Copy and paste bug in Chrome address bar which seems to be a Mac issue

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Level 1

13 points

Copy and paste bug in Chrome address bar which seems to be a Mac issue

Hi kind helpers ...I have an issue that started several weeks ago and I've been through a painfully time-consuming journey to fix without success.

When I copy an unsecured URL, eg www.apple.com (which I'm using as my test page), in the address bar of Chrome, then paste it ...it doesn't paste the address. It pastes a lengthy list of the folder directories on my computer including my Library folders.

It behaves differently, depending where i paste it:

TextEdit: pastes a series of folder images
In apps that use plain text, it's a text list
Some apps hang or quit
In the app ClipBuddy, it creates a folder titled "Applications bin cores dev etc home Incompatible Software in" containing the list of directories
If I paste into a new tab, it pastes "file://localhost/.dbfseventsd"

I have Googled both these without much luck, except to discover that dbfseventsd is related to Dropbox.

When the problem started I was happily still on Mountain Lion (I missed the chance to update to Mavericks and wasn't ready for Yosemite).

I have done everything I can think of:

run diagnostics, clean-ups, anti-virus - everything is fine
cleared Chrome's caches and reinstalled it ...three times
updated to Yosemite
trawled the internet for information
posted queries on Chrome. One person says she has the same problem. The advice was to clean up Chrome.

Updating to Yosemite caused me days of work to get everything sorted out and now my computer has slowed to a painful crawl. I've spent in total about a week of time on this but the problem won't go away.

I have a lot of work on at the moment and am deeply frustrated. For example I can no longer swipe scroll in Finder windows. [hair pulling]

What worries me is the potential security breach. How can an address in my browser convert into a sensitive list of my directories?

Before you suggest I stop using Chrome, that's not my preference. It suits me best. In any case I want to get to the bottom of this issue in case it's related to my Mac or Dropbox.

Thanks for your help

Sue 😕

iMac, OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)

Posted on May 11, 2015 3:13 AM

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Answer 1

Drew Reece

Level 6

10,660 points

Jul 21, 2015 9:34 AM in response to CarlScheider

CarlScheider wrote:

I have it - had the problem, found a fix on an old discussion of this problem.

My problem was that the COPY would not work in Chrome. Paste is fine - COPY never, no matter how I did it.

Fix:

You actually have to allow Microsoft Internet Explorer access to the clipboard and Chrome will inherit those settings.

That should work. The above instructions may vary depending on the IE version installed.

Try it - worked for me.

The issue reported here is for a Mac - there is no IE for Mac OS Yosemite, your fix won't work on OS X.

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Answer 2

SeaPapp

Level 7

26,486 points

May 11, 2015 3:56 AM in response to soobrett

Have you tested another browser to see if the problem persists there? If you don't want to use Safari have you tested Firefox? If the problem doesn't exist in another browser why would you suspect that it's a "Mac issue"? Considering the way Google collects and handles user data it wouldn't surprise me a bit that the issue is built into Chrome.

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Answer 3

May 13, 2015 1:56 AM in response to soobrett

I'm getting the same issue, @soobrett did you find a fix for this?

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Answer 4

soobrett Author

Level 1

13 points

May 15, 2015 1:40 AM in response to PaulCripps

@paulcripps Hi ....good to know I'm not a lone voice in the wilderness. This problem has caused me sooo much time and frustration. And no, I'm sorry to say I haven't found a fix. I wish. I now type URLs by hand into my documents and emails, which is a real pain. But my concern is the possible security breach. It's worrying when things aren't behaving properly and I'm annoyed that Google hasn't responded to my pleas for help.

@Mike Sombrio Thanks for your suggestion. Yes, I tried other browsers right at the beginning. It's just Chrome. A browser that converts an URL – including www.apple.com –into a directory list is a Mac issue. In my mind. Because it seems to me it's a shortcut or scripting bug. But then I'm not a tech person, I'm a designer.

Sigh ...still waiting for a knight in shining armour to throw light on this issue!

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Answer 5

SeaPapp

Level 7

26,486 points

May 15, 2015 3:57 AM in response to soobrett

Stop using Chrome. Problem solved.

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Answer 6

Drew Reece

Level 6

10,660 points

May 15, 2015 11:19 AM in response to soobrett

Disable any extensions & retest in Chrome.

Retest with Chrome Canary… (the latest Chrome development version)…

https://www.google.com/chrome/browser/canary.html

If you have any system wide tools that manage the OS X clipboard disable & quit them. Is it possible 'clip buddy' may be modifying the copy process?

Try the same action in another user account, (create one for testing in System Preferences > User & groups).

Try the same action in safe mode…

Try safe mode if your Mac doesn't finish starting up - Apple Support

Report back with the results.

P.S. Does it differ if you drag the URL onto the Desktop or into a folder or onto a TextEdit document?

How are you doing the copy - right click, via the Edit menu, via a shortcut or some other way?

Dragging & cmd+C work fine for me in Chrome 42.0.2311.152 (64-bit) on OS 10.9.5

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Answer 7

manoogs

Level 1

0 points

Jun 1, 2015 11:04 AM in response to soobrett

Hi Sue, can you please paste your list of installed (and enabled) Chrome extensions?

Thanks!

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Answer 8

soobrett Author

Level 1

13 points

Jun 8, 2015 2:43 AM in response to manoogs

Hi Drew and Manoogs

Thanks for your responses and I'm sorry I missed them. I've been tied up with a big web design project for the past few weeks, so I'm only just reviewing the situation.

My issue happened in Chrome version 42.0.2311.135 but since it updated to 43.0.2357.81 the problem has vanished. Or maybe it was one of my Chrome extensions updating. I promise you both I did everything I could think of to get to the bottom of it, tested every way of copying and pasting etc etc and did the usual checks by disabling Chrome's extensions to test the error and nothing seemed to make a difference. But it's gone now, yay!

If anyone reading this has the same extremely mysterious problem, make sure you update Chrome and hopefully it will go away all by itself.

Cheers

Sue

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Answer 9

Jul 21, 2015 9:05 AM in response to soobrett

I have it - had the problem, found a fix on an old discussion of this problem.

My problem was that the COPY would not work in Chrome. Paste is fine - COPY never, no matter how I did it.

Fix:

You actually have to allow Microsoft Internet Explorer access to the clipboard and Chrome will inherit those settings.

1. Open IE

2. Go to "Tools...", "Internet Options"

3. Click "Security" Tab

4. Click "Custom level..."

5. Find "Allow Programmatic clipboard access"

6. OK

That should work. The above instructions may vary depending on the IE version installed.

Try it - worked for me.

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