Pasting from the copy buffer occasionally takes two tries before it pastes the correct thing

[z0w0]

Say if I had copied google.com and pasted it into my browser to go there (for who knows what reason), and then I copy github.com and paste it into a steam chat with one of my friends, it will occasionally paste google.com instead. Doesn't happen all the time, but it's slowly becoming more present and a real annoyance. I'm 99% sure this is not an issue system-wide, because this doesn't happen with any other apps.

Operating System Version:
    "Arch Linux" (64 bit)
    Kernel Name:  Linux
    Kernel Version:  3.7.1-1-ARCH
    X Server vendor:  The X.Org Foundation
    X Server release:  11301000

Yes I know I'm not on Ubuntu and ArchLinux isn't officially supported, but this is literally the only issue I've ever had with it -- everything else has worked perfectly.

[Cheeseness]

I was just in the middle of writing an issue for this. I've seen it in Fedora 17 with Gnome Shell, and have heard other users on Ubuntu 12.10 mention it also.

Pressing paste a second time will yield the expected results.

It seems to almost reliably happen for me 100% of the time, and seems to only occur for content copied from outside the Steam client being pasted into the Steam client (I've never had it occur when pasting outside of Steam).

This bug gives the impression that Steam's clipboard sits one copy event behind the system clipboard.

[mdaffin]

Also, I have noticed that on the Community > Discussions tab ctrl+v/c does not work at all.

[biltongza]

I have this issue sometimes too.

[pbhj]

As for @james147 copy to buffer doesn't work in the ToS and Policy pages when registering. Print failed for me and the old copy-paste back up didn't work either.

[V10lator]

Just wanted to reference this, as I think it is somehow connected: http://steamcommunity.com/app/221410/discussions/2/846939615090756197/

[memorynoise]

I'm experiencing a somewhat different behaviour while answering any discussion: pressing CTRL+V twice doesn't paste any text if not followed by right clicking on the chat area. This problems leds to sporadic crashes, too.

[Hirato]

I can confirm this too, it's weird and annoying.

The first time Ctrl-V/Shift-Insert is invoked, steam will paste the contents of the copy-buffer properly (not too sure of this fact at the moment). It will then copy that into some internal buffer, and on a future invocation of Paste, it will paste this into the destination, and then copy what it should've pasted into the textbox into this internal buffer. Rinse and repeat for successive paste attempts.

At least, this is the behaviour I've observed, and it describes the "paste twice for the right result" phenomenon.

[mattyy1hp]

It happens to me sometimes. Also, sometime, mouse right button has a same function, like CTRL+V. Linux Mint 13 LTS x64, Cinnamon.

[velociostrich]

Happens to me consistently (i.e., 100% of the time) as well.

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS x32 (though I'm using the XFCE desktop environment in place of that Unity garbage)

If it has not already been mentioned, pasting with the middle-mouse button does not work at all.

[BurritoBazooka]

Happening to me too. I said so on the Steam for Linux discussion forum too. Here are my specs, as reported by Steam: http://pastebin.com/S8LqYgh2

[Majkl578]

Happening also here in recent days, probability: always. System info + Debian + Gnome Shell 3.6

This should be High priority bug.

[stevethepocket]

If this is meant to be a catch-all for copy/paste bugs, I discovered today that I can't copy or paste using Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V (which works on other apps), but the context menu options to Copy and Paste work fine. Specifically in the in-client browser. This is in Kubuntu 12.04 with KDE 4.8.5, latest client version.

[Cheeseness]

Would love to see (or hear of) some progress on this one. Is it being looked into?

[LiamDawe]

Yes I would like to know as well, it's really annoying me!! I try to copy/paste the Wargame cd key to put in game but it never works.

[abc-mikey]

Yep, just experienced this again recently using the community section in Steam. In the forums [Ctrl]+C and [Ctrl]+V don't work and when using right click menu no "Cut" was available for text in an entry box, and using right click to copy and paste from the page into the text entry box pasted the last thing copied not the current.

