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Drag and drop in finder stops working

I recently updated to El Capitan on my mid 2012 macbook pro retina. After the updated the drag'n'drop functionality in finder drops out randomly. I can copy and paste with my keyboard, but dragging and dropping files within finder or between finder and other applications doesn't work. This usually happens when my mac has been running for a few days. Logging out and in again solves the problem.

Google searches have all come up emtpy.

Anyone got a clue?

-Frímann

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.4)

Posted on Apr 1, 2016 3:17 AM

Best reply

Alex-Turner

Level 2

148 points

Posted on Apr 1, 2016 3:24 AM

Simply restart the Finder First, which is quite easy:

1. Hit Command+Option+Escape to bring up the “Force Quit” menu

2. Choose “Finder” from the list and click on ‘Relaunch’ to quit and re-open the Finder app

3. Close the Force Quit menu

View in context

44 replies

May 12, 2016 12:57 AM in response to cdhw

Thats a good idea. I'll convert those to AppleScript and see what that does...

May 12, 2016 12:59 AM in response to cdhw

Interesting... your link talks about TimeOut being the source of this. I recently installed TimeOut and I think I've been experiencing this error ever since. I'll try to remove TimeOut and see what happens! Damnit, I thought I had found the perfect break reminder 🙂

hgezim

Level 1

14 points

May 12, 2016 4:55 AM in response to frimannkjerulf

That's exactly how I feel!

I've not been running timeout for a week or so now and haven't had any issues since.

Are you using by chance iTerm2?

May 13, 2016 7:12 AM in response to hgezim

I emailed the developer of TimeOut. He knows about the issue, has no idea what's causing this, and got a reply from Apple that they are basicly not trying to fix this.

On another note, then yes I'm using iTerm2. Along with ZSH if that makes any difference. Why? You think there might be a conflict here?

hgezim

Level 1

14 points

May 13, 2016 7:27 AM in response to frimannkjerulf

I suspected iTerm2 as well. Come to think of it, I've only seen this issue since I started using iTerm2 ( beta version, is what I have) and it definitely uses the clipboard unlike TimeOut.

May 13, 2016 7:30 AM in response to hgezim

The developer of TimeOut knows about this so this is definately related to TimeOut. However this seems to be affecting only some users. So iTerm2 might be the missing link. I'm currently testing if TimeOut is the problem. Might be interesting to see if TimeOut would work if iTerm2 is not beeing used.

hgezim

Level 1

14 points

May 13, 2016 7:32 AM in response to frimannkjerulf

Are you able to replicate this reliably?!

May 13, 2016 9:01 AM in response to hgezim

No. This happens just a few times a month.

appreciate

Level 4

1,278 points

May 13, 2016 10:21 AM in response to frimannkjerulf

there are three options to sort out the issue .

1. first of all close all running applications by using key board short key : command + tab + Q . then do a right click on desktop and choose sort by none .

2 . press : command + J then choose sort by none .

3, take your cursor on the top menu bar and select view choose sort by none .

the user can use any one of the method .

May 13, 2016 5:13 PM in response to appreciate

Does this have anything to do with resolving the clipboard issue we're addressing in this thread?

kibin

Level 1

4 points

May 18, 2016 5:39 AM in response to frimannkjerulf

Any updates to this? I have the same issue and use both Timeout2 and Iterm2 beta3, this bug is really annoying

May 18, 2016 6:25 PM in response to kibin

No updates, but I've notified the developer of TimeOut with the possible iTerm2/TimeOut clash. I'll keep you guys posted.

Dejal

Level 1

4 points

May 18, 2016 8:45 PM in response to frimannkjerulf

Hi, I'm the developer of Dejal Time Out.

The aforementioned Radar bug report was written by me. I contacted Apple Developer Technical Support about this issue, offering to spend one of my limited support credits, and they said it was a known issue with no workaround. Not very helpful.

I blogged about this issue and others as "Apple's neglected OS".

The correlation with iTerm2 is interesting; I haven't heard that one before. It does make more sense as a trigger, since it would actually do something with the clipboard. I'd be very interested if one of you could try running Time Out but not iTerm2, to see if the issue still occurs.

kibin

Level 1

4 points

May 18, 2016 11:12 PM in response to frimannkjerulf

In my case in the last few days the bug has been occurring a couple of times a day, so yesterday I found this thread and tried to install iterm2 stable instead of beta, which seemingly solved my problem for now.

Dejal

Level 1

4 points

May 19, 2016 9:50 AM in response to kibin

@kibin, do you use Dejal Time Out as well as iTerm2?

Drag and drop in finder stops working