Remote MCP server "Connect" button produces zero network requests (OAuth flow never starts)

Support Bug Reports
1

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

Clicking the “Connect” button for remote URL-based MCP servers that require OAuth authentication does nothing — no browser window opens, no network requests are made, and no error appears.

Steps to Reproduce

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Add a remote MCP server to ~/.cursor/mcp.json:
    “wiz”: {
    “url”: “https://mcp.app.wiz.io”
    }

Expected Behavior

Per the Cursor changelog (Jan 16, 2026): “One-click MCP authentication — Connect Cursor to external tools and data sources with a new login flow supporting automatic callback handling.”
Clicking “Connect” should initiate the RFC 9728 OAuth discovery flow and open a browser for authentication.

Operating System

MacOS

Version Information

Version: 2.4.28
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: Darwin arm64 25.2.0

Additional Information

Debugging Done
Network tab (DevTools): Zero requests appear when clicking “Connect”
Console tab (DevTools): No MCP-related errors (only unrelated OTEL exporter error from Datadog extension)
Server connectivity verified: All 4 servers are reachable via curl and return HTTP 401 with proper OAuth discovery metadata (www-authenticate: Bearer resource_metadata=…)
OAuth discovery chain verified: All servers have valid .well-known/oauth-protected-resource and .well-known/oauth-authorization-server endpoints with registration, authorization, and token endpoints
Default browser: Safari, Chrome, and Firefox all available. Arc is my default browser, I tried changing to others
Config validated: mcp.json is valid JSON with no duplicates
Renderer Log Errors (at startup)
[Extension Host] Encountered UnhandledRejection: McpError: MCP error -32000: Connection closedAn unknown error occurred. Please consult the log for more details. {“code”:-32000,“name”:“McpError”}
These repeat 3 times at startup, likely from the remote servers auto-connecting and being rejected (expected since OAuth hasn’t completed).

Does this stop you from using Cursor

No - Cursor works, but with this issue

1 Like
3

Hey, thanks for the report. This is a known issue, there’s already a duplicate here: MCP Servers with auth do not open browser anymore

Two workarounds fix it for now:

  1. Click the “Needs authentication” text under the MCP server name (not the “Connect” button).
  2. Or copy the auth URL from Output > MCP:[server name] and open it manually in your browser.

The team is aware of this bug, and your report helps with prioritization.