rofl0r / rofl0r/proxychains-ng

Fails to launch modern Electron apps (e.g., Cursor) due to Zygote/Sandbox incompatibility

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Dominant language
C
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Description

Hello,

I've encountered an issue where proxychains-ng fails to launch a modern Electron-based application, specifically the Cursor editor. The failure seems to be related to an incompatibility with the Chromium sandbox (Zygote process) that these applications use.

Environment
  • Proxychains-ng Version: 4.16
  • Operating System:
    Description:	Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS
    Release:	22.04
    Codename:	jammy
    
  • Application Details:
    • Name: Cursor
    • Version: 1.4.2
    • Type: Electron AppImage
    • URL: https://cursor.sh/
Proxychains Configuration

My [ProxyList] in /etc/proxychains4.conf is simple and confirmed to be working with other applications like curl.

[ProxyList]
# Local SOCKS5 proxy provided by my VPN client.
socks5 127.0.0.1 7897
Steps to Reproduce
  1. Download the Cursor AppImage from their official website.
  2. Configure proxychains4.conf to use any working proxy.
  3. Execute the command: proxychains4 ./Cursor-1.4.2-x86_64.AppImage
Expected Behavior

The Cursor application should launch successfully, and its network traffic should be routed through the specified proxy.

Actual Behavior

The application immediately crashes. The terminal outputs a fatal error related to the Zygote host implementation.

[proxychains] config file found: /etc/proxychains4.conf
[proxychains] preloading /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libproxychains.so.4
[proxychains] DLL init: proxychains-ng 4.16
... (repeated DLL init lines) ...
[103484:0809/121943.173848:FATAL:zygote_host_impl_linux.cc(221)] Check failed: . : Invalid argument (22)
Trace/breakpoint trap (core dumped)
Further Investigation & Workarounds
  1. Using --no-sandbox:
    Adding the --no-sandbox flag gets past the initial Zygote crash, but the application's renderer process still fails to launch.
    • Command: proxychains4 ./Cursor-1.4.2-x86_64.AppImage --no-sandbox
    • Resulting Error:
      [main 2025-08-09T04:23:14.607Z] CodeWindow: renderer process gone (reason: launch-failed, code: 1002)
      
Conclusion

Thank you for maintaining this excellent tool. I hope this detailed report is helpful for investigating compatibility with modern applications.

Contributor guide

No contributing guide indexed for this repository

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reproducing proxychains4 ./Cursor-1.4.2-x86_64.AppImage on Ubuntu 22.04 with the supplied proxy configuration, then inspect the preload behavior of /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libproxychains.so.4 around Electron's Zygote and renderer startup. The issue is done when Cursor launches and its network traffic uses the configured proxy without requiring --no-sandbox.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
c, electron, ubuntu
Domain
desktop-dev, networking, tooling
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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