Copy and paste still doesn't work

[SteveWinschel]

Summary

Steps to trigger the problem:

1. Mark either your code or terminal output with your mouse
2. Click CTRL C (+ SHIFT when in the terminal) or right click with your mouse and click on "copy"
3. Paste it in the either CTRL C (+ SHIFT when in the terminal) or right click with your mouse and click on "paste" in the browser
4. See nothing happen
5. Weirdly you can paste inside another code editor (at least in the Cosmic editor on Pop_OS!)

Actual Behavior:

Expected Behavior:

Zed Version and System Specs

Zed: v0.177.7 (Zed) OS: Linux Wayland pop 24.04 Memory: 14.4 GiB Architechture: x86_64 GPU: AMD Radeon Graphics (RADV RENOIR) || radv || Mesa 24.2.8-1ubuntu1~24.04.1

(I had to type this by hand, because it does not work either and I uninstalled the Cosmic editor)

[notpeter]

Potentially a duplicate of:

• https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/20984

Thanks for taking the time to type out the zed system specs by hand. Much appreciated.

[nerjs]

Have you changed your keyboard layout? I have the same problem when the keyboard layout is not equal to English. The hotkeys seem to be mapped to a letter rather than a code. I can't tell you when it started. But I definitely remember it working fine.

[wmahfoudh]

I also have a similar issue:

• copying text through the context menu does not work
• copying text using CTRL+C works
• pasting text works in both

OS is Arch Linux under KDE Wayland

Zed: v0.179.2 (Zed) OS: Linux Wayland arch unknown Memory: 14.8 GiB Architecture: x86_64 GPU: Intel(R) UHD Graphics 620 (WHL GT2) || Intel open-source Mesa driver || Mesa 25.0.2-arch1.2

[waseigo]

Have you changed your keyboard layout? I have the same problem when the keyboard layout is not equal to English. The hotkeys seem to be mapped to a letter rather than a code. I can't tell you when it started. But I definitely remember it working fine.

Having the same issue here. Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V do not work when the keymap is not English--which is contrary to every other piece of software I've used.

[SteveWinschel]

Adding and using an English keyboard layout did not change anything. I use a German keyboard (layout) if it matters

[sndrtj]

I have been experiencing the same problems lately. It used to happen intermittently - fixed by a Zed reboot - but recently it doesn't seem to work at all anymore.

It specifically seems that it is copy that doesn't work. Paste works fine for me. It also does not seem to be related to the keyboard (while I am using both US and US International with dead keys), as doing right click + copy also does not seem to work. Zed just doesn't copy anything to the clipboard.

My system:

OS: Kubuntu 22.04 GPU: Radeon RX 6600/6600 XT/6600M CPU: AMD Ryzen 2400G

---

While typing this message I may have found a solution / workaround. I noticed the 0.181.5 changelog says the following

Added the ability to specify which GPU Zed uses on Linux by setting the ZED_DEVICE_ID environment variable. You can obtain the device ID of your GPU by running lspci -nn | grep VGA which will output each GPU on one line like:

Now, my CPU is an APU, but I also have a dedicated GPU. lpci -nn | grep VGA only shows the dedicated GPU. If I set ZED_DEVICE_ID to the output of that, and start zed using that env, copy works again! So maybe it's related to zed picking the wrong GPU at bootup?

[sndrtj]

The above unfortunately turned out to be a mirage :(. I think I just got lucky. Copy is still broken on most attempts.

[tmolteno]

I'm having this problem too. On linux, with wayland and the latest version.

[ankhuve]

I recently updated Zed and am now running into pasting issue as well. I use CopyQ as my clipboard manager, and selecting anything from the history of CopyQ to paste now doesn't work any longer.

As long as I only use the latest clip, it works fine. As soon as I try to use a clip from my clipboard history from CopyQ, nothing happens when I try to paste (using ctrl-v, middle mouse or right-click and paste).

As an additional note, when updating to 0.185.9, I got a warning about Zed not being able to recognize my GPU. A system reboot fixed that, but thought it's worth mentioning if for some reason GPU issues could be the culprit, as it's also mentioned above.

Zed: v0.185.9 (Zed) 
OS: Linux X11 ubuntu 24.04
Memory: 31.1 GiB
Architecture: x86_64
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER || NVIDIA || 535.230.02

[gustavo-ave]

I'm having the same issue as well, I'm using just stock i3 and X11, I have another computer with a Wayland compositor installed, so I'll test if that changes anything.

Zed: v0.186.1 (Zed Preview) 
OS: Linux X11 arch unknown
Memory: 31 GiB
Architecture: x86_64
GPU: Intel(R) UHD Graphics 620 (WHL GT2) || Intel open-source Mesa driver || Mesa 25.0.4-arch1.1

[aldofunes]

I have found something interesting.

The mime type of the copied text coming from zed is

❯ wl-paste --list-types

pid/44931
text/plain;charset=utf-8

While text coming from other apps have a lot more types. Here's one from Firefox

❯ wl-paste --list-types

text/plain;charset=utf-8
UTF8_STRING
COMPOUND_TEXT
TEXT
text/plain
STRING
text/plain;charset=utf-8
text/plain
SAVE_TARGETS

I think that for compatibility, zed should at least include text/plain (without charset), and maybe TEXT and STRING.

An annoying workaround is to copy it using wl-clipboard and then paste it elsewhere

❯ wl-paste | wl-copy

My system:

Zed: v0.185.12 (Zed) 
OS: Linux Wayland pop 24.04
Memory: 62.4 GiB
Architecture: x86_64
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti with Max-Q Design || NVIDIA || 565.77

[andrienko]

It is not working for me either, and I'm not on Wayland even:

Zed: 0.185.15 05596ab49338015c6d465326820ecff68015650c
OS: Garuda Linux x86_64
Host: G1619-04 (Ver.1.0)
Kernel: Linux 6.14.5-zen1-1-zen
DE: KDE Plasma 6.3.5
WM: KWin (X11)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 8840U (16) @ 3.30 GHz
GPU: AMD Phoenix3 [Integrated]
Locale: en_US.UTF-8

It is working when I'm copying from zed - everyone accepts the text copied. Zed accepts text copied from (thorium) browser or from other zed instance just fine. Does not accept text from telegram and from kate.

In case it has something to do with types... These are outputs of xclip -selection clipboard -t TARGETS -o for text copied from Kate and Telegram (ones that Zed does not accept)

text/plain
UTF8_STRING
STRING
TEXT
TARGETS
MULTIPLE
TIMESTAMP
SAVE_TARGETS

And this one is from chrome, which Zed accepts:

TIMESTAMP
TARGETS
SAVE_TARGETS
MULTIPLE
STRING
TEXT
UTF8_STRING
chromium/x-source-url
text/html
text/plain
text/plain;charset=utf-8

And from Zed itself, also pasted without problems:

TARGETS
SAVE_TARGETS
UTF8_STRING
text/plain;charset=utf-8
text/plain;charset=UTF-8

So looks like Zed ignores text/plain, just as @aldofunes noted? Happens for X also.