Can't copy, paste or drag anything in any program, desktop or document

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Can't copy, paste or drag anything in any program, desktop or document

Problem: I'm unable to copy, paste or drag anything in any program or document, nor on my desktop (desktop icons, text, Illustrator objects,iTune songs/albums etc etc).

Previous Troubleshooting: I am aware that I can click on any individual item and go to file/get info and then see if the ownerships and permissions allows me to read and write. In all of my cases, including the start up disc, it says I can "Read & Write" but this area is greyed out, uneditable.
I read all the related suggestions in the Help menu, but they seem to be all about standard procedure and no more than the above for troubleshooting.

Recent History: Recently I realized that my memory was almost full and much was tied up in the iTunes Music folder. I cleared out some of the iTunes and now have 3.59 GB available, enough to not get the message that the disc is almost full. (I'll clear out more, but intend on soon getting an external harddrive in part to save the bulk of the tunes). I also deleted a bunch of other stuff that I never use, but I didn't touch anything that appeared to be the nuts and bolts of the system, just documents and a few programs I don't use. (I did delete something called, "Visual balloons" that I had to unlock first, but I believe I had downloaded that along with some other application, VNC,long ago. I also removed the VNC. Was I right? Or is Visual Balloons important?).

Then, one day shortly thereafter when I started the computer it appeared to open in "Safe Mode" ... all the desktop icons super huge. So I restarted. The restart got the desktop icons back to normal size but thereafter I can't cut, paste, copy or drag anything anywhere.

Please advise. Thank you so much.

Power Mac G4 Mac OS X (10.3.4)

Posted on Dec 3, 2005 2:45 PM

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Answer 1

Dec 3, 2005 6:03 PM in response to Byzantium816

re: "Or is Visual Balloons important?"

Doing a Google search for the above turned up software for adding "balloon help" to PowerPlant objects. Does that sound familiar to something you may have downloaded long ago?

I do not believe it is part of your OS files.

littleshoulders [:-)

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Answer 2

Byzantium816 Author

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Dec 5, 2005 8:05 AM in response to littleshoulders

I checked further into Visual Balloons and you are right, it isn't part of my OS. Visual Balloons, in my case, was being used to advertise a product, the ad came spooled along with the Virtual Network Connection download and wasn't integral to my system.
Hence, I am still trying to figure out why I cannot drag or copy and paste anything in any file. All my other keyboard shortcuts work.

I am still hoping for any and all suggestions,

Thank you again.

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Answer 3

Dec 5, 2005 10:38 AM in response to Byzantium816

re: "Previous Troubleshooting"

Byzantium816,

The most recommended troubleshooting that I have seen is to restart and keep restarting until you regain drag and drop ability.

Out of curiosity, did you try starting up from your install disk to Repair Disk?

Did it report any errors?

You can do this by starting up from your install disk #1 and going directly to the top Apple Menus where under the Installer Menu select Disk Utility. When it opens select your HD and then click Repair Disk.

If you haven't and it finds errors it can't repair (run it a couple of times if it does) report those back.

I assume you have done other obvious maintenance such as running the "cron" tasks and Repairing Permissions from your HD>DiskUtility but if not do so and let us know so we will not repeat suggestions for troubleshooting.

In days of old....Jaguar 10.2....the drag and drop issue was common and there was a great third party app for dealing with it called Dragster. The app is part of a retired collection by the software developer and does not have any support any longer so I would hesitate to recommend it.