[BurritoBazooka]

This bug is still existing.. Any news? :/ The amount of times I pasted something completely irrelevant to a friend, or pasted the same thing twice, is uncountable now.

[LiamDawe]

Yes I would like to see an update as well? Pretty annoying issue to be left for over a month.

[BurritoBazooka]

Still curious about any progress...

[ghost]

I'm having the exact same issue on Linux Mint 14 x64 very frequently.

[BurritoBazooka]

It seems that the common factor here is that it's happening to people who are not using Unity AND Ubuntu 12.04, am I right?

Another issue I have as a consequence of not using Unity is that my chat windows don't flash when they are supposed to. I've been told the developers are not planning on solving that issue. But I see the copy/paste one as pretty trivial to fix, and at the same time essential for a smooth user experience. Other programs manage copying and pasting fine, no matter what desktop environment you use.

edit: bold 'not' because it's easily missed when speedreading.

[LiamDawe]

No it happens on Cinnamon as well. If you read others comments it happens on gnome shell too.

[V10lator]

@liamdawe it happens on xfwm4, too, as well as on compiz and other DEs... so @BurritoBazooka isn't wrong when he says "it's happening to people who are not using Unity"

[LiamDawe]

Oh bugger I read it as "on Unity" my bad.

[ghost]

I'm getting this on Ubuntu 12.10 64bit and 13.04 64bit in unity.

[BKPepe]

Same problem on Ubuntu 13.04 64bit

[BurritoBazooka]

I just put up a support ticket politely reminding them of this bug, just in case they got distracted from these old and seemingly trivial bugs ;)

[ribeirobreno]

I'm on Ubuntu 12.04 32bit, pasting several game keys in sequence (humble bundle :) ) you can see this happening.

Steps:

1. Library
2. Add a Game
3. Activate a Product on Steam
4. Copy a key from other software (Firefox)
5. Paste on Steam and follow the instructions
6. Repeat

[Mastergatto]

Happens to me too, Debian Jessie/Sid 64 bit with GNOME 3.8. What's going on?

[BurritoBazooka]

I sent that message a week ago, and Valve haven't replied.

If they are not working on this, they must be off drinking Bavarian beer with the Phoronix crew. I hope. ;)

[Kiwii]

I can confirm this problem both on my previous setup (Unity on Ubuntu 13.04) and on my current setup (KWin/KDE 4.10.4 on Arch Linux) with the latest beta version of the Steam client. It happens very often and I would categorize this as a major inconvenience. Here is my system information.

[boombatower]

Confirm on suse 12.3 kde 4.10. Quite annoying.

[mmstick]

This has always annoyed me every single time. I got used to it a while ago. I know to hit Ctrl+V-Ctrl+Z-Ctrl+V every time I want to post something.

[Benguin]

Happens to me too, since the start of the open linux beta (was not in the closed beta,) very reliably. It's really annoying when I'm in a link-sharing mood and I keep linking cat gifs to a buddy, but I end up posting the same one twice because it pastes the link I pasted last time, rather than the one I just copied. As above, pasting a second time will produce the correct text.

Edit: just thought of something, and tried copying some text from the steam chat window, and then pasting it in the same window, and it works as intended. So this bug only effects text copied from outside steam. Copying text from the steam window doesn't replace what's in the buffer, though.

Doing the following actions in order: 1) restart steam 2) copy 'test 1' from firefox 3) paste it into the steam chat window 4) copy 'test 2' from firefox 5) paste it into the steam chat window 6) paste again 7) copy 'test 3' from the steam chat window 8) paste it into the chatbox 9) copy 'test 4' from firefox 10) paste it into the chatbox 11) paste again

will produce (in this order): test 1 test 1 test 2 test 3 test 2 test 4

Archlinux 64bit, xfce 4.10.

[BurritoBazooka]

Valve hasn't gotten back to me, and it's been nearly 3 weeks. I only sent a message once.

Anyone else feel like bugging them?

The UI being closed source is pretty annoying. There would have been a workaround by now in an open source system.

[Majkl578]

@BurritoBazooka: Yup. I'm really disappointed by seeing the current state of Steam for Linux - buggy, glitchy, w/o (really) active development and closed-source client... I was expecting more, much more from them. But this is for another discussion, unrelated to this issue.

[mmstick]

@Majkl578 This kind of program would never work as open source, so it should be closed-source.

[BurritoBazooka]

I don't see harm in making purely the UI (user interface) open source.

The actual client that does the work (authenticating licenses; downloading, [un]installing, and starting games; collecting survey data; updating drivers) can remain closed source and have a command line, dbus, or API interface. Various UI frontends can be created for different usage cases (phone, 10-foot, desktop, tablet) edit: with the same Steam closed-source executable core. /edit

The UI is where most of the bugs present themselves to the user, in my opinion, and where bugs are the most detrimental to user experience.

I'm not demanding anything in this direction from Valve, but that is how I'd do it.

[Kiwii]

@BurritoBazooka I'm pretty sure that is how Desura is doing it. I would kill for an open source steam client. People could rewrite it in Qt and it would look so much more native in my desktop environment.

[ribeirobreno]

@Kiwii https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Qt ;)

They also use Chromium and i think this is the main reason why we don't have a steam with native looks. By the way, i would love that. Is there a feature request for this anywhere?

---

Reference: https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Valve_Open_Source

[FutureSuture]

This issue is beyond annoying. Kindly get to fixing it soon. Thank you.

[LiamDawe]

:+1: not sure why this after 7 months still isn't fixed? Is there some major issue holding it up?

[BurritoBazooka]

I think I'll prod Valve's support service some more. I implore others (edit: Maybe just one or two) to do so too ( politely ).

edit: Oh, after I sent my message to them, I saw that they responded to my first one. They apologised for the delay and said that no notification would be sent as a result of any action taken. But it's been one-and-a-half more months. So meh.

[V10lator]

@BurritoBazooka That won't make anything faster. You're just stealing them resources they could spend to other things (like fixing this)

@liamdawe Maybe they don't know the root of the issue yet, software can be tricky. Especially when you're not able to re-create the issue. And for a company as big as Valve it's better to say nothing and research than to say "we do our best, but we have no idea what's the problem". Maybe they even use 3rd party code for the clipboard handling and don't have the rights to change them (so another company is slow here).

[BurritoBazooka]

@V10lator Ah, yeah, I thought that it wouldn't be a big deal if I waited a couple of weeks in between, devs usually complain (edit: or are demoralised) when there is someone nagging them every day or every few days. (Come on, seven months!)

edit: Or people saying "ur program is shit fix ur stuff bitch". Those don't help. /edit

I also wouldn't have sent the message in the first place if I saw their reply from last time. For some reason I didn't see it, or don't remember seeing it. I would have waited 3-6 more weeks.

[Cheeseness]

@V10lator Raising visibility of the issue isn't a bad thing - from what I understand, none of the support staff work on the Linux client, so you don't need to worry too much about having resources stolen from this ^_^

[mmstick]

I made a triple boot of Ubuntu/Xubuntu/Kubuntu on my laptop here, just because I felt like it, and I'm noticing on Xubuntu that the bug does not exist.

[Benguin]

Are you sure? I use Xfce on arch and still get the problem.

[mmstick]

Certainly, I copy/paste a lot in Steam. It works fine in Xubuntu 13.04.

[MrSchism]

It seems fixed on my Xubuntu (up-to-date) install.

[Benguin]

Just re-tested on my xfce/arch install, still broken there, so it's something specific to Xubuntu rather than (the bleeding-edge version of,) xfce, for sure.