Hello i_am_brucelee, as stated earlier in another post; try dragging the image you are trying to paste instead of using the regular copy & paste way. Let me know if it works and also know that there is no need to create many posts for the same problem. Let me know if it works or not in a reply below.

That works but I would rather fix the problem than use a workaround like most of the other posts suggest. The reason I started a new post if because none of them answered the question satisfactorily. Copying and pasting text works fine.

What editing software are you trying to paste into?

Does it affect all sites, or just some sites?

Another standard diagnostic step is to try Firefox's Safe Mode to see whether it is caused by a custom setting or add-on.

First, I recommend backing up your Firefox settings in case something goes wrong. See Backing up your information. (You can copy your entire Firefox profile folder somewhere outside of the Mozilla folder.)

Next, restart Firefox in Safe Mode using

Help > Restart with Add-ons Disabled

In the Safe Mode dialog, do not check any boxes, just click "Continue in Safe Mode."

If Copy Image works correctly, this usually points to an add-on or custom setting as the problem.

Possibly related thread: Firefox 12 won't allow Corel PhotoPaint X5 to paste 'New From Clipboard'

I'm trying to paste into Adobe Illustrator, though by your suggestion I tried pasting into another software (photoshop) and it seemed to work fine. Now I feel that the problem might lie with Illustrator, not with Firefox. I tried restarting in safemode and it still just pastes text instead of the picture. It happens on any site across the board. I'll check out your post about Corel PhotoPaint, but most likely going to go scour the Adobe message boards. Thank you for your help and not just posting a workaround.

Well, it is a Firefox thing I'm pretty sure. I think you were on to something in the Corel thread. I opened Internet Exploder... I mean Explorer and the copy/paste worked fine from there. Back to the drawing board I guess...

So Your lead about the clipboard is correct. I still don't know how to fix it yet, but I opened both IE and FF. I opened up Microsoft Word and then opened its clipboard. It keeps multiple 'pastes' visually. So when I copied a picture from FF it showed the picture AND the text location. When I copied a picture from IE, it ONLY showed the picture. So the problem lies in how Illustrator (or Corel) interprets the clipboard copy from Firefox.

I'm having this exact same issue. I just started a new thread about it because this one didn't show up in my search. Copy Image and pasting it directly in to Illustrator CS3 worked just fine the day before yesterday, but started pasting the image URL (the same as Copy Image Location) yesterday. I haven't made any changes to any add-ons or to Illustrator (though it's possible an automatic update has changed something). After reading through this thread, I tried pasting an image into Photoshop, and it works fine for me, and copy/paste into Illustrator from IE works fine, also. I'm extremely interested in resolving this issue without resorting to a workaround.

This issue was once raised as a bug and fixed (286118 – "Copy Image" should only copy image data (not URL) due to incompatability with Windows apps - marked resolved, duplicate of bug marked "worksforme") but perhaps it is back.

Does this problem with Firefox 12 only affect Windows?

Are applications other than Corel PhotoPaint and Adobe Illustrator affected?

I started having the problem this morning right after the update to Firefox 12.0. It is happening with InDesign, and I just tested it in WordPad and it happens there too.

Hi umabawang, thanks for the additional info.

In WordPad you should be able to use Paste Special to choose the bitmap format rather than the text format. In Windows 7, use the drop-down triangle under the Paste button to access Paste Special. On earlier versions, it should be on the Edit menu.

I'm not aware of any workaround for InDesign.

There is a bug in the tracking system for this and a solution is being developed: 749527 – When trying to 'copy' a picture directly from Firefox into a windows live chat box, it copys the image location (link) instead of the image.. Hopefully the fix will be included in Firefox 13 (currently in beta).

If you want to "vote" for the bug to be fixed to increase its importance score, you can register on Bugzilla. The link to vote is next to the word Importance. Please do not add comments to the bug because they are copied to lots of people and excess bug spam can discourage them from helping.

Same problem here - FF12 broke Copy Image and made it like Chrome where it copies the image tag into something like MS Windows Live Writer. Voted up the Bugzilla ticket above, hoping for a fix in FF13 or sooner.

Copying jpegs from various web sites including Google image search pages. Trying to paste into ActiveInspire, a presentation program for Promethian smartboards. Only get the url text instead of the image. Pasting into MS Word 2003 still works. Copying from IE and pasting into ActiveInspire still works. Hate IE though. Stopped working in the last few days, Seems to be an FF 12 problem. Appears to have been OK in 11.

Advice on going back to 11?.

Hi 7802mark, yes, Firefox 12 added additional formats to the clipboard, which has created a problem with some applications. A fix was developed and is expected in Firefox 13, which is due out in about 4 or 5 weeks.

Workarounds include (1) drag and drop from Firefox to the receiving application, (2) a Paste Special feature, if the application supports it, and (3) pasting into an application that can handle the multi-format clipboard data, then copying and pasting from there into the problem program.

Or I suppose you could run the beta of Firefox 13 now if you like. (Edit: I don't know whether it is in the current "beta 2" release or will be in the next beta release.)

For security reasons, it is never recommended to roll back to an earlier version.

I'd like to send you the message I'm getting, but I can't copy it so here's a transcript: "Copy/Cut/Paste is not available in Mozilla and Firefox. Do you want more information on this issue?" OK takes me to https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Midas/Security_preferences All I was trying to do was copy a URL to paste to notepad. Thoughts?? (Seems odd to have to enter an exception for every stinking web page you want to copy from or to!)

Hi dave1310, Firefox has built-in cut, copy and paste features on the Edit menu and on the right-click context menu. It also implements the standard key combinations used on your operating system (e.g., on Windows Ctrl+c to copy). However, to protect websites from reading what's on your clipboard, the little cut/copy/paste buttons on rich text editors on web pages are blocked by default. If you can't use the Firefox features and really need those in-page buttons, then you can consider giving the site access to your clipboard.

13 beta, at least the version I just installed, doesn't fix it.

I too was unable to copy & paste IMAGES suddenly. This function continued to work correctly in my Internet Explorer and Chrome browsers while not working in Firefox. (I WAS able to copy & paste 'TEXT' however in all 3 browsers.)

As described by another poster, I would click on "Copy image" as I always did, but instead of the image appearing when I clicked paste, the URL of the image appeared instead.

My computer developed this problem suddenly yesterday after downloading and installing the newest version of Firefox, which is 12. I tried some of the suggested solutions here to no avail, but I strongly suspected the problem was with Firefox 12. To test this, I re-installed Firefox 11 and immediately my copy & paste function started to work correctly once again and I am now able to copy & paste images once again.

I will not install Firefox 12 again until Firefox corrects this problem. I need this function and do not want to have to deal with a convoluted method of saving a graphic with unnecessary extra steps, thank you. Every single time I upgrade Firefox, something is incompatible with the new version and no longer works. This is always a nuisance, especially when it is my Norton toolbar.

This time it was my copy & paste function (again, for images only.) Anyone else with this problem should re-install Firefox 11 to see if their copy & pasting of images function is suddenly restored, as mine was. Good luck! :)

Funny you should mention that, but I would have sworn the copy/paste worked properly last weekend but didn't when I tried again on Friday. Hummm... yep! 12.0 Since I'm on the "release update channel"m I wonder if I was upgraded during the week? Other than that, the problem is setting permissions for every page. I doing on-line course work and there are dozens of URLs where I need to drop info. Copy, too.