Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?
Cursor IDE
Describe the Bug
Hey everyone,
Like many of you, I’ve been suffering from the infamous Cursor Remote-SSH terminal lag for weeks:
Type a command → terminal freezes for 3–10 seconds → suddenly everything appears at once
Gets worse over time (eventually freezes every ~30 seconds)
Same server, same SSH config → VS Code is perfectly smooth, only Cursor turns into a slideshow
Tried everything: reinstall server, delete .cursor-server, restart SSH host, etc. → no help
After tons of testing, I finally found the real fix:
Downgrade the Remote-SSH extension to version 1.0.17
How to do it (works on macOS/Windows/Linux):
Open your remote window in Cursor
Go to Extensions (Ctrl+Shift+X) → filter with @installed remote - ssh
Click the tiny dropdown arrow on Remote-SSH → “Install Another Version…”
Select 1.0.17 (released around Jun 2025) and install
Strongly recommended: disable auto-update for this extension
→ Right-click Remote-SSH → Extension Settings → set “Extensions: Auto Update” to Disabled
Reconnect to the remote host
Result:
Instant, buttery-smooth terminal again. ls, vim, git, top — everything responds in real time, exactly like native VS Code. No more random freezes.
Verification:
Upgraded back to the latest Remote-SSH (1.0.3x series) → lag came back within 5 minutes. 100% confirmed it’s a regression in the newer Remote-SSH versions when running inside Cursor.
It looks like some recent changes in the official Remote-SSH extension (probably performance-related or new features) conflict with Cursor’s own process/resource management or AI background tasks. Pure VS Code doesn’t have this problem because it lacks Cursor’s extra overhead.
Hope this saves someone else’s sanity!
@Cursor Team – please consider keeping a “stable Remote-SSH channel” around the 1.0.17 era, or fix the compatibility in newer releases. A lot of us doing full-time remote development are one bad lag spike away from switching back to VS Code permanently
My setup: macOS 15 + Cursor 2.1.50 → Debian 12 remote
Before downgrade: unreadable lag
After downgrade: perfect again
Steps to Reproduce
Upgraded back to the latest Remote-SSH (1.0.3x series) → lag came back within 5 minutes. 100% confirmed it’s a regression in the newer Remote-SSH versions when running inside Cursor.
Operating System
MacOS
Current Cursor Version (Menu → About Cursor → Copy)
Version: 2.1.50
VSCode Version: 1.105.1
Commit: 56f0a83df8e9eb48585fcc4858a9440db4cc7770
Date: 2025-12-06T23:39:52.834Z
Electron: 37.7.0
Chromium: 138.0.7204.251
Node.js: 22.20.0
V8: 13.8.258.32-electron.0
OS: Darwin arm64 24.6.0
Does this stop you from using Cursor
No - Cursor works, but with this issue