Cursor repeatedly shows the error “Extension host terminated unexpectedly 3 times within the last 5 minutes.” The extension host keeps restarting even when no workspace is opened and no user extensions are installed.
From Developer Tools → Console, I consistently see errors indicating that an internal Cursor module is missing:
This suggests that the internal Cursor AI retrieval service fails to start because the cursor-socket module cannot be found, which causes the extension host to crash repeatedly.
Steps to Reproduce
Install Cursor on Windows 11
Launch Cursor normally
After startup, a notification appears saying:
“Extension host terminated unexpectedly 3 times within the last 5 minutes.”
Hey, thanks for the detailed report. The Cannot find module cursor-socket error usually means the install is corrupted or incomplete, so the core internal extensions are missing files they need to run.
Launch Cursor and check if the extension host stays stable
A couple more things to check:
Is your antivirus (Windows Defender or a third party tool) quarantining files in the Cursor install folder? Some AV tools flag new or unknown binaries. Check your quarantine log.
Was this a fresh install of 2.6.12, or an update from an older version?
I already tried a clean reinstall, but the issue still persists. I fully closed Cursor, uninstalled it, deleted C:\Users\<my-user>\AppData\Local\Programs\cursor\ and %APPDATA%\Cursor\, then installed the latest version again.
I also disabled Windows Defender and confirmed there are no third-party antivirus tools or quarantined files.
This was a fresh install of version 2.6.12, not an update.
Unfortunately, the “Extension host terminated unexpectedly” error and the Cannot find module cursor-socket error still appear.
This issue suddenly happend today morning, it used to work well till yesterday
I have the same problem. Cursor is showing me “The extension host terminated unexpectedly” and nothing works because of it. In my opinion, Cursor is one of the worst tools…. I honestly don’t understand what kind of people develop something like this… My subscription is about to expire and I’m cancelling — this tool would be too expensive even if it were free.
This specific Cannot find module cursor-socket issue was fixed in version 2.6.18. You’re on 2.6.12, so please download the latest version from https://cursor.com/download and check if the error is gone.
If the extension host still crashes after updating, try this:
Cursor Settings (not VS Code settings) > Indexing & Docs > turn off Codebase Indexing and Index Repositories for Instant Grep (BETA)