Copy/Paste broken in MacOS Sierra

So here is my current understanding of the cause of this and a solution that is little bit better than what has been proposed here by others.

There is are two system processes

/usr/libexec/pboard

/System/Library/CoreServices/pbs

Looks like these processes are responsible for holding and maintaining the paste buffer ( OS X name for the clipboard). These processes also maintain a system socket that other application talk to, that's how they can exchange the cut and paste material

There was a change introduced in the past few month that causes this processes to to fail and quit sometimes. They may or may not get automatically restarted by the OS X. But even when they do get restarted,

But even after the process is restarted the other applications are still trying to talk to the old socket. For which nobody is listening to.

So my solution is to check if these processing are running, if not restart them. And then restart the applications for which the Cut and Paste is broken.

This is not ideal solution, it's pain to restart Google Chrome and PyCharm with dozens of tabs and windows open, but that's bit better than restarting everything

I am running into the same issue and I think I found the culprit.

First, let me state that reboot fixes the issue... but not cool.

Killing the pboard process did not help in my case.

Paste does work but it contains always the old content of the clipboard.

Strangely, if you test in chrome to copy paste in the URL bar, things work fine 😮

The 'solution' I found is to kill chrome and restart it, then everything rolls again. This is at least better than having to reboot.

Hello,

This is a while ago,

I upgraded iMAC and MBP to Sierra. Only iMAC had this problem.

Not a perfect solution, but I made a partition to HD and made a clean install to another partition. Then I used migration assistant to move individual components from the original (problematic) system.

I found the problem was specifically associated with importing my personal settings. Importing applications did not cause the problem. So I only imported applications. Later I copied my other work-related documents and photos, etc manually, and also manually set up my environment under new partition.

Problem never showed up since I started working with this new copy.

I still do not know what specifically in my personal setting caused this issue.

In case it helps.

I solved my "copy/paste" problem.

It wasn't copy/paste at the root of it. It was SIP, which was interfering with my Paragon NTFS for Mac. High Sierra had apparently disabled write access to my NTFS partitions. I had to boot to the recovery partition to use Terminal to enter "csrutil disable" to disable SIP. After reboot, Paragon was able to let me change permissions on those disks. I presume it will now be safe to reenable SIP.

I don't know if someone has already but the fix is in Stackoverflow: high sierra - clipboard not working after Security Update - Ask Different, namely rebuild the cache for for shared system services with this obscure command as superuser:

sudo update_dyld_shared_cache

I am finding it worse with Preview but having to go and quit pboard is resetting it. Apple do need to look at it I think.

[SOLVED] After reading and trying every tricks in the book: erasing .pbody files, killall .pbs, clearing pram memory, repairing disk permission, messing with the Terminal command... I resign and decided to do a clean install. Well guess what ? Right after my time machine backup the copy/paste function worked again. So I guess it's a memory problem somehow.

Read my replies to the same thread and see if what happens to me also applies to you. Do you have NTFS partitions, and are you using Paragon's software to paste into them?

Probably the first thing to do is to look at the Info for the disk you are trying to copy into and see if you have write access.

Yes, THANK YOU I use another app called Copied and as soon as I closed it down Copy and Paste in Excel starting working again as normal.

Same problem here, not good enough to say small numbers only, many people never use this facility. the pboard deletion reactivated it for me but it is possible working in Terminal with Cut and Paste knocks it out again, I did the OSX Sierra upgrade a few weeks ago but also did a Terminal/ Command Lines 10.13 for Xcode upgrade and it might have been from that--just a possibility. I think the finger does point to Sierra upgrade or Terminal.

Thanks for the suggestion but I tried that and it didn't work. Also I have now fixed the problem in a way that seems good enough to me. I used the Time Machine function to revert to an older setting, and I have disabled Apple's automated updates to prevent further issues. My laptop should function in its current mode till replacement some years down the track, I hope. We'll see!

Knock me over with a feather!

I just downloaded Microsoft Remote Desktop as suggested and it worked!!!

Amazing that it took Microsoft fixed an Apple OS Bug....

I think I finally solved the copy / past problem!

But I had to re-install the system again.

Apparently it's working!

Mr Sequeira,

I have read your comments in this thread carefully. I strongly urge you to desist from contributing further. You are provocative without reason.

With all due respect, you do not, in fact, assist people with actual knowledge or useful suggestions. Rather, you seek to debate the virtue of the brand and silence those who do not wave the Apple flag with sufficient vigour.

With respect to the flaws in the OS, and in the Apple software such as Pages, it is clear that Apple do not see themselves as serious manufacturers of professional grade word processing software. The support they have offered with respect to this issue, over more than four years of recurring failures, is highly instructive. They will both invest time and treasure into excellence, or even competence in this regard. They just don't care about word processing.

Therefore, if you rely upon word processing for work, get a different brand machine. If you wish to surf the web on a small, elegant machine, and show off a popular brand to your peers, buy another Apple computer.

There is nothing wrong with fashion, and wanting to be seen as modern and strictly conformist. Nor is there anything wrong with strict functionality. Do you need a hat to protect you from the sun, or do you want one to wear to the show?

This issue has been around for many years and has not been fixed or even treated seriously.

cynik wrote:

Mr Sequeira,

I have read your comments in this thread carefully. I strongly urge you to desist from contributing further. You are provocative without reason.

It was not Luis who was being provocative. Luis provided accurate help and never rose to the bait that the other poster was dangling. And, as long as anyone is within the Terms of Use, they are free to continue posting. Telling them not to is very poor form.

I really don't understand people who have just signed up and then feel it's acceptable to dictate to people who've provided as much help to others as has Luis.