Describe the Bug
Files zeroed + Local History rewritten empty on startup — 3.23.12, macOS, no force-quit
Following @deanrie’s guidance in
“Files are overwritten with zero length at startup”
(Files are overwritten with zero length at startup)
to open a new thread for the separate, still-tracked case: files zeroed and
Local History snapshots rewritten as empty, on a version newer than 3.15.6.
Environment
- Cursor: 3.23.12 (stable), auto-update on
- OS: macOS, Darwin 25.6.0, Apple Silicon (arm64)
- 2 affected workspaces (both multi-package repos):
~/code/NuanxinjiaProjects/nanochap-flutter~/code/architecture-templates
- No enterprise hooks. Only notification-only user hooks in
~/.cursor/hooks.json
(they make an HTTP call to a local port and do not write workspace files).
Answering the 3 questions
-
Right after updating, or a normal cold start?
Both. The update restart v3.22.12 → v3.23.12 at 2026-10-02 21:20 was followed by a
363-file wipe. It then also fired on plain cold starts with no update at all:
2026-10-03 12:51 (406 files) and 2026-10-03 17:09 (209 files).
The update to 3.22.12 at 2026-09-29 10:50 was likewise followed by a 208-file wipe. -
Was there a freeze/hang on startup that forced a force-quit?
No. Zero crash / SIGKILL / force-quit markers in the session logs, and no equivalent
of Task Manager was used. This is unattended destruction during a normal startup.
It therefore looks distinct from the original #166244 scenario, which required
killing the process during the save storm. -
Unresolved agent edits pending when closing?
I cannot prove this directly from logs, but the Local History attribution is strong
indirect evidence: of 5016 empty snapshots, 4575 are tagged
"source": "Undo Create Diff". No agent Write/Delete tool call and no shell
truncate command can be attributed to any of these events.
Evidence 1: Local History is written with empty revisions, sourced “Undo Create Diff”
Scanning ~/Library/Application Support/Cursor/User/History/*/entries.json:
- total Local History entries … 12295
- entries with size <= 1 byte … 5016
- of those,
source = "Undo Create Diff". 4575 (91%) - of those, exactly 0 bytes … 1426
- of those, exactly 1 byte … 3590
Evidence 2: 25 mass-wipe events over 17 days
Same-minute clusters of >= 5 wiped files. The wiped set is ~208-210 files, and the
same files get re-emptied across many startups:
2026-09-17 22:52 6
2026-09-18 10:53 6
2026-09-19 20:59 6
2026-09-19 21:03 6
2026-09-20 10:41 412
2026-09-20 11:00 222
2026-09-21 10:26 222
2026-09-22 10:26 222
2026-09-23 11:47 210
2026-09-23 22:11 210
2026-09-24 10:04 210
2026-09-24 21:58 210
2026-09-24 23:40 210
2026-09-26 15:12 209
2026-09-26 15:29 209
2026-09-29 10:45 210
2026-09-29 10:50 208
2026-09-30 10:56 210
2026-09-30 22:08 210
2026-10-01 02:42 210
2026-10-01 17:11 210
2026-10-02 21:13 210
2026-10-02 21:20 363
2026-10-03 12:51 406
2026-10-03 17:09 209
Version context: these span 3.22.12 and 3.23.12 (updated 2026-09-29 10:50 and
2026-10-02 21:20 respectively). Two of the events sit exactly at update-restart time;
the rest are ordinary cold starts.
Evidence 3: it happens ~1-2s after the window is ready, with no user action
Session logs/20261003T170919, main.log (UTC), affected files mtime (local, +08:00):
main.log:
17:09:19.578 [RendererPing] enabled
17:09:19.585 updateURL ... cursor/3.23.12
17:09:20.250 [LocalAgentStorage] Scanned 2 recent databases ...
17:09:21.121 [Tray] Menu bar visibility: unknown -> visible
filesystem:
104 files -> 2026-10-03 17:09:22
10 files -> 2026-10-03 17:09:23
Same on 2026-10-03 12:51 (logs/20261003T125117): window ready 12:51:19.043,
damaged files mtime 12:51:19.
Measured damage
- 2026-10-03 17:09 (
architecture-templates, main): 107 tracked files damaged
(23 at 0 byte, 84 at 1 byte). No uncommitted work lost — all recoverable from HEAD. - Earlier event (
nanochap-flutter): 87 tracked files emptied; diff was +4 / -59254 lines.
Why this is a problem
git restorefixes files on disk but does NOT clear the pending diff state that
re-triggers the wipe, so the same ~208-file set gets zeroed again on a later launch.- Files not yet committed, and their Local History, are both destroyed; recovery can
depend entirely on Local History still holding a non-empty revision. - Silent, unattended, no confirmation, no undo.
Ask
- Is this the “separate issue” you mentioned, and is there any ETA or tracking ID?
- Is there a setting/flag to disable the startup re-save / undo of pending edits
as a stopgap? - I can provide the full Local History archive and session log dirs on request —
please tell me where to upload.
Steps to Reproduce
when open The Cursor IDE
Operating System
MacOS
Version Information
Version: 3.23.12
VS Code Extension API: 1.128.0
Commit: 2d29876d567da1607532b23bbf2cd5ddbca496f0
Date: 2026-10-01T04:41:16.627Z
Layout: IDE
Build Type: Stable
Release Track: Default
Electron: 42.10.0
Chromium: 148.0.7778.280
Node.js: 24.18.1
V8: 14.8.178.38-electron.0
xterm.js: 6.1.0-beta.291
OS: Darwin arm64 25.6.0
Does this stop you from using Cursor
No - Cursor works, but with this issue