MASTER Copy-Paste doesn't work if the source is closed before the paste

anybody with some knowledge about the internals of the copy/paste system ?

I believe the reporter has just discovered how X's clipboard mechanism works;
there is no persistent store. When you click 'copy', the source window simply
announces that it is claiming the CLIPBOARD selection (others to claim include
PRIMARY and SECONDARY). When you click 'paste', that window is queried for the
contents of the selection. If the window[0] does not exist, it cannot be
queried, and thus you cannot paste.

[0]: Not window as such, but connection to the X server. As soon as that
instance has no connection, it's out.

I confirm this general issue

I confirm this issue as well.

From Daniel Stone answer I understand that this is no bug but the common behaviour of the X clipboard?

Still I (perhaps not only me as I see that this "bug" is reported more than once (see #36165) ) find this behaviour quite strange.

Perhaps I will get used to it but does anybody know if there is a workaround for this issue?

Thanks in advance...

Ubuntu QA guy Simon Law puts it like this:

"Thank you for your report.

This behaviour has always been the case and is a design feature of X11.

You are describing SELECTION and PRIMARY buffers. They were separate and have semantics that are both supported by major X applications. It is unlikely that this will change in the near future, even though more and more applications prefer exposing the PRIMARY buffer in their menu systems."

glipper is a good solution/work around:
http://www.gnomefiles.org/app.php/Glipper

Thanks Marcel :-)

I'll try

FWIW, even windows works this way (as in, once the source window is closed, the data is lost).

Having glipper as a dep would solve this though.

Why should it work this way? Ok, it saves memory, but out of 1GB or so, a few bytes of text isn't going to do much. I think this bug should be confirmed and marked as wishlist

No, windows does not work this way - I just tested it.

Well in the grand scheme of things, how windows works is pretty irrelevant. This is ubuntu, which should work in the way that works best, not just the same way as windows.

I agree on that and I've never said it should work this way just because Windows does.
I was just replying to Sarah Hobbs' comment.

i also have this problem (Bug #11334)

is it possible to solve this problem on Ubuntu 8.04 ?

This would have to be my number 1 "bug" in Ubuntu, I run into it several times a day and is at the top of my wishlist to Santa. I understand it's not bug, it's in fact working perfectly, it's just restrictive and a little frustrating.

This bug definitely is valid, and confirmed by several people. It should probably be wishlist rather than medium though.

I have this bug too!

1960 called and want their copy&paste system back.

Windows 3.11 could do this 15+ years ago.

This bug pisses me off! Fix it!

This is an important bug, and its been 3-4 years since its been reported, and you still haven't fixed it.
Other operating systems have had the functionality for like 20 years.

Really? 3-4 years? Why has it not been fixed after so long a time?

Because probably nobody has the knowledge, time or is not interested to work on it? Comments like you're posting recently doesn't help at all, if you want to help to get this fixed you can work on a patch and submit it to the report, but please stop commenting with no useful information. thanks in advance.

I think there are case where it is very important to retain copy buffer : Have you ever tried to create a filter with a header in evolution ?
A natural way would be :
- Show source message
- Select and copy desired header
- Close window
- Go to Edit > Filters > New >
- Paste
Unfortunately, it doesn't work, because of what has been said above... I have to keep the window open, and once filter is created, go back to find it in order to close it...

But I thought selection buffer (X-managed) was different from copy-paste (WM managed)... but even CTRL-C doesn't retain clipboard...

It is my #1 wishlist/bugfix as I run into it very often... Worst, it seems to me that even if selection buffer worked that way, copy-paste used to behave as expected... maybe in my days of using windowmaker ?

Thanks for working so hard for us !

In LibreOffice Bugzilla #48783, TenLeftFingers (tenleftfingers) wrote on 2012-09-30:

"However on MacOS 10.8 (Mountain Lion) this issue is not reproducible.
The clipboard contents are preserved on exit."

Of course, because OS X is a proper operating system with a clipboard that always, because of the way it's implemented in the operating system itself. It has been said many times: A clipboard should be a feature of the operating system itself and applications shouldn't have to write code to make copy/paste work. Write an application for Windows, OS X or even iOS and copy/paste just works. There's no need for the developers to implement this feature to make copy/paste work.

That's why Linux is such a useless operating system.

In LibreOffice Bugzilla #48783, L-lunak-w (l-lunak-w) wrote on 2014-04-25:

"This is a consequence of the X11 clipboard design and not LibreOffice specific. As such, there's not much LibreOffice itself can do about this on its own."

You shouldn't even do something. Just don't fix it. It's absolutely ridiculous all applications have to be "fixed" by its developers. I surrounded "fixed" by quotation marks, because of course the applications are not broken at all. It's the operating system itself that's broken and they refuse to fix their crappy operating system and expect all developers to write code to make copy/paste work on their piece of shit called Linux. I'd say they can go fuck themselves. Just spend your time on Windows and OS X. Just don't give a single shit about Linux, just like 99,5% of the world doesn't give a shit about Linux. It's a useless piece of crap that doesn't even deserve developers who spend time writing software for it. Developers should just write software for Windows and OS X and ignore that fucking piece of shit.

