So I just bumped my Cursor IDE version to 3.16.17-1786674287 on my Ubuntu Studio lappy running 24.04 and the application keeps crashing when I open it up and try to open a folder.
Anyone else running into stability issues with this release or is it just me?
I can’t seem to find a rollback path to get back to the last version. I’ll dig into logs later when I can find time to see what I can sus out for a potential cause and report back.
Steps to Reproduce
verify you have version 3.16.17-1786674287 installed on Ubuntu 24.04.
open Cursor application
attempt to open n editor window for a project folder.
within 30 seconds Cursor application becomes unresponsive and Ubuntu system pops up the “This window is not responsive” error message and the app shuts down.
Confirming – same issue here on Ubuntu, fully reproducible.
Same symptoms after updating to 3.16.17: the Agent window freezes completely, mouse cursor becomes unresponsive inside the panel, and the whole app eventually becomes unusable (“not responding”).
My setup:
Ubuntu (KDE Plasma desktop)
Intel CPU / integrated graphics (not NVIDIA)
Cursor 3.16.17-1786674287 via official apt repo
Steps I took that did not fix it:
--ozone-platform=x11
--disable-gpu / disable-hardware-acceleration in argv.json
Additional finding: repeated force-kills (pkill -9) during the freeze eventually corrupted state.vscdb (443MB, PRAGMA integrity_check showed multiple broken B-tree pages), which wiped all Agent chat history and workspace state. Worth a warning for others hitting this — avoid force-killing repeatedly if possible, or back up state.vscdb first.
Downgrading is currently not possible for me since only 3.16.17 is available via the apt repo.
I’m an Ubuntu User on 26.04 LTS currently running 3.15.19. Now very hesitant to update. However below are previous versions of Cursor you can download and install so you should be able to roll back? Obviously I’ve not tried this myself but shouldn’t be too difficult. Version 3.15 is listed (just scroll down to the 3.15 area and expand it).
Or (obviously remove/purge any previous installation): cd ~/Downloads wget -O cursor_3.15.19_amd64.deb '``https://api2.cursor.sh/updates/download/golden/linux-x64-deb/cursor/3.15``'
sudo apt install ./cursor_3.15.19_amd64.deb
Hope that helps get around the issue until the Cursor team can take a look and resolve it.
Hey, thanks for the detailed report, and extra thanks to @MrCheese for the workaround in the thread.
About rolling back, yep, that works. apt only serves 3.16.17, so the easiest option is to install the previous stable version manually. You can download 3.15.x from Cursor · Download, scroll down to the 3.15 section, or use the .deb method above. Before installing, uninstall your current version.
Important warning based on @Karin_Hinterleitner’s note, don’t repeatedly kill the process with pkill -9 while it’s frozen. Repeated force-kills can corrupt state.vscdb and wipe Agent chat history and your workspace state. If you need to close it, first back up ~/.config/Cursor/User/globalStorage/state.vscdb.
To help us find the cause, if you can, please share:
main.log from the crashed session: ~/.config/Cursor/logs/<latest folder>/main.log
whether the crash happens if you open a small or empty folder
whether running cursor --disable-extensions helps
This shouldn’t happen, and it’s not related to your setup. I’ve passed it to the team and we’re tracking it. No exact ETA yet, but I’ll post here when there’s an update.
Hey, there’s no confirmed fix yet. We’re tracking the issue, but I can’t share an exact date. From what we’re seeing, the same symptom also showed up on later 3.16 patches, so I wouldn’t recommend “just updating” as a reliable solution right now.
If this is blocking you, the safest option is to stay on 3.15.19 (which you’re already on) until there’s an update in this thread. I’ll post here as soon as we have something concrete.
If any of you are still hitting the crash and can grab main.log from the frozen session at ~/.config/Cursor/logs/<latest folder>/main.log, and also check whether it happens with an empty or small folder, and whether cursor --disable-extensions helps, that will speed up the investigation a lot.
Hi @deanrie
I took the risk and updated and all is fine on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS using 3.16.29 with no crashing so maybe it is a 24.04 specific issue? Maybe that helps narrow things down a bit for those affected? Thank you for the response though! Much appreciated.
Thanks, @MrCheese, that’s a helpful note. The fact that 3.16.29 starts normally on Ubuntu 26.04 really helps narrow things down.
I’m not ready to say this is strictly a 24.04-only issue yet. We’ve seen similar startup hangs on Linux in other setups too, so the environment might not be the only factor. But your data point is valuable, and we’re tracking it.
We still don’t have a confirmed fix, and I can’t share an exact date. If you’re still hitting the crash on 24.04, the most reliable option right now is to stay on 3.15.19 until there’s an update in this thread. Also, if you can share main.log from the stuck session ~/.config/Cursor/logs/<latest folder>/main.log, and check whether it reproduces on an empty or small folder, and whether cursor --disable-extensions helps, that will speed up debugging a lot.
I’ll post here as soon as we have something concrete.
Thanks, @MrCheese, these details help. A working baseline Ubuntu 26.04 + 3.16.29 on Meteor Lake with Intel Arc is a good contrast to the failing 24.04 setups.
I’m not ready to say it’s strictly an Ubuntu version issue yet. We’ve seen similar startup hangs on Linux in other configs, so the environment might not be the only factor. But your data point is valuable.
There’s no confirmed fix yet, and I can’t share an exact date. If anyone else is hitting a crash on 24.04, the most reliable option right now is to stay on 3.15.19 until there’s an update in this thread.
What will really speed up debugging for anyone on 24.04 who’s seeing a hang:
main.log from the hung session: ~/.config/Cursor/logs/<latest folder>/main.log
Whether the crash reproduces on an empty or small folder
Same crash happened to me as well. I’m also on Ubuntu 24.04, and after updating the Cursor desktop entry with --no-sandbox, Cursor started working normally for me.
I’m not sure whether this is directly related to the original issue, but this workaround fixed the crash on my system. Sharing it in case it helps anyone else facing the same problem.
My system details:
Cursor: 3.17.8
Electron: 40.10.3
Chromium: 144.0.7559.236
Node.js: 24.15.0
OS: Ubuntu 24.04.4 LTS
Kernel: 6.8.0-134-generic
Architecture: x64
I updated /usr/share/applications/cursor.desktop and added --no-sandbox to the Cursor launch command. After that, the crashes stopped for me.
Thanks, @He_Ro, that’s a valuable clue. We haven’t seen --no-sandbox mentioned as a factor in this thread yet.
One note: this flag disables the Chromium sandbox, which lowers process isolation. It’s fine as a temporary workaround, but I wouldn’t keep it enabled long term. Once there’s an update, it’s better to switch back to the default launch settings.
I’ll post an update here as soon as we have something concrete.
The freeze shortly after opening a folder on Ubuntu was caused by a change that first landed in 3.16.17 and stayed in 3.17 and 3.18. It’s fixed in 3.19, so updating to the latest version should solve the issue.
If you rolled back to 3.15 to work around it, you can safely update now. If you added --no-sandbox as a workaround, you can remove it after updating.
Thanks for the detailed report. Let me know if the issue still reproduces after the update.
