Copy/Paste between programs stops working in Yosemite until restart

Question

Copy/Paste between programs stops working in Yosemite until restart

This is a rather peculiar issue I'm having with Yosemite (full stable release) on my Macbook Pro Late-2011.

After a while, copy/paste refuses to work, both in Finder and between programs. This means that if I try, for example, to copy a file to a different location (using both keyboard and EDIT>COPY/PASTE), nothing happens. This also occurs for text, such that copying text in any program (even, say, TextEdit) does not seem to work. Furthermore, drag and drop appears to be similarly afflicted: if I try to drag a file from, say, the Desktop into a folder in Finder, the file stays put (and the 'shadow' file does not follow the mouse cursor upon clicking + holding, and dragging.

All these issues are resolved by a reboot, for a short period at least, before they appear again.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

MacBook Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10)

Posted on Oct 23, 2014 2:57 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Oct 23, 2014 3:16 AM in response to thepyrrhonist

Hi ..

A Safe Mode boot deletes some system caches that may help after an OS X upgrade.

Top left corner of your screen click the Apple  > Shut Down.

After your Mac shuts down, wait 10 seconds, then press the power button.

Immediately after you hear the startup tone, hold down the Shift key. You should press the Shift key as soon as possible after you hear the startup tone, but not before.

Release the Shift key when you see the gray Apple logo and progress indicator.

Once you are in Safe Mode, go back to the Apple  menu. From the drop down menu click: Restart

Then try copy/paste and moving files or folders.

About Safe Mode.

Reply