Ubuntu
gnome-terminal package

Copy of text from terminal window does not copy

Bug #1723884 reported by Phil Davis on 2017-10-16

30

This bug affects 7 people

Affects		Status	Importance	Assigned to	Milestone
	gnome-terminal (Ubuntu)	Confirmed	Undecided	Unassigned

Bug Description

- do a default install of Ubuntu 17.10
- open a terminal window
- select some text, click and select "Copy"
- go to any other application and try to paste the text

Expected:
The text is pasted

Actual:
There is no text pasted

Problem happens with all text selection/copy methods that I can find, e.g. laptop touchpad, external wireless mouse, shift-ctrl-C. Using a brand new Dell Inspiron 14 5000 series laptop.

Text can be copied fine from other application windows (e.g. gedit) and then pasted into the terminal window. So it seems to be just the copy operation in the terminal window that does not work.

Also, I can't believe this is really broken and not reported, because many many people would quickly notice this. I can't think what I can do wrong to have caused this problem. But yet here I am?

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 17.10
Package: gnome-terminal 3.24.2-0ubuntu4
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.13.0-15.16-generic 4.13.4
Uname: Linux 4.13.0-15-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.7-0ubuntu3
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Mon Oct 16 14:10:48 2017
ExecutablePath: /usr/lib/gnome-terminal/gnome-terminal-server
InstallationDate: Installed on 2017-10-13 (2 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 17.10 "Artful Aardvark" - Alpha amd64 (20170926)
SourcePackage: gnome-terminal
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

Tags:

Revision history for this message

Phil Davis (phil-davis) wrote on 2017-10-16:

#1

Dependencies.txt Edit (9.6 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
JournalErrors.txt Edit (121.2 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
ProcCpuinfoMinimal.txt Edit (1.1 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
ProcEnviron.txt Edit (290 bytes, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
ProcMaps.txt Edit (62.5 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
ProcStatus.txt Edit (1.3 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")

Revision history for this message

Phil Davis (phil-davis) wrote on 2017-10-16:

#2

After logout-login copy works again in the terminal. I will keep an "eye" on it and try to determine under what conditions the "Copy" stops working.

Revision history for this message

Phil Davis (phil-davis) wrote on 2017-10-16:

#3

I can reproduce by:

1) Open text editor (gedit)
2) Select-copy some text from a terminal window - paste it anywhere (into the terminal or gedit), it works - good.
3) Type some text into gedit. Select-copy some of that text. Paste it to gedit or the terminal - works - good.
4) Select-copy some text from a terminal window. Try to paste it anywhere - the previous text copied in gedit is still in the copy-paste buffer - not good.

Now close gedit - copy works again from a terminal window.

So gedit (at least) seems to "take control of" or "lock" the copy-paste buffer.

Revision history for this message

Phil Davis (phil-davis) wrote on 2017-10-16:

#4

The same happens if I use a PHPstorm instead of gedit in the above example. So it seems that other applications "take over" the copy-paste buffer and terminal is unable to write to it.

Revision history for this message

Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote on 2017-10-31:

#5

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

Changed in gnome-terminal (Ubuntu):
status:	New → Confirmed

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