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raddevus2-Nov-21 10:48

2-Nov-21 10:48

I know a bit about the clipboard because I've struggled with automating it.
I have a few suggestions that I will try to work you through but they will entail using my web site / web app (password manager -- known as C'YaPass).
It's a browser app that generates passwords for you and copies them to your clipboard.

I'm active here and a real person here on CP so hopefully you'll try this out. (ie - I'm not a nefarious hacker). Smile | :)

1. Go to C'YaPass : Never type a password again[^]
2. follow the steps as if you're creating a password. a) add a new site key b) draw a pattern

3. When you draw a pattern you'll see a password autogenerate in the lower right text box.
When that password is generated it is copied to your clipboard.
Try pasting it somewhere (text editor or something.
4. If that doesn't work, click the [clipboard icon] button (next to the [Delete] button).

I had to implement that special button for Mac platform. It wouldn't do the auto-clipboard thing.

After all that, report back here and let me know what you find.

FOSS -- All the source is Fully Open Source Software
All the code to my C'YaPass app (in various forms - C#, Java, Kotlin, Swift, HTML5/JS, etc.) is all OPEN SOURCE and I will guide you to the source code of what it is doing to copy to the clipboard if you like.

Good luck. Thumbs Up | :thumbsup:

dandy723-Nov-21 3:23

3-Nov-21 3:23

At step 3 - when trying to paste the content of the clipboard in Notepad - nothing happens. Clicking the clipboard icon and pasting again does nothing. Changing the pattern further (and thus getting a new value copied to the clipboard, presumably) also subsequently does not paste anything.

raddevus3-Nov-21 4:16

3-Nov-21 4:16

That is interesting. So, does it not copy/paste even on the same system? Or, does it not copy/paste across to / from a remote system?

If it doesn't work on the same system, I'm guessing that something about the local system has its clipboard functionality turned off or something.

dandy723-Nov-21 4:30

3-Nov-21 4:30

Yeah, even locally...boot the system, copy/paste will probably work. Start using the system as one normally would...within a few minutes, realize the clipboard's broken again. I'm never sure at what point it got back into the broken state.

raddevus3-Nov-21 4:38

3-Nov-21 4:38

dandy72 wrote:
I'm never sure at what point it got back into the broken state.

That is crazy and annoying. Now, I'm trying to think of how to provide you with small .exe that will exercise the clipboard API so you can see if it fires and is blocked or something or if it never fires.

Here's (probably) the easiest way to exercise lower level functionality to see if it works.
1. Install Linqpad (C# dev playground) LINQPad - The .NET Programmer's Playground[^]
2. Open up a new linqpad editor and add the code below.
3. Run the code and examine result

It's kind of a lot, but maybe it'll get you a step closer to discovery.

// For this example, the data to be placed on the clipboard is a simple
// string.
string textData = "I want to put this string on the clipboard.";

// After this call, the data (string) is placed on the clipboard and tagged
// with a data format of "Text".
Clipboard.SetData(DataFormats.Text, (Object)textData);

From Clipboard Class (System.Windows) | Microsoft Docs[^]

raddevus3-Nov-21 4:43

3-Nov-21 4:43

Actually, here is better code for linqpad....

void Main()
{
	// For this example, the data to be placed on the clipboard is a simple
// string.
  string textData = "I want to put this string on the clipboard.";

  // After this call, the data (string) is placed on the clipboard and tagged
  // with a data format of "Text".
  System.Windows.Clipboard.SetData(DataFormats.Text, (Object)textData);
}

Add that code, then
1. Press F4 (and a window will open)
2. You have to add the library PresentationCore.dll

Run the code, it _should_ copy to the clipboard.
Try pasting.

dandy723-Nov-21 9:50

3-Nov-21 9:50

Actually after yet another reboot, the problem seems to have gone away and has not yet come back (for the first time in maybe 5 days and as many reboots)...I'm not gonna go out of my way to intentionally try to break it. Smile | :)

But if it does come back, I will definitely look into it. I've used the clipboard API before, in the same way you do in your little 2-liner sample, and with the way it behaved (until now) throughout the entire OS, I wouldn't be surprised if nothing got copied after SetData().

Unfortunately according to the docs, the API doesn't return anything, but could throw exceptions. I suspect it's not, in my case. If it was, either every app is anticipating exceptions and remaining completely silent about them (unlikely), or if something's not anticipating them, then I'd expect them to end up in the Windows event log - and it's clean.

raddevus2-Nov-21 11:09

2-Nov-21 11:09

And, oh yeah, I should also say that I have a similar challenge using RealVNC and connecting to my headless Mac Mini.
In that case the clipboard works locally (on the mac) but will never copy back to my local environment. They function as two separate clipboards.

I'm on Linux and I use Remmina for remote desktop to Windows machines and there the clipboard works in unison (if I copy on my remote Win10 machine I can paste to my local Linux machine.

Ravi Bhavnani2-Nov-21 12:30

Ravi Bhavnani

2-Nov-21 12:30

This may be a dumb question, but have you checked if it's a problem with your keyboard? IOW, do the Edit | Copy,Paste menu commands work in Notepad?

/ravi

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Greg Utas2-Nov-21 14:22

Greg Utas

2-Nov-21 14:22

My 5-year-old laptop recently started to do this. ZXCV keys occasionally do nothing and have to be sledgehammered before they wake up. I had to get an external keyboard as a backup. Mad | :mad:

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dandy723-Nov-21 3:18

3-Nov-21 3:18

I also tried to copy/paste purely using the mouse. I get the same thing. After copying to the clipboard, the right-click menu shows that Paste is grayed out, indicating there's nothing on it.

Besides, copy/paste does continue to work on remote machines I'm accessing over RDP.

englebart2-Nov-21 14:11

englebart

2-Nov-21 14:11

I put a setting (on purpose) on my RDP so that things I copy on my Remote Desktop cannot transfer into my local clipboard.

If you have different RDP connections, maybe they have conflicting settings?

Nelek3-Nov-21 0:30

Nelek

3-Nov-21 0:30

This might be as well... We had a shared clipboard when accessing a windows server per RDP...

If you used a compatible enviroment in that moment, you could paste what I had previously copied.

M.D.V.

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dandy723-Nov-21 3:19