Lost all cursor settings and chat history for all projects I am working on :-(

Support Bug Reports
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1

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

After normal closing and then starting Cursor I lost all my cursor settings and chat history. I can see the list of history chats but I am not able to open any of them.

Steps to Reproduce

I believe the bug is sporadic but I have just made 2 simple steps:

  1. close Cursor
  2. open Cursor

During starting Cursor asked me to sign in (which was strange).
Then it asked if I wanted to transfer my Visual Studio Code extensions - I got a feeling something is wrong but I answered No.
When it started it displayed a different layout as I am used to use with agent on the right.
I can see my history chats but I am not able to open and read any of them.
I am working on multiple projects and if I open any of them the history and all settings are broken - everything is gone.

Expected Behavior

As a used who pays subscription I would expect that such basic functionality works.

Operating System

Windows 10/11

Version Information

Version: 2.4.28 (user setup)
VSCode Version: 1.105.1
Commit: f3f5cec40024283013878b50c4f9be4002e0b580
Date: 2026-02-03T00:56:18.293Z
Build Type: Stable
Release Track: Default
Electron: 39.2.7
Chromium: 142.0.7444.235
Node.js: 22.21.1
V8: 14.2.231.21-electron.0
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.26100

Additional Information

I am really getting frustrated. There is that bug which arbitrarily changes encodings of source files so I must be extra careful whenever I commit changes ( Cursor changes encoding of source code file - #3 by deanrie )
Now, at the middle of a complex tasks I lost my history data which I really need to complete my tasks …
It is getting more and more frustrating to work with Cursor if I cannot rely basic things are working.

I can see the chat history files are still available in user/.cursor/projects/…/agent-transcripts but Cursor does not display them. Would be really helpful to know if I can recover it somehow.

There is state.vscdb.corrupted.1770392333351 present in Cursor/User/GlobalStorage.

Does this stop you from using Cursor

Yes - Cursor is unusable

1 Like
Chats STILL getting lost! Recurring issue!
3

Hey, thanks for the report. This is a known issue. When Cursor forces a re-login, your settings and chat history can get corrupted. Sadly, when this happens, the lost data usually can’t be recovered.

If you have backups (for example from Windows File History or manual backups), you can try restoring these folders:

  • %APPDATA%\Cursor\User\globalStorage\state.vscdb
  • %APPDATA%\Cursor\User\workspaceStorage

How to restore: fully close Cursor (check Task Manager), then replace the current files with the versions from your backup.

A couple questions to understand what triggered it:

  1. How much free disk space do you have? Running low on space during an update is a common cause.
  2. Did this happen right after a Cursor update?

For the future, I’d recommend:

  • Export important chats from time to time (via the chat menu)
  • Back up the folders above
  • Keep enough free disk space before updating

The team is aware of this issue. Let me know if you were able to restore from a backup.

4

Hi Dean, I have more than enough disk-space. There was no special event like update - it just happened.

For those who face the same issue, finally I was able to recover my chats by following: Tutorial: How to Fix "Loading Chat" and Recover History (Cursor v2.3.x)

1 Like
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