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beej666
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

clipboard syncing erratically doesn't work

for as long as i can remember, clipboard syncing of the OSX clipboard to my XP vm's clipboard has been erratic.  i made a Screen Recording demonstrating the clipboards being out of sync and attached it.  i had to uselessly zip it because .mov files aren't are disallowed.  i can get this to happen by just trying to copy text in the OSX host a number of times.  eventually i'll hit the issue.  i must be losing some kind of race, occasionally.  i can't even file an online support request to report this defect without purchasing a support incident.  https://www.vmware.com/support/policies/defect.html says "If you do not have an active support agreement and you want to alert us to a product defect, please post the issue to the appropriate product community on the VMware Technology Network."  so here i am.

how do i get a bug filed on this?
thanks,
marc
59 Replies
beej666
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

since changhai has gone AWOL, i called vmware and eventually spoke with a member of the fusion technical support staff.  i was told that changhai is still at the company.  i have no idea why he's either not seeing these messages or choosing to ignore them, but i'd love for him to have the courtesy to reply if he is getting them or for any other vmware employee reading this to nudge him and ask him why he hasn't and report back here.

anyway, i was told that internal ticket 1079086 is still open, but the gentleman i spoke to said he couldn't even tell me when it was last updated since it's internal.  he did say he'd update the ticket so that the owner would know that i called in to check on it.

i recommend that anyone experiencing this issue who has a support contract call in and open a case to see if they can get any info on when this might be fixed.  i don't have one and refuse to open one just to try to get vmware to fix an already-acknowledged bug.

beej666
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

hi mr_mcgoo,

since you just switched, do you have some sort of complimentary support you could use to open a support request?

marc

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beej666
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Another update has been released and this easily reproduced and extremely annoying bug hasn't been fixed Smiley Sad  I just upgraded to Fusion 5.0.5 with Tools 9.2.4 and the bug is still there.

Has anybody else bothered to call in or are you all too lazy? :smileysilly:

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hyan
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hi beej666,

Sorry to have kept you waiting so long time, Changhai was transfered to another BU and not responsable for Fusion business since few months ago, so please let me answer you.

This issue had been filled in our internal bug system, our developer had already found root cause of this issue, and are trying to resolve this issue ASAP, but for some inconvenience reason, this change was not merged to the latest version, so please patiently wait for a period of time, Thanks!

Best regards,

Harry

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hyan
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

If possible, please try the latest Fusion 6.0.4 version, I didn't hit this issue in that build.

Harry

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beej666
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

hi harry,

thanks for your reply.  were you able to reproduce the issue in older versions?

does internal ticket 1079086 say the issue has been fixed in Fusion 6.0.4?

i don't have a license for Fusion 6, so it isn't easy for me to test it.

cheers,

marc

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hi Marc,

Not fixed.

I run Fusion 6.0.4 down here and the clipboard problem is still there when running multiple Full Screen VMs.

If you swipe to the other VM and use CTRL+V to paste you get the previous contents of the clipboard

If you CLICK into the other VM before pasting then the contents is correct.

As a result I pretty much ALWAYS end up pasting the wrong value, undo then paste the correct data.

From the looks of it, the difference is that in the first case the VM actually does not have the focus, OS X has the focus and the new contents is only synced upon the VM getting the focus. One would expect the clipboard to get the new value on exiting the old VM not on arrival.

--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
hyan
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hi Marc,

Yes, I was able to reproduce this issue with older version, and I tired Fuion 6.0.4 according to Wil's comments today, also reproduced. Sorry for confusing you.

From the ticket 1079086, I don't see any code change was submitted, but our developers are still resolving it and the date of "fix by" is next release day. So, if all goes well, you will see the change in the next version.

BTW, Thanks Wil~!

Harry

wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hello hyan,

You're most welcome.

Reliably reproducing a problem is the critical first step in being able to solve it.

Glad to hear my steps were sufficient for that.

--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
beej666
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

hi hyan,

i see that Fusion 7 has been released.  does it include a fix for this issue?

thanks,

marc

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

I'm not hyan but using copy & paste down here between VMs when using Fusion 7 I still see this happening so I'd wager to say "not fixed".

