Remote SSH - Error resolving SSH authority: EISDIR

Bug Reports
1

Describe the Bug

Hello and thanks for the help!

My VS Code can easily remote ssh into linux VMs from a windows machine with WSL. I am using the extension “Remote - SSH” from the Cursor marketplace.

However, Cursor has problems. Specifically:

2025-06-25 11:37:16.234 [info] Resolving ssh remote authority ‘mymachine’ (Unparsed ‘ssh-remote+7b22686f73744e616d65223a226366672d636c312d636c61726b32227d’) (attempt #1)
2025-06-25 11:37:16.235 [error] Error resolving SSH authority A system error occurred (EISDIR: illegal operation on a directory, read)

Any idea anyone?

Steps to Reproduce

Use the extension “Remote - SSH” from the Cursor marketplace.

Open the comand “Remote SSH - Connect to host”. Type the user@host and look at the console.

Operating System

Windows 10/11
Linux

Current Cursor Version (Menu → About Cursor → Copy)

Version 1.1.6
VSCode Version: 1.96.2
Node.js 20.19.0

Does this stop you from using Cursor

Yes - Cursor is unusable

3

Hi @paolo.forni91, could you share the complete logs from the “Remote - SSH” output window? Thanks!

4

Thank you for looking into this, @ravirahman

2025-06-26 12:57:31.313 [error] [LocalProcess0][resolveAuthority(ssh-remote,1)][295493ms] returned an error {“code”:“NotAvailable”,“message”:“EISDIR: illegal operation on a directory, read”,“detail”:true}
2025-06-26 12:57:31.313 [error] resolveAuthority(ssh-remote) returned an error after 295493 ms EISDIR: illegal operation on a directory, read
2025-06-26 12:57:31.313 [error] Error received from starting extension host (kind: Remote)
2025-06-26 12:57:31.313 [error] CodeExpectedError: EISDIR: illegal operation on a directory, read
at MUs.ub (vscode-file://vscode-app/c:/Users/paolo.forni/AppData/Local/Programs/cursor/resources/app/out/vs/workbench/workbench.desktop.main.js:6707:53321)
at async MUs.tb (vscode-file://vscode-app/c:/Users/paolo.forni/AppData/Local/Programs/cursor/resources/app/out/vs/workbench/workbench.desktop.main.js:6707:52687)
at async MUs.gc (vscode-file://vscode-app/c:/Users/paolo.forni/AppData/Local/Programs/cursor/resources/app/out/vs/workbench/workbench.desktop.main.js:6713:3640)
at async vscode-file://vscode-app/c:/Users/paolo.forni/AppData/Local/Programs/cursor/resources/app/out/vs/workbench/workbench.desktop.main.js:47:94153
2025-06-26 12:57:31.313 [error] [remote-connection][attempt 1] An error occurred in initial connection! Will retry… Error:

2025-06-26 12:51:36.015 [info] Resolving ssh remote authority ‘nca@cfg-lon-nca11’ (Unparsed ‘ssh-remote+7b22686f73744e616d65223a226e6361406366672d6c6f6e2d6e63613131227d’) (attempt #1)

2025-06-26 12:51:36.034 [error] Error resolving SSH authority A system error occurred (EISDIR: illegal operation on a directory, read)

2025-06-26 12:51:48.568 [info] Resolving ssh remote authority ‘nca@cfg-lon-nca11’ (Unparsed ‘ssh-remote+7b22686f73744e616d65223a226e6361406366672d6c6f6e2d6e63613131227d’) (attempt #1)

2025-06-26 12:51:48.570 [error] Error resolving SSH authority A system error occurred (EISDIR: illegal operation on a directory, read)

2025-06-26 12:53:01.969 [info] Resolving ssh remote authority ‘nca@cfg-lon-nca11’ (Unparsed ‘ssh-remote+7b22686f73744e616d65223a226e6361406366672d6c6f6e2d6e63613131227d’) (attempt #1)

2025-06-26 12:53:01.972 [error] Error resolving SSH authority A system error occurred (EISDIR: illegal operation on a directory, read)

6

Hi @paolo.forni91 , thanks – it looks like the remote server might be corrupted:

2025-06-26 12:57:31.313 [error] Error received from starting extension host (kind: Remote)

Could you try the command “Remote SSH: Reinstall Server and Reload Window” from the command palette? If that doesn’t work, could you try manually removing the ~/.cursor and ~/.cursor-server folders on your remote machine?

7

Hi ravirahm, unfortunately none of these suggestions works… Any workaround? This is quite serious.

9

Hi @paolo.forni91, taking a closer looks at the logs, it seems like this might be client side. Could you double check that ~/.ssh/config is a file (or doesn’t exist)? I was able to reproduce this error by making that path a folder.

If that isn’t it, could you try removing ~/.cursor/extensions/anysphere.remote-ssh-* and then reinstall the remote SSH extension? It’s possible that the extension installation is corrupted, which could also cause this error.

10

Removing cursor not on the client but on the server worked! Thank you!