Title: Cursor Agent Failed to Start – Agent Process Didn't Respond

Support Bug Reports
1

Feature request for product/service

Cursor IDE

Describe the request

Hi Cursor Team,

I’m experiencing an issue when trying to start the Cursor Agent. The agent fails to initialize and displays the following error:

Error message:

An unexpected error occurred.
The agent couldn’t start because Cursor’s agent process didn’t respond.

Retry, or reconnect if you’re using a remote host.
If it keeps failing locally and antivirus or a proxy inspects HTTPS traffic,
run Network Diagnostics in Cursor Settings.

AgentTurnClassifiedError:
The agent couldn’t start because Cursor’s agent process didn’t respond.

Environment:

OS: Windows

Cursor: Latest installed version

Environment: Local development (not using a remote host)

What I’ve tried:

Retrying the Agent.

Reconnecting to the workspace.

Restarting Cursor.

However, the issue still persists.

Expected behavior:

Cursor Agent should start successfully and be ready to process requests.

Actual behavior:

The Agent process does not respond, and the Agent cannot be started.

Request ID:
65dfacda-1312-4140-a383-4c0f8dfd1dd5

Has anyone experienced the same issue? Any suggestions on how to resolve it?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Operating System (if it applies)

Windows 10/11

Version: 3.29.9 (user setup)
VS Code Extension API: 1.128.0
Commit: 306d153d51d714882ab7b1bc49649cab624e8a30
Date: 2026-11-05T02:42:01.412Z
Layout: Agent Window
Build Type: Stable
Release Track: Default
Electron: 43.8.4
Chromium: 150.0.7871.250
Node.js: 24.22.1
V8: 15.0.245.31-electron.0
xterm.js: 6.1.0-beta.291
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.26300

2

Hi there!

We detected that this may be a bug report, so we’ve moved your post to the Bug Reports category.

To help us investigate and fix this faster, could you edit your original post to include the details from the template below?

Bug Report Template - Click to expand

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

  • Editor, Tab & Chat (autocomplete, Composer, in-editor agent)
  • Terminal & commands
  • Models, pricing & API keys (availability, Auto/Max, BYOK/Bedrock)
  • MCP & tools
  • Cloud Agents & Automations (cursor.com/agents, scheduled/event)
  • BugBot & Code Review
  • Cursor CLI
  • Cursor Mobile
  • Remote (SSH / Dev Containers / WSL)
  • Account, billing & login
  • Something else…

Describe the Bug
A clear and concise description of what the bug is.

Steps to Reproduce
How can you reproduce this bug? We have a much better chance at fixing issues if we can reproduce them!

  1. …
  2. …
  3. …

Expected Behavior
What is meant to happen here that isn’t working correctly?

Screenshots / Screen Recordings
If applicable, attach images or videos (.jpg, .png, .gif, .mp4, .mov)

Operating System

  • Windows 10/11
  • MacOS
  • Linux

Version Information

  • For Cursor IDE: Menu → About Cursor → Copy
  • For Cursor CLI: Run agent about in your terminal
IDE:
Version: 2.xx.x
VSCode Version: 1.105.1
Commit: ......

CLI:
CLI Version 2026.01.17-d239e66

For AI issues: which model did you use?
Model name (e.g., Sonnet 4, Tab…)

For AI issues: add Request ID with privacy disabled
Request ID: f9a7046a-279b-47e5-ab48-6e8dc12daba1
For Background Agent issues, also post the ID: bc-…

Additional Information
Add any other context about the problem here.

Does this stop you from using Cursor?

  • Yes - Cursor is unusable
  • Sometimes - I can sometimes use Cursor
  • No - Cursor works, but with this issue

The more details you provide, the easier it is for us to reproduce and fix the issue. Thanks!

6

Hi @Phuc_Vo1, this is a known issue on Windows with recent Cursor versions (3.28 and 3.29). The local agent process never starts, so every chat fails with that message, whichever model you use. The team is aware of it, and it isn’t caused by your network or antivirus.

For now, installing 3.27 from Cursor · Download gets the agent working again. To stop Cursor from updating back to 3.29 before a fix is out:

  1. Press Ctrl+Shift+P and run “Preferences: Open User Settings (JSON)”.
  2. Add “update.mode”: “manual” and save the file.
  3. Restart Cursor.

If your company manages Cursor updates centrally, that setting may be locked, so check with your admin in that case.

12

Hey @Phuc_Vo1 Tarun here!!

Can you share your local logs from that session or any failing ones.
You can do so by opening command palette via ctrl + shift + p and selecting Capture and send debugging Data option and chose logs, feature flags and process diagnostics and click OK
Wait for a while to upload, sometimes it might just zip it and save locally, in which case feel free to email it to me on [email protected]

Thanks!