I click on "Post Comment" and Launchpad says:

"Error
Timeout error, please try again in a few minutes."

How surprisingly, something developed by Linux developers doesn't work. Fucking losers.

I've been seeing this issue since I've first started using Ubuntu a couple of years back. I've never actually looked into the issue further as I thought a bug report should've already been opened and a fix incoming. Today I've encountered the issue again and had enough, so I searched and came across this thread.

So you're telling me this issue has been known for literally 11 years (or even more, considering its root cause is X) and there is still no fix? Are you guys idiots? No seriously now, are you fucking kidding me? This is purely unacceptable. I don't give a damn how many discussions have existed on this matter or how hard it is to implement a fix, and frankly, it doesn't even matter. You've had 11 fucking years to get your shit together and figure it out. I literally don't even know anymore if I should blame the open-source community or the pure incompetence of Canonical to put a stop to this madness. This has got to be THE WORST bug with such a history from Ubuntu ever.

I can't even...

Andrei (andrei-doom) on 2015-09-07: #320

Exactly. This is the point I'm always trying to make when talking to Linux or Ubuntu fanboys. To them it's like the holy grail in operating systems, but come on... if you can't even implement a proper clipboard. This problem has always existed. Even years before Ubuntu existed this bug already existed. Linux has never had a proper clipboard and they just refuse to fix this. To them it's just the way it was designed and that's what we have to live with. You don't like it? Well, that's your problem, because they don't give a shit. This is just fucking insane! How can these guys even take themselves serious?

No wonder they can't get any market share. Who wants to use such crappy, buggy, amateurish piece of useless shit? Come on. A clipboard is one of the core elements of an operating system. This should never fail. It should just work. You write some text in LibreOffice Writer, you copy this text and you immediately close the app (because that's a completely logical thing to do, because you don't need this source app anymore, because you're going to paste your text somewhere else) and then you can't paste it anymore, because there isn't anything to paste. You just copied this piece of text ONE SECOND ago and it's already completely lost, forever! What the fuck?!?!?! Even a child can understand this is absolutely ridiculous and this can never be the way you want copy/paste to work. Still the developers (if you can even call this bunch of useless amateurs "developers") of Linux and Ubuntu and their blinded fanboys don't see it as a problem and refuse to fix it... or do they? Maybe they just don't want to admit their design is flawed and they don't want to admit they're not competent enough to fix this.

Anyway, just don't use this useless piece of crap. Just use a proper operating system. Ubuntu and Linux in general suck so hard, even the best porn star would be jealous. Just use Windows or OS X. Don't use Ubuntu! Don't use Linux! It's absolute complete crap!

bug-bounty

This bug from 2004 relates to 23 projects and is therefore listed 32 times in bug overviews.So, if possible, please set for your project this to either won't fix or invalid or work towards fix released and close it here. Thanks

@pander: Don't you think it's insane to suggest every one of 23 (or more likely thousands) of applications need to implement this internally, instead of a generic solution?

In Ubuntu Unity I find Diodon works well, it's completely solved the problem on Unity for me. But the user has to:

1. Realise there's a problem
2. Install diodon.

That too is insane. Most users will get bitten numerous times before they discover this solution, if at all.

On Lubuntu, diodon installed but didn't solve the problem. I had to google and find a different app. More insanity.

@JohnWashington
Diodon seems to be explicitly for GNOME, hence does not work for Lubuntu which is based on LXDE rather than GNOME.
There are alternative similar software such as Glipper, Klipper and Parcellite, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipboard_manager#X_Window_System

Well until I can install an ISO of Ubuntu and, right out the box (ie.: on the live CD), see that this problem no longer exist without requiring any intervention from the end-user (such as guessing I was supposed to install a software to get a basic OS functionnality to work as expected), this bug is not to be marked as resolved.

This include copy/pasting any kind of content from and to any kind of software.

If what ever software can fully resolve the issue, it should be included in the distribution and activated by default. Until then, it is a waste of time to ask for each user to install something themself.

Totally agree​

@Fred: yes, you're right, on Lubuntu I installed Parcellite and it worked fine. But, with respect, which clipboard manager to use is not the point. The point is that Ubuntu and its relatives should be providing this functionality out of the box, not requiring users to figure out what's needed themselves or requiring 100's of applications all to implement functionality independently.

Perhaps some would say that this would add bloat to Ubuntu. Well, that would hardly be a first. One doesn't use Ubuntu if something really stripped down and minimal is called for, that niche is filled by plenty of other distros, not least being Debian.

300+ comments and still no real progress. What does it need to get clipboard managers included in Ubuntu? Not 'available' for the few who know, but 'included' so that everyone benefits, even the absolute beginners trying Linux for the first time?

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From: Bug 11334 [mailto:<email address hidden>]
Sent: Tuesday, August 01, 2017 9:55 AM
To: <email address hidden>
Subject: They always are.

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Sent from Mail for Windows 10

I'm predicting riots in response to the most recent status update.