No window borders on fedora44 + gnome + wayland

Support Bug Reports
,
1

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

No window borders after a recent update from 2.6.something (forgot to record) to 3.6.

Googled for vscode recommendations:

  • “window.titleBarStyle”: “native” used to work, not anymore.
  • “window.activeBorder”: “#ff0000” and going back and forth native<->custom, nothing helps.
  • running as “cursor --ozone-platform=wayland --enable-features=UseOzonePlatform,WaylandWindowDecorations” does not help but it does with “code” so the cursor is making something on top.
  • I managed to change the css in a running copy of the cursor as:
    “.monaco-workbench”: “border: 2px solid #ff0000 !important; box-sizing: border-box !important;”,
    “.titlebar”: “margin-left: 2px !important; margin-right: 2px !important; margin-top: 2px !important; width: calc(100% - 4px) !important;”
    but it does not survice the restart of the cursor
  • tried adding the above to the Apc Customize UI+ but the extension does not work with the Cursor (even though I chmod’ed all permissions it wanted).

VScode does not have this problem. I run out of idea, what else to try? thanks!

Linux, fedora 44, gnome 50.1, wayland.

Steps to Reproduce

Just run the modern cursor in modern gnome.

Expected Behavior

All windows have window borders - firefox, chrome 148, thunderbird, vscode, etc etc etc, except the cursor.

Operating System

Linux

Version Information

3.6.31
Vscode 1.105.1.

Does this stop you from using Cursor

No - Cursor works, but with this issue

5

Hey, thanks for the detailed report. Everything you shared lines up.

This is a known issue on Linux. After recent changes to how we render the window, it becomes frameless. Because of that, GNOME on Wayland can’t draw the window border and shadow. That’s why window.titleBarStyle: native and the WaylandWindowDecorations flag don’t help here. They work in VS Code because VS Code uses a framed window. Your observations match what we’re seeing.

We’ve already filed and are tracking the bug internally. I can’t share a fix timeline yet, unfortunately. There isn’t a reliable workaround that survives a restart right now either. The CSS tweaks get reset, like you noticed.

When we have an update on the fix, I’ll post it here. Also, it’s good to hear Cursor is still usable, thanks for calling that out.

8

Hey @aik, thanks for your patience and sorry for the long silence. Your analysis is correct: on Linux the window is currently frameless, so GNOME doesn’t draw a border or shadow, and Wayland flags don’t help here.

There’s a possible workaround, but I want to be upfront: we haven’t tested it on Fedora + GNOME + Wayland, so it’s a try-it-and-tell-us-if-it-works thing. Add this to your settings JSON:

"window.controlsStyle": "custom",
"workbench.colorCustomizations": {
  "window.activeBorder": "#666666",
  "window.inactiveBorder": "#444444"
}

Then restart Cursor. The key part is the first setting. With the default window controls, the border colors are ignored, so window.activeBorder by itself won’t do anything.

One important note so expectations are clear: this border is drawn by Cursor itself around the window edges, not by the window manager, so it’s not the same as a native WM frame. It also won’t bring back the window shadow. But the window edges should become clearly visible.

If it doesn’t work, let me know.

9

It does work though with fedora44 and whatever gnome comes with it, thanks!

and I genuinely hate shadows so I am good :slight_smile: