Why Does Windows 10/11 Copy and Paste Stop Working After A While?

I've seen similar since December. It is only on a W11 PC that is left on 24/7 and it shows up once a day. I've slowly been disabling applications one by one, disabled remote desktop, done some of the online suggestions like restarting rdpclip.exe. I've gone beyond that and disabled any application that may tangentially access the clipboard to see if there is any difference there.

When it breaks, Snipping Tool will even show an error "couldn't copy that image" when attempting to copy screenshots to the clipboard.

I'm suspicious of Intel ARC control, and HP Smart (which are both apps Microsoft forcibly sideloads without user choice, alert, or consent as of December), as disabling or uninstalling them tends to make this behavior stop until Windows tries to reinstall them. There's likely a deeper level interaction happening, and these are just bellwether apps that appear when the problem tends to.

I've since modified the registry to keep Windows from attempting to sideload software, as whenever it does, the problem reappears, however Windows Updates will reset the registry keys and then the unwanted applications will reinstall within the next couple of days, along with the issue returning. (That alone should be a no-no. Don't install software on a computer without giving the user choice.)

Restart or logout/login both resolve the clipboard issue, like what you saw, so it is something that degrades in the existing user session while the display is locked.

If the PC is shut off at end of day and then turned on each morning, the problem is never experienced.

It seems the computer has to be locked and left alone by the user for some time (overnight or shorter), occasionally entering/exiting modern sleep, and running background maintenance tasks to manifest this bug.

I have had the same problem since December 2023, I have a new Dell Desktop running Windows 11 and Microsoft student. I have opened up SEVEN tickets with Microsoft and now have been successful escalated to level 2 support, whom I've been working with for the last week with no success. I have reloaded Windows 11 and Office 3 times and created a new profile with no success. I agree there is an application running in the background causing the corruption to the clipboard. I too have neem disabling apps to try and identify the problem with no success. I heard that the person who wrote the clipboard code since retired, and the new software programmers are unfamiliar with the code to fix it, so users suffer. My copy and paste might work for several hours or several days before failing then a re-boot is required to restore it, which makes it very painful if you're working on document's. I've worked in IT for over 40 years and was a mainframe incident manager for a very large automotive company and this simple problem is driving me crazy since my mind is always in trouble shooting mode. I have directed Microsoft Level 2 support to all the comments on the WEB and suggest they read them and escalate this problem to the HIGHEST level in Microsoft, the problem has been around since 2021.

I've seen similar since December. It is only on a W11 PC that is left on 24/7 and it shows up once a day. I've slowly been disabling applications one by one, disabled remote desktop, done some of the online suggestions like restarting rdpclip.exe. I've gone beyond that and disabled any application that may tangentially access the clipboard to see if there is any difference there.

When it breaks, Snipping Tool will even show an error "couldn't copy that image" when attempting to copy screenshots to the clipboard.

I'm suspicious of Intel ARC control, and HP Smart (which are both apps Microsoft forcibly sideloads without user choice, alert, or consent as of December), as disabling or uninstalling them tends to make this behavior stop until Windows tries to reinstall them. There's likely a deeper level interaction happening, and these are just bellwether apps that appear when the problem tends to.

I've since modified the registry to keep Windows from attempting to sideload software, as whenever it does, the problem reappears, however Windows Updates will reset the registry keys and then the unwanted applications will reinstall within the next couple of days, along with the issue returning. (That alone should be a no-no. Don't install software on a computer without giving the user choice.)

Restart or logout/login both resolve the clipboard issue, like what you saw, so it is something that degrades in the existing user session while the display is locked.

If the PC is shut off at end of day and then turned on each morning, the problem is never experienced.

It seems the computer has to be locked and left alone by the user for some time (overnight or shorter), occasionally entering/exiting modern sleep, and running background maintenance tasks to manifest this bug.

I did find one "fix" that isn't really a fix at all, but at least it prevents one from having to log out.

1. If you hit Win+E to open an explorer window, Explorer will either crash or not crash. If it doesn't crash, open Task Manager, find Explorer, right-click, and select restart. If it does crash, proceed right to step 2! Otherwise, the manual restart of Explorer should start the crash loops.
2. At this point, hitting Win+E will likely cause Explorer to crash in a loop. Just keep tapping Win+E and have Explorer crash 4 or 5 times in a row, when you start seeing Explorer windows pop up en masse, stop, and try copy paste. It should work again at this point.

Kinda hilarious that crashing Explorer over and over fixes the problem, but does also reinforce that it is likely a Windows bug.

I've since given up thinking it is any of my third-party software, moved on to hardware troubleshooting for a few to see if old USB 2 input devices were causing the issue by making it trigger something, as often when logging back in, the start menu would flicker open/closed a few times like someone was hammering the Windows key. After discovering the above reproducible steps to fix copy/paste though, I don't think it is third-party software, nor the old USB hardware. With or without the hardware the bug still manifested daily.

When installing anything that has shell extensions I avoid installing them since W11 has butchered the use of the context menu, so I highly doubt it's any third-party apps interacting with Explorer, but anything's possible.

What an absolutely dumb problem. Linux is looking nicer every day.

We have also noticed this issue starting to emerge for a small population of our users; I suspect this is more widespread but not getting reported by all. I can add that all users have the same Win 11 Pro build, with the same model of laptop and very close, if not identical, specs. One group uses a custom (built in-house) WPF desktop application and has been impacted the most by this issue as they rely on copy-and-paste functionality a great deal as they enter content from disparate sources into the custom application. I am suspicious of peripheral services related to Copilot; we don't endorse or enable the application by default, but I am curious about how some of its services may (or may not) be related to the ever-growing AI presence in our Windows products.

Has anything been revealed to you in the past month since the last post on this topic here? My users are frustrated and I am considering a third-party copy/paste tool TeraCopy if I can't find a resolution to meet the needs of my user base.

Seems the bug itself is getting worse now. They recently pushed Copilot onto this build. (Promptly shut it off.) Recently installed/enabled OneDrive. Otherwise system has been unchanged.

I now regularly see copy/paste fail 1/3 the way through the day. One moment it's working, the next it isn't.

W11 Pro version 23H2 OS build 22631.3155 with WFEP 1000.22684.1000.0

At least in one of one attempt, force-quitting and then crashing explorer via win+e still works to fix it without logging out or rebooting.