Still, I far as I know the best advice is to repeatedly restart until you regain your drag and drop ability!

littleshoulders [:-)

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Answer 4

Byzantium816 Author

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Dec 7, 2005 8:01 AM in response to Byzantium816

Thank you for all the help so far, we have made some progress.
I hadn't known about, "Repairing Permissions from your HD>DiskUtility", so I did it but to no avail.
I also didn't know anything about the "cron tasks". When I used to finder to locate "cron" on my computer I pulled up a folder and a document. In the folder there is an icon that resembles a little black monitor w/ small, illegible green text on it. Not knowing what this was I just closed it. But then I realized that on my desktop, all along, there has been a similar icon called PBS. When I double click on it it is called, "Terminal - PBS - 80 X24". But when I right click on it and hit, "open with" and select "Terminal", my ability to copy, paste and drag is restored!
However, I have to leave it open all the time and hide it on my toolbar. The "cron" folder is in system/library/startupitems. I know that when I was cleaning out my system to make more memory, I only intended on deleting things I knew I didn't need. At one point I had removed this PBS icon for somewhere but didn't clear it from trash when I got the message that it was important. When I reported the recent history of my problems, I had forgotten about that PBS icon.
Do you know if I can move it somewhere, maybe create a PBS folder in the startup icons folder, and do so safely? If so will I still have to manually "Open With -terminal" everytime I restart my computer (which is what I have to do now w/ the PBS in order to maintain cut/paste/drag)?
Either way, it seems I'm on the brink of designating this problem, "resolved".

Thank you so much,
Byz816

Power Mac G4 Mac OS X (10.3.4)

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Answer 5

Dec 7, 2005 8:30 AM in response to Byzantium816

Byz816

Do you know if I can move it somewhere, maybe create a PBS folder in the startup icons folder, and do so safely?

OK, here is where this file belongs: "/System/Library/CoreServices/pbs". "pbs" is the pasteboard server. It should not be opened by a user, in Terminal or anything else.

You shouldn't touch anything in the "System" hierarchy. You will find it difficult to put this back without using Terminal. Is it still on your Desktop?

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Answer 6

Dec 7, 2005 10:33 AM in response to Byzantium816

Cut, Copy and Paste commands don't work
•Drag the file to the desktop/Trash....
~/library/preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
• log out and log back in.

george

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Answer 7

Dec 7, 2005 10:50 AM in response to George Orville

George

While this may help in a lot of cases, it won't help here. The OP has managed to move a vital part of the OS out of its proper location. If 'pbs' is not in its correct place, it will not get started at boot time, thus copy and paste will never work. 'pbs' is much more fundamental than the Finder, so deleting Finder's preferences is not going to affect it.

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Answer 8

Byzantium816 Author

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Dec 26, 2005 7:58 AM in response to Michael Conniff

The pbs icon is still on the desktop. Michael you are correct that it is difficult to put back into system/library/coreservices. I get a message that it cannot be moved because core services cannot be modified.

While it is on the desktop, if I right click on it and hit open with: terminal, it opens and proceeds to work just fine, but I have to do this manually every time I restart the computer.

If we ever get this back where it belongs, I promise I'll never touch anything in the sysytem hierarchy again.

I understand from the posts from George re: this issue, below, that his response pertains more for system/preferences than it does for system/library/core services.

Thank you for your time and insight,

Byz816

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Answer 9

Jan 5, 2006 10:24 AM in response to Byzantium816

Byz816

Sorry to be so slow getting back to you … the holidays and everything!

The pbs icon is still on the desktop. Michael you are correct that it is difficult to put back into system/library/coreservices. I get a message that it cannot be moved because core services cannot be modified.

Then you will need to resort to Terminal, while logged on as an 'admin' user. I hope the 'pbs' file is on this admin user's desktop! If not post back giving the full path name to it, e.g. "/Users/<username>/Desktop/pbs".

Open the Terminal (from /Applications/Utilities) and copy and paste the following into the Terminal window:

sudo mv ~/Desktop/pbs /System/Library/CoreServices/

Press return and you will be prompted for your password. This is not echoed for security reasons: just type it and press return.

If you haven't used 'sudo' before, you will receive a little lecture before being prompted for the password. Read it and continue 🙂

If it doesn't complain about anything, make sure the ownership and permissions on 'pbs' are correct by copying and pasting the following into the Terminal window, one line at a time, with a return after each line:

sudo chown root:wheel /System/Library/CoreServices/pbs
sudo chmod 755 /System/Library/CoreServices/pbs

You will not be asked for your password again as long as you do these within 5 minutes of the previous 'sudo'.

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