Selecting any .md (Markdown) file causes Cursor IDE to freeze completely

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1

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

Selecting any .md (Markdown) file causes Cursor IDE to freeze completely. After a short delay, a popup appears asking to restart the IDE. If I restart without reloading editors, the IDE works again until I click a Markdown file again.

Steps to Reproduce

Open Cursor IDE with any workspace/repo.
In the file explorer, click any Markdown file (*.md).
IDE freezes.
A restart popup appears.
Restart Cursor (without reloading editors).
Repeat by clicking another Markdown file; freeze happens again.

Expected Behavior

Markdown files should open normally without freezing or requiring a restart.

Operating System

MacOS

Version Information

Version: 2.5.5
VSCode Version: 1.105.1
Commit: a0318af356ff045cd38e36bb009cdcfced6a0110
Date: 2026-02-11T13:35:24.132Z
Build Type: Stable
Release Track: Nightly
Electron: 39.3.0
Chromium: 142.0.7444.265
Node.js: 22.21.1
V8: 14.2.231.22-electron.0
OS: Darwin arm64 24.6.0

Does this stop you from using Cursor

Sometimes - I can sometimes use Cursor

3

On my end it does not crash, but when I want to see preview of the MD file, it takes like 5 seconds and when i switch tabs, it has to load again. extremely annoying

4

Hey, thanks for the report. This looks like a known issue where the breadcrumbs bar gets stuck in an infinite loop while parsing Markdown headings.

Try this:

  1. Settings CMD + , > search for “breadcrumbs” > turn off Breadcrumbs: Enabled
  2. Try opening the .md file again

This helped other users with the same symptom, more details here: Cursor crashes when I try to open the plan file - #7 by Marek_Fraczyk

If the issue still happens after disabling breadcrumbs, also check:

  • Run cursor --disable-extensions from Terminal and open the same file. If it works fine without extensions, one of them is causing the freeze.
  • Crash logs: CMD + Shift + P > “Developer: Open Log File” and paste what you see right before the freeze.

Let me know how it goes.

5

Yep, worked, thanks!

6

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