I don't seem to be able to copy and paste any more. Not sure what I did to cause it.
I've tried doing it in several programs, including notepad.
Is there a quick and simple fix for this problem, that doesn't involve restarting my pc?
Super User is a question and answer site for computer enthusiasts and power users. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this communityFound a solution here
Run the following: cmd /c "echo off | clip"
You can even make it into a desktop shortcut if the problem keeps happening.
For me the problem was happening only when there was a RDP session open to another machine. After closing RDC, clipboard started working again.
If this is over Remote Desktop (RDP) then ensure that rdpclip.exe is running on the remote machine. You can start it using Win+R and then rdpclip
There's probably an app that's "locked" the clipboard. Try and work out what app has done that and close it.
In my case it was a hung Greenshot.
None of the above solutions worked for me. This one however did: http://sys-talk.blogspot.com/2009/04/clip-board-not-working-in-windows-xp.html (I am pasting the urls from the browser:) ) Generally, this tool locates an app that is holding the clipboard. For me, it was Xserver. For you, who knows.
Simple fix: Try to restart your PC. Doesn't get more simple than that.
As for the possible reasons:
Windows Notepad may be unable to handle excessively large content, or content with special characters. Although Notepad will generally strip out unsupported character set encodings or control characters, it is first and foremost a simple text file editor.
In my case, I had pasted a large amount of code from my development environment, which apparently overwhelmed Notepad. Even running the command to manually clear the clipboard failed. [cmd /c "echo off | clip"]
As per Mathew Lock's suggestion of an Application that had locked the Windows clipboard, I narrowed down the culprit to that of Notepad. Immediately upon terminating my NOTEPAD process, the lock on Windows Clipboard was freed.
Kill "explorer.exe" process, it was the source of my problem, when I killed itm, copy/paste started working again. Note that you apps bar will disapper, and you will need to execute explorer.exe from taskmgr, New task.
Other option is from free Systernals app "process explorer", selected explorer.exe , then "Properties", "Threads" tab, select "Ole32.dll" and then click "kill".
After killing the thread i was not able to reproduce again the mistake.