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

[Monika Gause]

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@ivobachkov  schrieb:

It's one year later, bug's still roaming, nothing fixes that - no updates, no leaving it as the only app working (no taskbar or background processes that may cause shortcut interference). 

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Also nothing turned on in the system settings that cause interference?

Please post this to https://illustrator.uservoice.com 

Because in this long thread the engineers won't ever read it. They do not read the forum. anyway.

[chryssalid]

Crashing or not crashing it slows down working... I have another "great" experience with Adobe Cloud in Illustrator. On my first computer it remembers the folder location I was in last time, on the other it doesn't xD. Why? Who knows 😄

[Fl0w]

Well i have exactly the same issue and i don't even talk about the other bugs. Serioulsy Adobe is shitting on us without any regard. I can't use it anymore has a professionnal, i have too many times, try to fix or work around problem. But here a f*cking Ctrl + C / Ctrl + V not working ONLY on adobe is way too much for me.
My best advice, give a try to Affinity Designer and forget about illustrator. 

[Monika Gause]

Find the application that is interfering with your clipboard and turn it off.

For some people it was Apple Mail. But it can be yoiur browser or any of its plugins, antivirus, some clipboard "enhancer", Office and a couple other apps.

If you find that the inability of copying and pasting impedes your workflow then I'm not quite sure what you think switching to Affinity Designer will do.

[edgarr18001756]

Hello,
I also have this f#ct up problem since im working with Windows 11 ( before working with windows 11 i still used windows 7 till 2022 )

Well sometimes i have to press CTRL + C about 3 seconds and the clipboard appears in the right corner of windows.
After this ''appeared'' i can past the copied item.

So try to press CTRL +C for about 3 seconds, maybe works with you also..

I think its also a Windows 11 or 10 clipboard issue..

[edgarr18001756]

well, it works 'better' but not the solution, because sometimes it doesnt work..

[edgarr18001756 · Accepted solution]

Here is an update of my issue of copy and paste in Illustrator.
Have switched keyboard, Now using Logitech keyboard and mouse on the same wireless usb dongle.

I must say, problem is gone.

So maybe this issue also can be caused by keyboard set up..

[ericc19576445]

Adobe needs to put the entire Illustrator dev staff on probation. The amount of bugs I deal with daily keep piling up. Nothing ever gets resolved. EVER!!!! I'm dealing with year 10+ on some of them, but the most annoying hands down is this new copy paste issue as well as the selection tool innacurracies on 4k or with stylus based systems. I ahve to zoom in to 1600% on a rectangle just to be able to move it rather than rotate it or scale it. Sometimes scaling rotates and object and sometimes rotating scales. 

Illustrator feels like freaking surgery these days. It takes minutes to do what should take seconds and those minutes add up. Not to mention how hard it is to find a groove in your workflow when Illustrator is always the number 1 blocker.

The other is this phantom bug that removes Illustrator from focus in windows randomly. You have to go to the toolbar and click illustrator to refocus. Imagine just having to ignore these 3 major bugs multiple times per hour, every day. I have 3+ PCs and all these behaviors happen on all 3 and they are all using different OS, peripherals, etc.

[martinkrz]

I've been having this problem for years. Briefly, ctrl-c from photoshop and ctrl-v into illustrator most of the time pastes the object most recently pasted but not the one in the clipboard.

All the suggestions that have been posted by others are innane. 

1. No, it's not "something interfering with keyboard shortcuts" problem. The item that has been ctrl+c cut from photoshop does exist in the clipboard and can be pasted into any other application with 100% success (e.g. keynote).

2. No, it's not "something is interfering with the clipboard" problem. This can be demonstrated easily by #1 above.

3. No, it's not "delete your preferences" issue. This does nothing. And also, if this was indeed a solution then why would I settle for it? Now I have to reconstruct my carefully tweaked preferences. Oh, Adobe, it's time to add a "search" in the preferences panel for all your products. They're out of control.

4. No, it's not "reinstall the application" issue.

5. No, it's not "upgrade to the latest version" issue. The problem has been persisting for years across many versions of Illustrator.

6. No, it's not "upgrade to latest OS" issue. See #5 above.

7. No, "hit ctrl-c several times" in Photoshop is not a solution. There is broadly no correlation. 

It's an Illustrator problem. The copied item always pastes successfully into any other application. 100% of the time. 

The issue is some kind of bizarre bug where, depending on the current state of the stack, the problem arises. Many people have said "I did XYZ and it went away", where XYZ is a different thing for each user. This means that XYZ is not a solution but just indirectly changes the app's stack somehow. 

Illustrator code is brittle, buggy and slow. I'm *this* close to switching to Affinity Designer and the only reason I'm not is because I teach Illustrator. Thereby propagating the nightmare.

[Monika Gause]

I've been having this problem for years. Briefly, ctrl-c from photoshop and ctrl-v into illustrator most of the time pastes the object most recently pasted but not the one in the clipboard.

The default computer clipboard can contain 1 item. You copy another item, then this will erase the previous item. That's how clipboards work. Illustrator will paste whatever is currently in the clipboard. If it doesn't paste the thing that you just copied, then this can point to 2 different things:

1. The copying of the object failed

2. You actually have a system extension installed that enhances the clipboard, because if you can paste the thing into other apps, but not into Illustrator, then there are 2 things in the clipboard.

Illustrator does not cooperate well with those clipboard "enhancers".

Illustrator code is brittle, buggy and slow. I'm *this* close to switching to Affinity Designer and the only reason I'm not is because I teach Illustrator. Thereby propagating the nightmare.

By @martinkrz

If the copy-paste issue already limits your workflow then you'll be surprised just how much using Affinity Dersigner will impact yoiur workflow.

[Met1]

"I've been having this problem for years" "I teach Illustrator"

Hmmm... So over the "years" all of your students suffered from exactly this problem too?

Absolutely no one else has "been having this problem for years" guaranteed. It's a fundamental use of the app, so having this problem would be all over this forum. Every time someone does have an issue with copy paste, it's a third party utility or software issues with third party peripherals.

Therefore it's your particular set up.

[martinkrz]

Thanks for the helpful reply.

[Met1]

You're most welcome.

[JoAdams]

Please - can you advise HOW to eliminate this issue, the last 3-4 months have been horrendous with this issue. When we need this functionality - The only thing I can suspect is logitech MX master mouse? 

If it was a software conflict, why just reset preferences every time, Adobe changes settings in my computer that affect other aspects of my workflow to make their fix seem wonderful.... it lasts half a day then back to not working again. It is utterly painful.

[biskis]

Living with this problem for a number of years now... I agree with @martinkrz 100%, it's an Adobe Illustrator problem, but probably too small for them to care. Probably we will see GTA 7 sooner than this problem getting fixed... 😄

[chryssalid]

I can confirm that the issue still exists in 2024. In my case it is ALWAYS when I switch windows too fast (to the destination app) after CTRL+C. It looks like Illustrator needs some time to copy the image and if something interrupts this process (like loosing window focus) it is cancelled. It is also the case in the Illustrator tabs itself - if I switch tab too fast - result is the same as above.

[Scarlett.3369]

this is still an issue, Not a keyboard issue, reset peferances, no clipboard apps installed, SVG has been turned off for awhile because having that on greatly slows down work with somef files. Yet still not ways pasting after hiting copy and it only happens with illustrator randomly. I swear everytime they put out an update something else is messed up.