How I Fixed the ‘No ptyHost heartbeat after 6 seconds’ Error in Cursor on Linux

I was excited to try Cursor, the AI-powered code editor, but on my Linux Mint setup, terminal freezes every 6 seconds made me want to pull my hair out! After weeks of tinkering, I finally found solutions worth sharing so you can skip the frustration.

The Infuriating Problem

Every time I launched Cursor on Linux, my terminal froze with that maddening “No ptyHost heartbeat after 6 seconds” error.

Imagine trying to code while your editor takes coffee breaks every six seconds. Constant hangs, “Unable to resolve your shell environment” warnings, and complete unresponsiveness became my daily struggle.

My Failed Attempts

I tried what felt like every trick in the book with mixed results:

• Stripped my .bashrc of slow-loading bits like conda and nvm
• Created lean launcher scripts to bypass shell init
• Set VSCODE_SKIP_RESOLVING_SHELL_ENV=1 and other variables
• Nuked all Cursor and VSCode config folders for clean starts
• Ran with flags like --no-sandbox --disable-gpu
• Extracted the AppImage to run standalone
• Swapped from Nvidia to AMD graphics (helped just a tiny bit)

The Workaround That Finally Helped

After countless dead ends, two approaches actually worked. First, rolling back to Cursor 0.48 was a game-changer – freezes became rare instead of constant:

• Get version 0.48 from Cursor’s official downloads
• Run it normally – no special flags needed

For a deeper fix, I modified the ptyHostMain.js file after extracting the AppImage:

• Go to ./out/vs/platform/terminal/node/
• Edit ptyHostMain.js
• Add this right at the top: process.on('SIGTERM', () => {});

When debugging, this verbose command gave me clues:

LOG_LEVEL=trace ELECTRON_ENABLE_STACK_DUMPING=1 VSCODE_SKIP_RESOLVING_SHELL_ENV=1 /path/to/cursor --log trace --verbose --disable-extensions --no-sandbox --disable-gpu

My Advice

Stick with version 0.48 for now – it’s the simplest fix. If you’re comfortable editing source files, the SIGTERM tweak helps too (always backup first!).

These Electron-on-Linux quirks can be frustrating, but with these steps, you’ll spend less time debugging and more time coding.