Copy Cut and Paste Not Working

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Level 1

21 points

Copy Cut and Paste Not Working

Hi to all,

This morning started out fine, just another day on the Mac. And then, for no apparent reason, my MacBook Pro stopped copying (or cutting) and pasting. I can't copy a thing from ANY app and can't paste into any app that would otherwise accept it.

The blasted thing just keeps pasting the last thing that was in its clipboard.

I've tried every idea from multiple threads in here and elsewhere.

1) two terminal solutions ("killall pboard" and "sudo update_dyld_shared_cache"). The latter sounded hopeful... discussions.apple.com/thread/8107698

2) Activity Monitor and pboard (all apps quit first)

3) shutting down and re-booting

4) did an upgrade to Mac's OS - discovered that I had not done this yet, so was hoping this might address it. So I am now running 10.13.6

5) screwdriver jammed into USB port (mostly for revenge) - not really. ;-)

Some people have reported that the first 3 fixed the problem. Some of those reported it was only temporary. I can't find any (or a group of folks

I have not re-installed the OS, nor "safe" mode. The latter hasn't worked for anyone and the former is onerous, am hoping that someone knows a solution that I've missed.

One last bit of info which may or may not be a hint...

My iPad pro works fine, no problems with pasting anything copied or cut from iPad Pro. But if I copy some text in iPad, I can't paste that into my Mac, either. That used to work wonderfully (I love that feature).

I did a search on this for Google, limiting results to last month, and there's not much. So it doesn't sound like Mac has done any upgrades to cause this.

To the best of my memory, that's it. Does anyone know of a fix for this?

Thanks very much in advance,

Ken

Posted on Jul 14, 2018 9:48 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Ken.E Author

Level 1

21 points

Jul 14, 2018 11:12 AM in response to Ken.E

Good news! But it's embarrassing...

This was self-inflicted.

I was setting up a keystroke command in Keyboard Maestro ("KM") when I was interrupted by a call. You can probably guess the rest, so I'll save the part about getting distracted with something else off-computer after the call.

I finally went back to completing a post in a forum elsewhere, which is where I needed to use the new keyed command (and will be using it frequently in the future). That took me back to KM to finish the setup.

The problem? I didn't think I had completed the setup. But I had, saving it to the worst keystroke combo possible, Command+v. I've no idea how I did that since it was going to be option-control-y (in a "family" of related option-control commands).

So yeah...

It turns out that KM's Command+v overrides the Mac's! And that explains how I kept getting the same text, no matter what I cut or copied beforehand.

Sorry about that. If there's a moderator around, feel free to delete. Or if you feel it's an object lesson in the potential for self-inflicted injury, leave it be.

It does point out one good question to ask that I didn't see in any other thread...

"Do you have any software that inserts text into the clipboard? If so, were you using it before this problem happened?"

Hey - I'm trying to turn a 🍋 into some lemonade here.😳

If there had been no phone call or distraction after the call, and even if I had saved it as command-V at the time (not likely), I would have realized the problem with my very next paste. But life happens and time goes by - so it seems reasonable to ask.

I mean, Command+v? It's the last keystroke combo that anyone would use. When I typed the post above, I had checked everything in these forums and elsewhere - but never made the connection...

I still have no idea how I saved it as Command+v - I should probably double my meds.

Sorry about that.

All the best,

Ken

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Answer 2

Aug 8, 2018 1:11 AM in response to Ken.E

No need to delete this post--you make a good point that some people (probably only a few, but that's plenty) experiencing copy/paste or other problems related to Command, Control, Option, Shift, etc. system-standard key combos might have installed some kind of software that can modify command, etc. key combinations, and it might have gone funky, or in your case, the user may have inadvertently assigned a system keystroke combo to some other function.

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Answer 3

Old Toad

Level 10

216,208 points

Jul 14, 2018 11:18 AM in response to Ken.E

You should mark your second post as solved so others will know there's a solution here.

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Copy Cut and Paste Not Working

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