panel is rendering blank on your setup.
How to remove it for good:
Open the project and wait until the black area shows up.
Click once in the code editor so focus is in the main window.
Press Ctrl+Alt+U once, the black area should disappear. Don’t press it again, or you’ll turn the empty panel back on.
Fully close Cursor, reopen the project, and wait about 10 seconds.
The hidden setting is saved per project, so repeat the steps in any other projects where it shows up.
Can you confirm if the black area stays hidden after restarting Cursor? That’s the key detail. This is a known issue on Windows we’re tracking, and I’ve added your report to it.
