Copy & Paste not always working - randomly

[Shigaugis]

Hi all,

This is a very frustrating bug - around 50% of the times copy & paste won't work. I select an object, press ctrl+C, and then pressing ctrl+V produces nothing as if the clipboard is empty.

I cannot reproduce it as it seems random, sometimes it will copy & paste, sometimes it won't.

This makes working with Illustrator extremely hard.

Might be worth mentioning that copy-pasting from Illustrator into Photoshop resembles the same buggy behavior - it will randomly work or not.

Please advise on how to resolve this.

Cheers

[praveenkumarpgiindia]

I am working with Adobe Illustrator. I am having the same copy-paste issues. It seriously wastes our time and mind. Please have a clear fix. We have tried all those methodologies mentioned here. None works. The problem is only with objects like rectangles and triangles, which are like building blocks for any of the works. 

[praveenkumarpgiindia]

I am also having the same bug. Copy-paste is not working on objects. Very irritating and spoils the speed of work. 

[Monika Gause · Accepted solution]

Is any clipboard enhancing app installed?

Can you try if turning off the SVG option in Preferences > File Handling and Clipboard helps?

[satria03 · Accepted solution]

wah... thank you sooo much!!! after all the methods I've tried, finally this "turning off the SVG option in Preferences" method can solve my "copy-paste Lag/Bug" problem in my Adobe Illustrator.

thankyu very much!

[jasonm51191833]

Thank you!!!! SO frustrating.  Now it appears to be a non issue.

[Zach_from_Inikosoft]

THANK YOU! This has been killing me and I thought it was my computer breaking down. So much better now. 

[FloridaFatherOf3]

I wish this worked for me. Turned off the SVG and PDF settings in Preferences and still can't copy/paste certain objects or text. It is a serious flaw and major time waster. Wish this video showed the Edit menu where "Paste" is not an option after "Copy". https://www.loom.com/share/291ee58e9b3343a2a289a39f16f3e24b

[FloridaFatherOf3]

I don't know who marked this the "correct" answer, but it doesn't solve the problem.

[Monika Gause]

There are different solutions for different people with this. Most probably you need to search for the app that ruins the clipboard in your case.

[Jason5C88]

Done wasting my life with this stupid problem. Switching back over to Corel Draw 🙂

Jason Scott​

personal details removed by moderator

[Tam5E4C]

Thank you so so much! You are my life savior!!!

[Graphics5FE1]

Thank you!! This has been such a frustrating issue.

[darakhshank12518645]

Are you using any backup or sync services , like google drive or dropbox or icloud . 

if yes , try to quit the sync/ backup. 

[amonserrano1]

I have the same issue, currently using version 24.1.1 but had this problem with previous versions 22 and 23 too. still the same... Never had it with the good old CS5

Tried resetting preferences many times - from Illustrator, from Windows (deleting pref files from AppData/Roamign folder) and also the trick with ALT-CTRL-SHIFT ... none of them solves the issue permanently. The only thing works temporarily is restarting Illustrator everytime when stops working. when I exit  Illustrator it clears the Clipboard and after restart i can use the Paste tool - once or twice and then starts again... very very frustrating.

does not matter what file what shape...

[Monika Gause]

Is a clipboard enhancing tool installed?

What else is running?

For most people this issue is caused by other applications interfering. You only have to find out which one it is. There are several threads on the same issue that list several apps causing it.

[amonserrano1]

Thanks. I do not have any extra clipboard tool installed and usually I run Chrome and Outlook, but these are not affecting it as the problem occurs when these are closed or after the computer freshly restarted and only Illustrator running. (+some apps in the background like onedrive, Skype, CC Desktop and antivirus+ whatever Win10 running in the background) . I understand maybe interferring with other apps but maybe it should not ? these are very standard apps, i have nothing special running or installed. do not use the clipboard in any other apps apart from Illustrator... 

tried founding solutions online, as said it is a problem for years now for me but all i read is to reset the preferences or it is an other app... but no idea what it can be and surely more could be done to investigate (reinstall the whole computer or similar but i do not have time for this and actually I gave up rather   - luckly i do not need to use Illustrator every day... 

[amonserrano1]

sorry one more thing i noticed during the years... it only happens if a geometry copied to the clipboard, if it is a text, then always able to Paste it... I think a read this in other people's posts too..

[Monika Gause]

Is the antivirus Digital Guardian? If so: it's known to cause issues: https://community.adobe.com/t5/illustrator/copy-paste-crashes-illustrator/td-p/9293580?page=1

When other apps interfere, how should Illustrator prevent them?

[Death0D4C]

Hi i use adobe product since 2002 there was no problem at all with copy/paste function.
But now i am strugling with this kind of problem like you. I bought a ryzen 9 3900x processor and it has 12 physical and 24 emulated cores...AAAAAND that is the problem!

I figured out Illustrator is strugling if you have more than 4 cores. My i5 never had this issue before. [it has only 4 cores]

I recently have this copy issue and my CPU usage were around 30% process only on illustrator process with no active calculating. And copy/paste function not working. Now i have 8% with no active use, illustrator is in background because i write this message in the meantime.

So in task manager [ctrl+shift+esc] / DETAILS tab / click on illustrator.exe / right click / set affinity / ALLOW ONLY 4 CORES

It's working now...
So Adobe, please move on with time, and please support our multi core machines. thanks
sry for my bad english

[FloridaFatherOf3]

Tried this too. No luck. Same issue continues.

[theresaw53474723]

Thank you satria03! I read your post to see where you got your answer from, couldn't find it so I just turned off my SVG option and BAM, it works! I work for a printing company, we don't do web design so I don't think I'll have an issue with it being off. 

[satria03]

your welcome

[chencongz56628862]

If you keep the object selected, it would end up being copied.

Meaning don't click anywhere else after you select and copy it.

[Lagrotan]

Same issue here. Both shortcut and menu are not working, exactly like in the video that Evilspam posted here in this thread. It happens even in Illustrator 25.2, newest update I installed. It happens irregardless of what I have running in the background. If I restart the system (Windows 10) and run only Illustrator it still happens.
I turned off "Include SVG code", I tried to reset preferences, it didn't help. It happens with cut and paste, copy paste, copy in front...
It's very time consuming, because you have to undo and try again many times if it's failing.
But also I have lost work because of this, because I didn't notice cut and paste didn't work. Basically cut and paste would delete parts of my graphic.

[FloridaFatherOf3]

Same. Have tried all of the solutions on this tread and no joy. Same issue constantly. Where is Freehand when you need it? lol