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
- Download the Cursor AppImage from their official website.
- Configure
proxychains4.confto use any working proxy. - 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
- Using
--no-sandbox:
Adding the--no-sandboxflag 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)
- Command:
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
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- 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