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Cannot copy paste (both in normal and in safe mode). clipboard empty

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  • Last reply by cor-el

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I cannot copy any text to clipboard (including the URL from the address bar), even in Safe Mode.

What I've tried:

  • safe mode
  • copying via ctrl+C and right-click -> copy, then pasting into a different app (like notepad). Clipboard is empty.
  • tried copying both web page content and URL.
  • pasting content from the clipboard (from other apps) into Firefox works.

Other info:

  • Works in other apps so it's Firefox specific
  • Does not work in safe mode so it's not an extension
  • Cannot copy the information from about:support
  • Firefox 51.0.1
I cannot copy any text to clipboard (including the URL from the address bar), even in Safe Mode. What I've tried: * safe mode * copying via ctrl+C and right-click -> copy, then pasting into a different app (like notepad). Clipboard is empty. * tried copying both web page content and URL. * pasting content from the clipboard (from other apps) into Firefox works. Other info: * Works in other apps so it's Firefox specific * Does not work in safe mode so it's not an extension * Cannot copy the information from about:support * Firefox 51.0.1

Modified by lazyfirecloud

All Replies (3)

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Can you copy and paste from Firefox in Firefox?

Does this also happen if you copy plain text to the clipboard because applications that aren't fully Unicode compatible might get confused by the format(s) that Firefox places on the clipboard (text/unicode).

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Sorry, I forgot to mention that copy pasting within Firefox was my original problem.

I went to external apps to determine whether it was the copying or the pasting that was the issue (it's the copying). By external app, I'm specifically using Notepad++.

I highly doubt it's a unicode issue since I can't copy URLs from the address bar (e.g. www.google.com), I can't copy code from my Jupyter notebooks, etc.

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Boot the computer in Windows Safe Mode with network support (press F8 on the boot screen or hold down the Shift key) to see if that has effect.


Do a malware check with several malware scanning programs on the Windows computer.

Please scan with all programs because each program detects different malware. All these programs have free versions.

Make sure you update each program to get the latest version of their databases before doing a scan.

You can also do a check for a rootkit infection with TDSSKiller.

See also: