Terminals hanging CONSTANTLY since latest Cursor updates!

Support Bug Reports
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1

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

This is a MAJOR regression in Cursor in the last couple of versions. Terminals started by the agent, and commands executed by the agent, are now constantly hanging. Cursor just updated today, and this problem, which was intermittent over the last week, has now become a nearly-every-command problem.

We have been here before. From spring through fall, we had SEVERE terminal issues that wreaked absolute havoc on Cursor agent usage. I am greatly dismayed, that we appear to have come full circle and ONCE AGAIN, have perpetually stalling terminal issues! This is not ok! This has completely decimated my day here, and I’ve achieved about 1/10th of what I had expected to by this time of the day. I CANNOT have this! You guys need to figure out how to corral your vibe coding, and prevent these kinds of regressions, because its getting ridiculous how often cursor breaks, and the breaks are NEVER FIXED.

PLEASE ADDRESS ASAP!

Steps to Reproduce

Instruct agent to execute commands at terminal (i.e. unit testing.)
Weep when terminals perpetually hang.

Expected Behavior

Terminals NEVER HANG!

Operating System

MacOS

Current Cursor Version (Menu → About Cursor → Copy)

Version: 2.3.41
VSCode Version: 1.105.1
Commit: 2ca326e0d1ce10956aea33d54c0e2d8c13c58a30
Date: 2026-01-16T19:14:00.150Z
Electron: 37.7.0
Chromium: 138.0.7204.251
Node.js: 22.20.0
V8: 13.8.258.32-electron.0
OS: Darwin arm64 25.0.0

Does this stop you from using Cursor

Yes - Cursor is unusable

3 Likes
3

@condor @andrewh @danperks @sanjeed5 @deanrie

I am tagging all of you guys, as this suddenly became a nearly 100% persistent issue with 99.9% of commands failing to execute properly. I suffered from this issue in the past, and it was so severe, I lost a significant amount of productivity and was ready to ditch cursor as a result.

It seems we have regressed back to the point of once again having SEVERE terminal issues. I cannot use cursor like this. I am wholly dependent on the agent when using cursor, and if it cannot run terminal commands, then the agent is useless to me, as 99% of what I use it for involves terminal commands.

Please address this ASAP!

1 Like
4

Looks like I have to do a complete reboot to resolve the issue, which fixes it for a shirt time, before the issue reoccurs.

5

Hi @jrista,

Thanks for reporting this. I get that this can be super frusturating.

Before I dig into the technical side, a quick note on how this community works best: We’re all here to help each other, and the team members who investigate issues like this are already watching the forum. Tagging people directly or using urgent language doesn’t speed things up.

I’d also gently ask that we keep the tone constructive. I understand the frustration when something blocks your work, but the people reading this are the same ones who want to help you—and a collaborative tone goes a long way.

Onto your issue: This looks similar to some other reports (like this one).

Here’s a workaround that’s helped others:

  1. Go to Settings → Cursor Settings → Agents → Legacy Terminal and turn it on
  2. Restart Cursor
  3. Try running commands through the agent again

If that doesn’t resolve it, I’ll need a bit more info to dig deeper:

  • Request ID from the frozen chat (chat menu → Copy Request ID)
  • Console logs: Cmd + Shift + P → Developer: Toggle Developer Tools → Console tab
  • Your shell type (run echo $SHELL in terminal)

Colin

1 Like
6

I ended up switching to Claude Code for as long as I could after this. It is starting to look like I may need to do the same thing today, as I am having even worse issues with the terminal now, as it seems there were changes to how the LEGACY terminal, which is what I use and have used for months now (I tried the sandbox terminal a few times back when it was first introduced, and will likely never use it again…it caused too many problems and I don’t trust it. I also do not use yolo mode at all, never have never will.) So I am already using the legacy terminal, and this is in fact an issue with the legacy terminal.

I have not only restarted cursor, but I’ve rebooted multiple times, as that seems to be what it takes to get past the hanging. The hanging will usually reoccur again. Today, which started on a fresh boot, hasn’t run into the issue, however, I am running into an entirely new slough of issues which I documented in a new bug report.

I’m frazzled, guys. This has stopped me dead. One day the terminal is working fine (with occasional command hangs, but they weren’t frequent enough to prevent me from doing my work), and the next terminals run by the agent are for all intents and purposes ineffective an unusable. My work so heavily relies on the terminal, I am no longer able to do my work. The frustration level here is through the roof.

Actually, I think what I am going to have to do, is revert to an older version of cursor again. I used to do that a lot back when the months-long prior terminal issue saga was ongoing…I think I had locked myself to a particular 1.6.x version (I forget the exact revision) for quite some time. Then after that, I was locked to a 1.7.x version for a good while, before finally moving to 2.x with one of the early 2.1 releases. This is the first time since then, that I have had to think about reverting Cursor to an older version. That, too, is very frustrating, as you guys have STILL not given your users, the ability to entirely DISABLE automatic updates. You force, one way or another, updates on us, and we do not have the option of NEVER auto-updating. Seems any time cursor is closed, if a new release was pending, then it WILL install, every time. Even if I’ve hit “Later” on the notification, once cursor is closed and restarted I’m always on the new version.

So I’ll have to regress here, and go back to a version of cursor before whatever recent updates caused these issues…as I haven’t been able to get any work done today as of yet, due to the new issues with terminals (and again, I am already and only use the Legacy Terminal.)

Due to company policy, I am also not able to disable privacy. I assume that is required to share the request id?

7

Well, just ran into that auto-update bug. I said “later”, but close cursor because the terminals started hanging again. On restart, I tried to have cursor re-run the last command it had tried to run. Now, there is something vastly more severe going on. Seems I was force-updated to Cursor 2.4.21. This version has FAR worse issues than the last…the agent itself doesn’t even seem to function correctly…it starts to think, and just hangs part way through the thought processes. There do not appear to be any reported outages anywhere… So I am not sure what the deal is.

Whatever the case is…this has now brought me to a complete and full stop with Cursor. I cannot seem to do anything now. Since it auto-updates every time I close and reopen it, which I have to do because of terminal hangs, I’m now unable to do anything at all with the agent. :person_shrugging:

8

Screenshot 2026-01-22 at 1.41.12 PM
Screenshot 2026-01-22 at 1.41.12 PM776Ă—149 16.1 KB

Ok. Seem going back to 2.3.34, from 2.4.21, has resulted in every one of my active chats becoming corrupted. Seems there are some VERY SEVERE issues with 2.4.21. I’m beyond dismayed here…

9

Well, in the moments I can keep 2.3.34 in play, that version of Cursor does not seem to have the issues with the terminal that newer versions do. I have had a couple of stalled commands, however I think one of them was an excessively broad find command run by the agent that was searching the entirety of my home directory. It probably did not stall, it was just taking an insanely long time to run.

As far as I can tell, the terminal issues start with 2.3.35. They get worse with 2.3.40 or 2.3.41 (or both). Things get SEVERE once I get into the 2.4.x versions. Cursor is effectively unusable, given my reliance on terminal commands, from 2.3.35 onwards. It is absolutely and completely unusable for any 2.4.x version.

Further, 2.4.x seems to do things with chats that make them incompatible with prior versions of Cursor. Sadly, it is not just chats you run while in 2.4.x…it seems to screw with EVERY SINGLE chat. So I am now unable to continue any of my prior chats, and I had at least four different tracks of work ongoing that I now have to rebuild the context for, which is really a bummer.

The DX with Cursor, sadly, continues to decline…seems every minor version, and frequently across revisions, there is some new regression, some new half-baked feature, or some botched redesign of an existing feature…and all of it just gets left in the dust, without attention, sometimes for months. Its very frustrating.

10

Try typing CTRL-SHIFT-P, search for Reload with Extensions Disabled, I spent over 8hours trying to restore my workspace with chat history and that was only possible way. It is funny that when you do this the “remote ssh” extension is still active, but somehow all is refreshed

12

I don’t have any extensions active anymore. Well, I have a ui theme…that has never seemed to be the problem. I got rid of all the other extensions I used to use, as they often seemed to have problems with Cursor.

I managed to find a setting that, I think, might stop the automatic updates. I thought this was already set, but it was back to “default”. I set it to manual, which should prevent automatic updates (although, it is intended for VSCode, not cursor, so I don’t know if its really going to work.) Cursor really needs to stop shoving updates down their users throats, though, and give us a darn “Manual” vs. “Automatic” update application switch!

I have thus far, managed to keep cursor running since my last reversion to 2.3.34. Lost access to ALL my past chats (I can view them, but not continue any of them), 2.4.x seems to screw with every chat and break any backwards compatibility. I think as long as I can stay on 2.3.34, things will work, as they currently are.

Any newer version, and the terminal sessions the agent starts and uses are just hosed.

13

It’s time to create a new New Terminal :D

14

As long as that doesn’t keep me from having the agent run any command I instruct it to, and doesn’t devastate the shell environment, I don’t necessarily disagree. The sandbox totally devastated my ability to run the kinds of commands I need to. So I don’t use it…it is too unreliable, unpredicatable, and too…NANNY. Whatever has happened recently, seems to have done much the same. Something radical changed with how the agent terminals function with regards to environment over the last day or two here. I guess that was the release timeframe of 2.4, which itself in general, has been a gut punch, so far…

I don’t allow the agent to run just anything, and I use the legacy terminal because I REQUIRE an allowlist approach. I explicitly never allow any command to be run automatically that could be dangerous, but I allow a lot (lot!) of benign commands that simply could never be dangerous. I also DO have the agent perform some git operations, the most notable of which is committing (few seconds I get a detailed commit message, automatic linting, build, etc. cleanup, and proper commit). I use the terminal every day, all day, day after day, via the agent. I have built up rules, custom commands, skills, etc. around my use of the terminal, to keep the agent from going out of bounds and doing anything truly dangerous, and use credentials to limit any damage it could potentially do when I tunnel to other environments, but I do use the agent to do a LOT with the terminal…

So, lack of support for persistent terminal sessions (at the very least, beyond the scope of a single command!!!) and real terminal environment settings (like path, other environment variables, aliases that allow me to control the exact encapsulation of command chains so the agent cannot be totally arbitrary about it), etc. etc. become quite devastating to my ability to work as I need to, and as I have for, almost 10 months now.

If you guys redesign the terminal, and TAKE AWAY flexibility and power, and especially if you impose MORE NANNY-BOT style handholding, then it will instantly become useless to me (and thus render Cursor as a whole useless to me). And, I have no doubt, many other seasoned software engineers who use Cursor to ACCELERATE, rather than vibe, are likely to feel the same way.

2 Likes
15

I was just force upgraded to 2.4.x again. Now, instead of terminals constantly stalling, they are WAY over-proactively running commands. It appears now, that the agent can run multiple commands CONCURRENTLY, and it does so PRODIGIOUSLY! This is HORRIBLE, because the commands it is trying to run in parallel, MUST be run sequentially!

I honestly do not understand what you guys are doing with the agent with 2.4, and whatever you are doing with the agent’s usage of terminals, has now gone completely off the rails!! I CANNOT have the agent running countless commands in parallel! That is insane. Commands are usually sequentially dependent, with a subsequent command depending on the results or outcome of the previous.

I am really disappointed with 2.4 here. It sounds like here are some cool features, but once again, you guys are shipping half-baked changes, and this time you have completely hosed the terminals. AGAIN. You guys don’t seem to give a wit about the concerns your users REPEATEDLY bring to you, which includes explicit requests that you guys NOT treat your paying customers as guinea pigs you can throw any broken, half-baked, premature release at and hope we are just going to deal with all the ■■■■■

The terminal usage by the agent, was WAY better in 2.3, than in 2.4, and it seems it was most stable at 2.3.34. What the heck are you guys doing now, by allowing the agent to basically run every command in parallel?!?!?!? That just does not work!!