Empty String Cursor Bug in MCP Clients Can Silently Truncate Tool Catalogs

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A subtle pagination bug in Model Context Protocol (MCP) client implementations can cause software to stop fetching data after the first page when a server returns an empty string as a nextCursor value. According to the finalized MCP specification dated July 28, 2026, an empty string is a valid continuation cursor, and only a missing (null) nextCursor field signals the end of pagination. A common C# coding pattern using string.IsNullOrEmpty() incorrectly treats both null and empty string as termination conditions, causing later pages to never be requested. The failure is particularly dangerous because no error is raised — the first page loads successfully, and any cached partial catalog silently persists until it expires. A .NET 10 verification tool with deterministic test pages was developed to expose the bug, and the fix requires explicitly checking for null rather than combining null and empty-string conditions.

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