Remote clipboard functionality seems to have degraded

I’m struggling with copy & paste on a remote computer. I’m currently doing a lot of folder operations where I’m shift-right-clicking on a folder and selecting Copy as path. However, try and paste back into the same console, it pastes in the last clipboard operation from my host PC.

A workaround is to use Fetch Remote Clipboard contents from the menu and then the right text pastes in. However, I’ve done millions of copy & paste operations over the years of using SH and I’ve never had to do this.

Some more information: if you (say) highlight some text in PowerShell and press Return (which copies to clipboard) then the same problem occurs. However, if you use Ctrl-C instead of Enter, you get the “Clipboard fetch” message fade in/out.

It’s almost like any way of copying to the the clipboard except Ctrl-C is not been caught by SimpleHelp. Here are my session settings:

I’m constantly challenged by the Simplehelp clipboard functionality. Other remote software “simply” copies the remote text into the local machine’s clipboard. I’m now in the habit of always doing a Fetch and then a Send of clipboard contents to make sure the cut and pasting I’m doing on the remote machine works.

Feature Request: Option to “Allways copy remote “copy selected” to the local clipboard”

Am I right though in thinking this has got worse recently? Maybe the hooks that SH uses to be informed that something has been copied into the clipboard has changed in Windows 11 recently? I’m just spinning up a Windows 10 VM to test it there.

Later… just tried with a Windows 10 client PC and same problem. Clipboard copied via Ctrl-C works but no other clipboard operation ever makes it to the host computer unless you Fetch Remote Clipboard contents.

I’m pretty sure I never used to have to do this… I’ve got RemotePC access to some client computers. Going to try with that.

Okay, I’m going to raise a ticket on this one. RemotePC works as I’m sure SH used to work. Highlight a bit of text in PowerShell like this and press Enter (which copies to clipboard) and RemotePC copies that text to the host. Any operation on the client computer that copies to the clipboard, gets transferred to the host.

Ohh hang on, just spotted that I’m behind with updates and there is 5.5.7 available and 5.5.5 has this fix. I’m on 5.5.4. Err, why has SH stopped reminding me there is an update in notifications like it used to?

Later… okay, I’ve upgraded and still no improvement. Support ticket raised.

Hello…Yes I can confirm that there is a degradation in this functionality in the latest few version updates…I am on 5.5.7 and the clipboard functionality is definitely not working properly. I use it all the time and it is painful. Please post back the results of your support ticket.

1 Like

There’ve been substantial changes on the back end at least, including new limitations where we can now only use what the OS lets us (which is not a lot in most cases). I’ll check if it’s also now impossible to detect clipboard changes on the remote (shouldn’t be, I think) and try to fetch them automatically, or if this is just a regression we can fix easily enough.

My comment is that I doubt it’s recent OS changes as otherwise RemotePC. TeamViewer and Zoho would be broken as well. I use these three regularly and they’ll all fine clipboard wise.

1 Like

In my experience, I now need to release the CTRL key between a CTRL+C / CTRL+X and subsequent CTRL+V for copying to clipboard to work, even though the session window says “Clipboard fetched” prior to releasing the CTRL key; the actual clipboard update must take place upon the release of CTRL.

Interestingly, if you continue to hold in CTRL after completing a CTRL+C / CTRL+X and waiting for the “Clipboard fetched” message to disappear, upon release you will see another “Clipboard fetched” message. So it appears both the CTRL+C / CTRL+X key combinations and the release of CTRL are meant to copy contents to clipboard, but only the release of CTRL actually does.

I’ve had a reply from support will I’ll share later but it’s doing my head in now :slight_smile: I was doing a lot of copying and pasting on 10 remote computers (on the client) yesterday and it was painful. Ran the real risk of pasting the wrong clipboard text, i.e. from previous computer.

Ohh that’s a thought - can you turn OFF the remote clipboard functionality? That would actually be better. It’s not that often that I’m copying from the remote back to my PC.