Source control and extensions is not opening. It doesn’t show any output
Steps to Reproduce
In the left vertical sidebar, click the Source Control icon. Sometimes it doesn’t show any repo here, even though the workspace has a repo. Similarly, when we click the Extensions icon, nothing loads, and if we search for an extension, nothing happens
Expected Behavior
On click of the source control icon, the repos should be shown. When we click on extensions, we should be able to see all the extensions and find the one we are looking for
Hey, thanks for the report. The symptoms look familiar. This is an Extension Host issue that fails to initialize on some Windows machines. When it doesn’t start, anything that depends on extensions breaks right away. Source Control, Extensions, sometimes the AI agent and the terminal. It’s on our side and we’re tracking it, but I can’t share an ETA yet.
A few things you can try for now:
Restart the Extension Host: open the Command Palette with Ctrl+Shift+P then run Developer: Restart Extension Host. If the panels work after the restart, it’s very likely this exact bug.
Clear workspace storage for the project, this helped some users with the same symptoms, but make a backup first. Close Cursor, delete the matching workspace folder in %APPDATA% \Cursor\User\workspaceStorage\, then open the project again.
Check AV or EDR. On Windows, a common cause is antivirus blocking cursor-socket or the Extension Host binary. If you can, add the Cursor install folder to exclusions and see if it happens again.
If that doesn’t help, please send:
The output of Developer: Show Running Extensions via Ctrl+Shift+P, it shows which extensions are stuck in Activating
Extension Host logs: Ctrl+Shift+P then Developer: Open Extension Host Log
That’ll give the team more data to connect it to the main ticket. Let me know how it goes.
Hi I have this same issue and tried the above resolutions and it didn’t fix the issue. I’m on Mac OS. I tried to run the Developer: Show Running Extensionsand there was also no output. I also don’t have the command to open extension host logs. How can I resolve this issue? It has made cursor in this folder unusable for me
Hey @dschneck, on Mac the paths and commands are different. If Developer: Show Running Extensions shows nothing, that’s a strong sign the Extension Host didn’t start at all, so it’s expected you won’t see logs via the Command Palette.
A few things to narrow it down:
Open the Output panel: View > Output, then in the top-right dropdown pick Extension Host (if there’s no channel, that likely means EH really didn’t start). You can also check Window and Log (Main).
Logs on disk: ~/Library/Application Support/Cursor/logs/ open the newest folder and look for exthost.log and main.log. If you see a crash stack trace or a timeout, paste the first ~50 lines here.
Open Help > Toggle Developer Tools then the Console tab, and check for red errors when the window starts.
Reset workspace storage for this project (after a backup): close Cursor, delete the matching folder in ~/Library/Application Support/Cursor/User/workspaceStorage/, then reopen the project.
Check if Source Control or Extensions works in a fresh window with a different project: File > New Window, open an empty folder. If it works there, the issue is likely in this workspace state.
Also, could you share:
Exact Cursor version Cursor > About Cursor
Mac type: Intel or Apple Silicon (M1 to M4)?
Do you have any .ipynb Jupyter files in the workspace, and did you open them before this started? I’ve seen a similar case where the extension host hung after reload with a notebook open. The workaround was to close the .ipynb and run Developer: Reload Window.
With that info, I can link your case to the right ticket. We’re tracking this on our side, but I can’t give an ETA yet.