Unable to open multiple instances of Cursor IDE (WSL)

Bug Reports
1

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

after updating to 1.4.5 I began encountering a bug where I cannot have more than one cursor window open at a time. the first one I open works find, but when I open a second one it has an unexpected error and remote host server errors (WSL). this is whether I open it to a single file, existing or new directory.

if a second window gets opened, I will often get misc errors in the original window like extensions not working (i.e. linters throwing false positives, unable to open or use extensions), files not saving, or agents being unable to call tools.

this is only present in the WSL remote environment, if I open multiple tabs in Windows everything is fine.

another side-effect is that the VS Code Server gets updated almost every time I open cursor in WSL, as opposed to just once on a new version install like usual

[11:39:07] [jon]:~/coinbase/x402 ✗ $ code .
Updating VS Code Server to version faa03b17cce93e8a80b7d62d57f5eda6bb6ab9f0
Removing previous installation...
Installing VS Code Server for x64 (faa03b17cce93e8a80b7d62d57f5eda6bb6ab9f0)
Downloading: 100%
Unpacking: 100%
Unpacked 4988 files and folders to /home/jon/.cursor-server/bin/faa03b17cce93e8a80b7d62d57f5eda6bb6ab9f0.

Steps to Reproduce

  • be on WSL
  • open cursor code .
  • cd to another directory
  • code . in that directory

Expected Behavior

multiple instances of cursor can be opened in multiple directories at a time

Screenshots / Screen Recordings

cursor-error-827-1
cursor-error-827-11165×593 14.8 KB

cursor-error-827-2.png
cursor-error-827-2.png619×267 17.2 KB

Operating System

Windows 10/11

Current Cursor Version (Menu → About Cursor → Copy)

Version: 1.4.5 (user setup)
VSCode Version: 1.99.3
Commit: af58d92614edb1f72bdd756615d131bf8dfa5290
Date: 2025-08-13T02:08:56.371Z
Electron: 34.5.8
Chromium: 132.0.6834.210
Node.js: 20.19.1
V8: 13.2.152.41-electron.0
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.22631

Does this stop you from using Cursor

Sometimes - I can sometimes use Cursor

3

just updated to `1.5.5` and the issue persists

Version: 1.5.5 (user setup)
VSCode Version: 1.99.3
Commit: 823f58d4f60b795a6aefb9955933f3a2f0331d70
Date: 2025-08-25T17:40:25.290Z
Electron: 34.5.8
Chromium: 132.0.6834.210
Node.js: 20.19.1
V8: 13.2.152.41-electron.0
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.22631

5

Hi @heyJonBray, could you try these instructions to perform a clean installation? Note that this will wipe all state, so I’d recommend you back things up first:

On the WSL side, run:

rm -rf ~/.cursor
rm -rf ~/.cursor-server

Then, locally, run the uninstaller, and then also remove the following folders:

rd -r %UserProfile%\.cursor
rd -r %UserProfile%\AppData\Local\Programs\Cursor
rd -r %UserProfile%\AppData\Roaming\Cursor