However I sometimes also see it behave properly, it certainly appears to be less erratic as in Fusion 6, seems that it works OK now about half the times.

--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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hyan
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hi beej666,

Sorry for late reply, I've still not gotten this progress from developers, but I will keep tracking this issue, and reply you if it was fixed.

But, just like Wila said, this issue is lower priority, so maybe developers defer it to future release.

Harry

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beej666
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

hi harry,

i appreciate you getting back to me, but  you have to understand how insanely frustrating this is from my perspective.  you're my only contact at vmware and you can't seem to get the answers i crave.  perhaps you'd be willing to get your manager to contact me?

thanks!

marc

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JessieZhang
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hi beej666,

I know this clipboard out of sync issue have been bothering you and other customers for quite a long time and would like to thank your for keep staying with Fusion. With the information provided by you and other customers on this thread, we just found a reliable way to reproduce this issue, while the VM is in unity mode, copying text from host application to guest OS application for a couple of times causes the clipboard content out of sync between host and VM. Please confirm if that are the operations you did when you found the copy paste between host and guest stops working.

We already provided the reproduction steps to our development team and believe that the reliable reproduction steps can make it easier for development team to debug the issue and speed up the solution of it.

We will keep you updated once there is any progress.

Thanks for your patience

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beej666
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

hi jessie,

are you harry's manager?

in either case, thanks for taking the time to reply.  i'm a quite confused by your "we just found a reliable way to reproduce this issue" comment.  on 9/16/13, a former vmware engineer, steve hartwell, wrote "we've finally been able to reproduce your issue" and i was under the impression that this was actively being worked and tracked under internal ticket 1079086.  are you trying to start from scratch or have you already taken a look at that ticket?

anyway, i see the problem regularly in Single Window mode.  the symptoms are that if i switch to the VM from another OSX app via keyboard shutcut and immediately paste, i get stale clipboard contents.  if i do any keyboard input after switching to the VM before pasting and wait a little, i'll get the correct keyboard contents.

at this point, i think the most fruitful course of action would be to have a conversation with the product manager in charge of prioritizing bugfixes.  is that something you can facilitate?

thanks,

marc

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beej666
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

just an update for the peanut gallery:

i've been in touch with Fusion tech support and the update i received today is that it is known that this issue (internal ticket 1079086) is still unfixed in Fusion 7.1.0 and it is actively being worked on.  i asked why it wasn't listed in the Known Issues section at VMware Fusion 7 and VMware Fusion 7 Professional Release Notes and was told it would be going forward.  believe it when you see it Smiley Wink

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jmuheim
Contributor
Contributor

I'm having the very same problem with VMWare Fusion 7 and Windows XP Professional.

It may in fact have something to do with Unity mode, as it seems to happen more often when it is activated, though not exclusively (I didn't read the full thread here, so maybe this is not news).

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beej666
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

of course this issue wasn't fixed in 7.1.1 and of course it wasn't mentioned in the Known Issues at VMware Fusion 7.1.1 Release Notes.

i just got off the phone with the tech support supervisor who made the promise that it would be listed in Known Issues going forward and he had no good reason for why it wasn't.  it is known that the fix for this problem hasn't been released and i was again promised that it would be released in the next version.  sounds familiar right?

now you all know what i know.

marc

beej666
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

dear peanut gallery,

i'm now working with a new support supervisor who claims to attend regular meetings with the development team.  the latest from him is that this terribly annoying bug isn't planned to be fixed in Fusion 8 and they have no concrete plans to fix it beyond that.

i'd be very appreciative if others experiencing this issue would let the company know how annoying it is to you in the hopes of their bumping the priority of the bug.

once again, the internal ticket number is 1079086.

please report back here with any new info.

thanks!

marc

wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hey Marc,

Thanks for your persistence, I was sure that I had agreed with you on this issue in this thread, but when I read back to what I wrote here... I'm not finding that.

In any case I bump into the exact same issue many times during a day. You can work around it, by using Ctrl+Z and then paste again, but it is quite annoying.

As I currently also still have support, I have also filed a SR and referenced this thread.

edit: The support engineer I spoke to on the phone mentioned to me that this bug is currently under active development. There's no statement on when it will be fixed (which is normal policy).

--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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