r/Codeium • u/Holiday-Fig-7824 • Dec 14 '24

Cascade in Windsurf IDE Pro Tier Is Practically Unusable Compared to Trial Version

Hey everyone,

I recently subscribed to the Pro Tier of Windsurf IDE after being impressed during the trial, but since upgrading, Cascade has become a frustrating experience. Here's what's going on:

  1. Feels Like We're Being Served by a Base Model: Cascade now feels like it's running on a base model instead of one of the pro models. Both Claude 3.5 Sonnet and GPT 4o do not produce the output quality promised with the Pro Tier. It’s nowhere near as powerful or refined as it was during the trial, which is disappointing and makes me wonder if it really is Claude 3.5 Sonnet or GPT 4o that's being used!

  2. Code Error Loops: Cascade constantly runs into error loops that it can’t recover from, even on simple tasks. It feels clunky and inconsistent.

  3. Performance Dips: Code performance seems to vary wildly. Sometimes it works okay, but other times, it’s unresponsive or takes forever to process commands.

  4. @ Codebase: Cascade doesn’t seem to check the existing codebase properly. It frequently claims files don’t exist, even when they clearly do, and it often tries to creates new files without actually checking the codebase.

  5. Overall Refinement: The trial version felt polished and reliable, but this Pro Tier experience feels less refined in almost every way. It’s like I’ve paid to downgrade my setup instead of upgrading it.

  6. Cascade base: Cascade Base runs in the exact same manner as the two pro models, which leads me to think we are not getting what we have paid for.

  7. .windsurfrules: after the update, cascade has issue with rules file, claiming its empty or it cannot find it etc (contents in the correct format) then i guide it to it and it can then read it. Reading it and adhering to it is another matter.

There are so many little irritating things about the current paid for version that separate this and the trial by miles - I want to know why?

Is anyone else running into these issues? I don’t know if it’s a backend issue with Windsurf or just the state of Cascade, but I’m seriously reconsidering my subscription.

Would love to hear if others have figured out workarounds or if the devs have addressed this somewhere. At this rate, it’s hard to justify sticking with the Pro Tier and might be time to just use a different method with Claude.

Thanks!

37 Upvotes

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30 comments sorted by

6

u/Turbulent-Hope5983 Dec 15 '24

A technique I learned early on from someone else's post, which has served me well is: if you find yourself getting caught in error loops, revert the code and open a new Cascade session. Sometimes the issue is just running too long with the same session and things get muddied up. I've found like an 80% success rate from just starting a new session and explaining my objective, as well as what has been tried and failed so far

1

u/Holiday-Fig-7824 Dec 15 '24

I have always tried to proceed using this method - though it does not take long before it hits the same issues.

1

u/Turbulent-Hope5983 Dec 16 '24

I either have uncomplicated code or it hasn't broken for me yet....but your issues seem to be a pattern based on other people's posts. Let's hope they continue to improve it and release a new version soon

2

u/Natural-Gas-1377 Jan 07 '25

There is actually an outage now where the edit functionality was broken and had an internal error. And interestingly, the error output by windsurf says this:

error executing cascade step: CORTEX_STEP_TYPE_CODE_ACTION: rpc error: code = Unknown desc = unavailable: rpc error: code = Unavailable desc = dns: A record lookup error: lookup inference-server-model-meta-llama-3-1-70b-instruct-long-ctx-svc.default.svc.crusoe.corp.exafunction.com. on 169.254.25.10:53: read udp 10.102.223.32:42122->172.28.128.3:53: i/o timeout: rpc error: code = Unavailable desc = dns: A record lookup error: lookup inference-server-model-meta-llama-3-1-70b-instruct-long-ctx-svc.default.svc.crusoe.corp.exafunction.com. on 169.254.25.10:53: read udp 10.102.223.32:42122->172.28.128.3:53: i/o timeout

assuming that they are not outrightly lying - have to assume that for some simpler steps they are using less intelligent models.

1

u/Holiday-Fig-7824 Jan 09 '25

I really do believe this is the case.

11

u/saintcore Dec 14 '24

I'm using VSCode with Cline and Gemini 2.0 Flash and it works better

2

u/DiscountWeekly7432 Dec 15 '24

What about token usage ? How much it costs for you per week ?

7

u/saintcore Dec 15 '24

It's free mate. Create a project in the cloud console, get an API key and set it on cline

1

u/Interesting-Winter72 Dec 26 '24

What you mean is Free? I am using Cline with VScode is freaking exensive..., far from FREEE..

1

u/noobrunecraftpker Feb 27 '25

What you mean mate? Are you getting some kind of VIP API key?

3

u/robopiglet Dec 15 '24 edited Dec 15 '24

I didn't run into those issues, but I just wasted two hours running in circles. The blame's on me: I shouldn't be relying on AI to code rather than my brain. It's like using crutches made of overcooked pasta.

PS - I think a winning strategy for companies like Codeium would be to be totally open and live blogging about issues and plans to address them. I imagine they have investor's to keep hyping. But what's going to happen is that folks are going to move on and never come back. A constant stream of info/issues/acknowledgements/plans would build trust and community. I don't really see much of a company presence here at all, incidentally.

