If I open a new chat window in cursor, prior to 3.10.17, any browser/terminal tabs i have open in other chat windows persist.
Now, they are cleared.
This is incredibly annoying as I have a browser tab pointed at the github project, and another at the app. Having to re-open them manually for each chat window is very annoying, so much so that I am finding I am just using the same continous single chat all day instead.
Also, sometimes, just switching chat windows totally blanks out the area where the browser tabs should show. hiding and showing this area makes them re-appear. screenshot
Steps to Reproduce
create a chat in a project
open browser tabs
create a new chat
same browser tabs do not show
for the second issue,
switch tabs a few times til it happens
Expected Behavior
same browser tabs across multiple chats in the same project as was previously the behaviour
Hey Simon!
Browser/terminal tabs not carrying into a new chat: this is a recent behavior change. Browser tabs are currently tied to the specific chat that opened them, so a new chat starts with an empty browser strip. They aren’t deleted though, they still belong to the original chat, so switching back to that chat brings them right back. We know this is a step back from how it worked before, and we’re tracking the request to make them persist across chats in the same project. In the meantime, for a reference you want visible everywhere (like your GitHub page or your app), keeping it in a separate external browser window is the most reliable option right now.
Browser area going blank when switching chats: this is a separate display glitch, and toggling the panel off and on (which you already found) is the current workaround. We’re aware of it and tracking it too. If you can grab a short screen recording of it happening (Cmd+Shift+5 on macOS), that would really help us pin down a reliable repro.
thanks @mohitjain . Just so I’m clear, is there a plan to restore the functionality of browser tabs persisting across multiple chats?
If I may be so bold as to make a suggestion: being able to pin any window - be it, terminal, browser or diff, is a UI thing everyone is already super familiar with. Pin = persists across multiple chats.
For me, on MacOS, changing to literally any chat window leads to the blank tab area. Literally any change at all. I have then been using the shortcut to hide/show the tab area to make it re-appear. But for me it’s not a complex set of repro steps, it really is as easy as clicking on any chat other than the one I’m in now. The video would really be the same as the screenshot in the original post, but just clicking on the selected chat right before taking the screenshot.
Adding to this — same root issue, different angle: I use the Agents window a lot for when I need to do design work (clicking around, iterating), and my context fills up fast enough that I need fresh chats often. When I want to multitask — running several chats in parallel, each making edits at once — every new chat spins up its own browser tab from scratch. I have to re-navigate to the page, re-auth, rebuild whatever state I had, just to get back to where I was.
What I’d really want is for the browser (and terminal) to behave like a shared, persistent resource across chats in the same project — the same way terminal sessions/files already stay put — rather than being owned by a single chat. @Simon_S’s “pin” idea above captures it well: pin a browser/terminal/diff window so it survives across new chats and chat switches, instead of resetting or disappearing.
Given @mohitjain’s note that this is being tracked as a regression, +1 to fixing the persistence — and I’d suggest the pin model as the long-term fix rather than just restoring the old behavior, since it’d also solve the parallel-multitasking case, not just switching back to one chat.
OS: macOS (Darwin arm64 24.6.0)
Version: Cursor 3.11.13, Build: Stable, Electron 40.10.3
Impact: Often — this is a significant workflow blocker when running multiple chats in parallel.
@Jayden10125 - browser and terminal tabs currently stay with the chat that opened them, so every new chat starts fresh. I understand why it’s painful.
On whether the cross-chat persistence comes back: I can’t share a timeline, but it’s a known request we’re tracking, and the “pin any window” framing (cc: @Simon_S) fits right into it. The +1s and concrete workflows on this thread genuinely help us prioritize, so keep them coming.
@Simon_S - thanks for confirming the blank strip shows up on any chat switch. That’s a useful detail for the display side of this.
In the meantime, for a page you want available in every chat, a separate external browser window is the most reliable option today.
Thanks for letting me know the version number. The experience with the latest version is absolutely terrible; I’m going to manually downgrade, and I won’t trust or upgrade to the latest version again!
