When working with the agent, sometimes it stops, the status at the bottom displays “Waiting for approval” but I don’t see any tool in the agent that I can interact with. This is very annoying and the only thing I can do is stop the agent and try to restart but it comes back often.
Here is my version of Cursor :
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 25.2.0
Steps to Reproduce
Not sure how to reproduce this, it happens suddenly and on different projects. This might be the main difficulty around this issue.
Expected Behavior
Normally I should see the tool that is waiting for approval but it isn’t displayed.
Hey, thanks for the report. This is a known issue in 2.3.x. The approval dialog doesn’t render in the UI, even though the approval flow is triggered in the background.
The team has already fixed the race condition issues that caused this behavior. The fix is included in 2.4. You can try Nightly now:
Nightly 2.4 (recommended):
Cursor Settings > Beta > switch to Nightly
Temporary workarounds (if you don’t want Nightly):
Turn on auto-apply: Settings > search for “Auto-apply Edits” or “Auto-run”. This will skip manual approval
Try without extensions: run cursor --disable-extensions in Terminal
If it’s really critical, downgrade to 2.0, but you’ll lose newer features
Let me know if Nightly doesn’t help. Then we’ll need the Request ID (chat menu top right > Copy Request ID) and any console errors (Cmd+Shift+P > Developer: Toggle Developer Tools > Console tab).
Hi. I’m experiencing a similar issue where the Cursor agent gets stuck on a “waiting for approval” message when attempting to connect to a Playwright MCP server (I can’t use the MCP at all). This previously worked in older versions of Cursor approximately 2 months ago.
Hi. I’m experiencing a similar issue where the Cursor agent gets stuck on a “waiting for approval” message when attempting to connect to a BrowserTools MCP server.
The “Waiting for approval” message in 2.3.41 is a known issue where the approval dialog does not display. The fix is included in version 2.4. You can try the Nightly build under Settings > Beta, or as a workaround enable “Auto-run” to skip manual approval. Disabling extensions or downgrading to 2.0 are other temporary options.
Hi, I’m running into the exact same issue as well.
I can confirm that this is not resolved for me, even after switching to Nightly.
Details:
• Cursor still gets stuck at “Waiting for Approval…”
• No Approve / Deny buttons are rendered
• This happens when using Browser / Playwright MCP
• Auto-Run in Sandbox is enabled
• Auto-Run Network Access is still forced to “Ask Every Time” (no option to allow)
I tested both Stable and Nightly, and the behavior is the same.
This suggests the issue may not be limited to 2.3.x, and could still affect parts of 2.4 / early 2.5 builds.
Had this constantly — scrolling up in the chat usually reveals the approval block that got pushed off screen by the agent’s output. If that doesn’t work, try toggling auto-run mode between sandbox/unsandboxed and restart the chat.
This is ridiculous
MCP calls are stuck in “waiting for approval”. I would gladly give you an approval, but you are not showing any window
This Bug makes interacting with the AI impossible.