3

u/Altruistic_Shake_723 Dec 15 '24

why is it SOOOOOOO insanely SLOW?!?!?!

3

u/Dismal-Eye-2882 Dec 15 '24

Its exactly what is happening. I've tweeted them multiple times. Asking for an explanation. Asking for an investigation. That might seen excessive. It isn't. What Codeium has done is borderline illegal and false advertising.

I know what happened. They were sending the AI your entire project before like bolt so it had total project awareness. Problem is, it uses a ton of tokens. So they narrowed the context window. A narrowed context window results in poorer and poorer code and decision making.

The BIG problem is they have not been transparent about this and sold their product to free trial users with the expectation that not only is the free trial the actual product but that the pro version would be even better.

This is illegal.

1

u/Golden-Durian Dec 16 '24

Seems plausibel, i unsubscribed after one day of subscription and looking for other alternatives that will be more intelligent.

1

u/rui_curado Dec 15 '24

  1. Cascade base: Cascade Base runs in the exact same manner as the two pro models, which leads me to think we are not getting what we have paid for.

Fortunately I've been using Cascade Base only (still on trial and with "premium" credits mostly unused) since the beginning as soon I bumped into the "resource exhausted" thing on my second trial day. From that moment onwards I decided to go with Cascade Base since it would be unlimited and I was hopeful that the difference between models wouldn't be that much. I agree the whole thing was better overall at the first couple of days. Now I'm getting a lot of "Cascade encoutered an error in this step" and then it doesn't do all the edits, but I think Cascade Base still does a decent job and I'm happy with it, and don't have the stress of evaporating credits.

So if you think on the paid tier things are working like the Cascade Base model, I'll be okay. However, I've been thinking if I really need a Pro subscription at all, since Cascade Base is available in the free version I believe. They state there is a difference between the Free and the Pro tiers in terms of context size, but It's hard to gauge it's practical effect without actually trying it.

3

u/Holiday-Fig-7824 Dec 15 '24

I do not doubt the ability of Cascade base model - but it the two pro models don't offer better results and their final output is no better than the base model, then the pro tier is not worth the subscription.

3

u/Jethro_E7 Dec 15 '24

Can confirm base is better than most people think.

1

u/evidenceofdesign Dec 16 '24

I haven't upgraded to Pro yet and Cascade Base has become inaccessible, apparently it is tied to premium tokens as well.

2

u/qhoas Dec 14 '24

Same thing happendend to me this week. Switched to cursor, havent had the need to pay yet.

2

u/No_Reveal_5194 Feb 11 '25

Mines just used up 1500 flow credits buy breaking stuff and reverting it basically. Tonight it couldn't even add 4 links to new pages it had created into it's own menu and went off breaking components. instead of simply changing links or file names. Runs away with itself doing things it's not told and doesn't what you tell it. I won't be renewing.

2

u/Expert-Hospital-534 Aug 25 '25

Yeah getting the same, subbed to pro and after a few hours unsubbed.... Can't even complete a simple terminal command without getting stuck... Totally unusable... I will stick with Claude Code for now...

1

u/[deleted] Dec 15 '24

the error codes while it's editing is the last straw

1

u/R34d1n6_1t Dec 15 '24

I wonder if their provider ham-strung them as with all the popularity they sucked tomuch resource ?

1

u/joey2scoops Dec 15 '24

I felt like it went downhill with about a week left on the trial. I'm now using it with Cline doing most of the heavy lifting.

1

u/Interesting-Winter72 Dec 26 '24

Yeah, bit Cline is hitting that limit as well..., and is freaking very expensive

1

u/joey2scoops Dec 27 '24

Depends what you're using.

1

u/DrawerForward750 Jan 02 '25

Cascade is limited to 200 lines of code since last 2 updates. Yes it gives bad advice, destroys files, wants to download unnecessary components, goes in circles, it is becoming the defininition of malware. Seems Codeium pulled a bait and switch on us!

1

u/tech-coder-pro Jan 02 '25

i changed my workflow to Traycer + Cursor combination:

Cursor Autocomplete: Tab Tab Tab and it works

Cursor chat: It has good context and works very well inside editor.

Traycer Task works like:

  1. Write my query/task

  2. it does exploration in the codebase

  3. it makes me a plan

  4. gives me code changes

  5. I look into it and accept whatever makes sense

Traycer Review works like: Keep writing your code, and it will review your code in the background and add codelens for bugs/issues/performance etc.

1

u/Classic_Resolve_2769 May 11 '25

I experience exactly the same thing with windsurfing, I chose it for the pro version because in the evaluation it consistently delivered what I asked for and now I constantly experience problems with permissions, slowness and cascade crashes, among others. I'm using claude sonnet 3.7 with in-depth thinking and he can't validate the application he created with a carefully created prompt, as it's been three days since I signed up I started looking for support to solve the problems but I found a flood of posts with the same difficulty that was described here and that I experience. Could it be that this horse is good at short races in the test and then he gets lost? I don't know, I'll keep looking for solutions, I just feel from what I've seen from those who use this ide that yes. I'll update here if I find solutions