V3.0.12: Extension host terminated unexpectedly 3 times within the last 5 minutes

Support Bug Reports
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1

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

you know this is a kind of well known issue in cursor, and still have same issue even on latest version

Steps to Reproduce

whenever restart cursor, getting this issue

Operating System

Windows 10/11

Version Information

version: 3.0.12

Does this stop you from using Cursor

Yes - Cursor is unusable

3

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5

Hey, this is a known Windows issue: the retrieval-always-local extension host crashes because the cursor-socket extension structure is malformed. Your screenshots match the usual pattern: exit code 18446744072635810000, failed extension verification.

Try this:

  1. Fix cursor-socket
    Open Command Prompt as admin:

    cd "%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\cursor\resources\app\extensions\cursor-socket"
xcopy dist out\ /E /I

    If Cursor is installed in C:\Program Files\cursor, use:

    cd "C:\Program Files\cursor\resources\app\extensions\cursor-socket"
xcopy dist out\ /E /I

  2. Turn off Instant Grep
    Cursor Settings (not VS Code settings) > Indexing & Docs > turn off Index Repositories for Instant Grep (BETA)

  3. Restart Cursor

This combo worked for other users with the same issue:

Note: after every Cursor update, you’ll likely need to run xcopy again until this is fixed for good. The team is aware.

Also, do you have any VPN installed on the machine, even if it’s not active? In a few cases, uninstalling the VPN client fixed it too.

Let me know if it helps.

6

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followed the 1. Fix cursor-socket
not sure about step 2
restarted, but still same issue

Version: 3.0.12 (user setup)
VSCode Version: 1.105.1
Commit: a80ff7dfcaa45d7750f6e30be457261379c29b00
Date: 2026-04-04T00:13:18.452Z
Layout: editor
Build Type: Stable
Release Track: Default
Electron: 39.8.1
Chromium: 142.0.7444.265
Node.js: 22.22.1
V8: 14.2.231.22-electron.0
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.26200

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8

I see the screenshot from Developer Tools, that helps.

There are two issues here. xcopy created the out/ folder, but in Cursor v3.0.12 it checks extension integrity and rejects cursor-socket because of extra files: Extension verification failed: Extra files: out/main.js. The main crash is coming from cursor-retrieval with exit code 18446744072635810000, and that’s a separate issue.

Try this first without reinstalling:

  1. Delete the out folder that xcopy created, it’s now causing problems. Open Command Prompt as admin:

    rd /s /q "%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\cursor\resources\app\extensions\cursor-socket\out"

    If Cursor is installed in C:\Program Files\cursor, then run:

    rd /s /q "C:\Program Files\cursor\resources\app\extensions\cursor-socket\out"

  2. Turn off Codebase Indexing. Cursor Settings (not VS Code settings) > Indexing & Docs > turn off Codebase Indexing. If you don’t see the toggle in the UI, open the Command Palette with Ctrl+Shift+P, then Preferences: Open User Settings (JSON) and add:

    "cursor.codebaseIndexing.enabled": false

  3. Restart Cursor.

If it still doesn’t help, do a clean reinstall. Uninstall Cursor, then delete these folders:

  • %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\cursor
  • %APPDATA%\Cursor
  • %USERPROFILE%\.cursor

Download it again from Cursor · Download. Note that this will reset settings, extensions, and chat history, so if you need it, back up %APPDATA%\Cursor and %USERPROFILE%\.cursor before deleting.

Also, do you have a VPN client installed on this machine, even if it’s not active right now? In a few cases, removing the VPN fixed the retrieval crash.

Let me know what you get after trying this.

9

I have a same issue. I’m using VPN. If I uninstall VPN, a cursor works. But I need to use both at same time.