Universal Control glitchy on MacBook Pro and M3 Pro

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Level 1

4 points

Universal Control glitchy on MacBook Pro and M3 Pro

Long time Apple fan since the dark days of the early 90s. In recent years, I've mostly found their software to be polished and tested.

However Universal Control seems like a major exception. Ever since it was released it's been extremely glitchy and inconsistent in behavior. Issues include randomly disconnecting, copy/paste not working, screen get re-aligned either at reboot or sometimes at random. Overall screen alignment is hit or miss and the logic doesn't handle a mix of different monitors/resolutions with 2 Macs that well.

Obviously I'm using the same Apple account on both Macbooks, a 2019 Intel Macbook Pro 16 inch and a 14 inch M3 Pro Macbook. Plenty of free RAM on both systems and Wifi setup is identical and solid on all devices. Both systems are otherwise stable and performant.

The most frustrating issue is copy/paste which sometimes fails completely and then starts working 5-10 minutes later. Sometimes Cmd+C works fine across devices and at other times I need to manually select "Copy" from the contextual menu.

If I stick to 1 machine everything is good. I spoke to Apple support and posted feedback. Any suggestions on how to improve the experience? Thanks.

Posted on Feb 5, 2026 10:15 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

leroydouglas

Level 10

199,578 points

Feb 5, 2026 12:10 PM in response to dshehu

Disappoint Apple Support could not escalate this up the chain of command in an effort to resolve your issue.

Old bug from Monterey— see Tahoe

Universal Clipboard not working From the Terminal.app copy & paste:

defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.coreservices.useractivityd.plist ClipboardSharingEnabled 1

alternative possibility Tahoe (?)

defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.coreservices.useractivityd.plist ClipboardSharingEnabled -bool true

unplug all non-essential peripherals when testing

Third party external mouse ex logitech has had known issues.

Third party apps ex Bartender5 known to cause some issues

Third party VPN can cause these issue, best to uninstall to test ( not just simple disable)

Disable all "Login Items" on launch that may interfere as a test

Uninstall all third party apps that are Cleaners/Optimizers/VPN/Anti-Virus

all known to cause issues on the macOS

if is a sync issue between the two machine—

Sign out of your Apple ID/Account /iCloud on the Mac and back in again and compare your results

Sign in to or out of your Apple Account on Mac - Apple Support

Maybe with any luck the next point update will address these issues.

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Answer 2

dshehu Author

Level 1

4 points

Feb 5, 2026 12:31 PM in response to leroydouglas

Thanks for the detailed response. I'll try the useractivd.plist next time it surfaces, likely when I reboot the machine. That seems almost 100% reproducible.

No mice but I do have a pair of USB ethernet adapters and hub. Need the nics but I'll try removing the hub.
No 3P apps side from Google drive.
No VPN.
No login items aside from Apple scripts created via Apple's Automator app.
No AV/cleaners/etc.

It's sporadic and logging in & out doesn't seem to help. The copy/paste is the most annoying aspect since it fails at random especially in Chrome or VS Code. Thanks again.

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