Mouse Without Borders - Clipboard copy randomly stops working, File copy and drag and drop not working at all

[CharltonEBCI]

Microsoft PowerToys version

0.76.0

Installation method

PowerToys auto-update

Running as admin

None

Area(s) with issue?

Mouse Without Borders

Steps to reproduce

1. Log in in after a restart, try to copy and paste some text. It works great for a few hours. Copy and paste for files does not do anything. 2. After a few hours, copy and paste for text is no longer working. 3. Open Task Manager and realize PowerToys.MouseWithoutBordersHelper.exe is not running. 4. Restart PowerToys.MouseWithoutBordersHelper.exe on both computers. 5. Look at Task Manager and verify PowerToys.MouseWithoutBordersHelper.exe is running. 6. Copy and Paste for Text starts working again. Copy and Paste for Files is still not working.

✔️ Expected Behavior

As long as Mouse Without Borders is running on both computers (Or Service is running), it should continually be able to copy and paste text to and from either computer connected. Using CTRL + C on a file on Computer A then CTRL + V on Computer B should copy the file over.

❌ Actual Behavior

After a set amount of time, clipboard copy and paste stops working between computers. Copying files is not working at all.

Other Software

No response

[CharltonEBCI]

It seems as if PowerToys.MouseWithoutBordersHelper.exe is continually crashing. I'm not sure what is causing the file copy to not work. I have MWB Service installed. Running app in standard user mode. On Windows 11 Version 23H2. PowerToys version 0.76.0. Had the same issue on 0.75.1. Thanks.

[CaryRW]

Copy/Paste and Drag/Drop are not working at all. As mentioned above, this nor the previous version of MWB clipboard features has worked for me.

[CharltonEBCI]

Try opening the PowerToys.MouseWithoutBordersHelper.exe app on each computer and see if Copy/Paste works for Clipboard. That at least works for me until the helper app crashes. File copy doesn't work at all.

[CaryRW]

Try opening the PowerToys.MouseWithoutBordersHelper.exe app on each computer and see if Copy/Paste works for Clipboard. That at least works for me until the helper app crashes. File copy doesn't work at all.

Thanks! That did the trick! Agreed, file copy/drag drop does not work! Hopefully, this will get rectified quickly!

[Aymkdn]

Same here. After some time the copy/paste stop working, and I have to restart the app to make it work again.

[vullnetlimani]

I have the same problem, time to time it just stops working.

[Aymkdn]

I created a shortcut that kills and restarts the executable when the copy/paste doesn't work. It's handy, but I'd prefer not having to do that ^^

@echo off
echo Killing PowerToys.MouseWithoutBordersHelper processes...
taskkill /F /IM "PowerToys.MouseWithoutBordersHelper*" /T
echo Starting PowerToys.MouseWithoutBordersHelper.exe...
start "" "C:\Users\Aymeric\AppData\Local\PowerToys\PowerToys.MouseWithoutBordersHelper.exe"

[marknoble]

I created a shortcut that kills and restarts the executable when the copy/paste doesn't work. It's handy, but I'd prefer not having to do that ^^

@echo off
echo Killing PowerToys.MouseWithoutBordersHelper processes...
taskkill /F /IM "PowerToys.MouseWithoutBordersHelper*" /T
echo Starting PowerToys.MouseWithoutBordersHelper.exe...
start "" "C:\Users\Aymeric\AppData\Local\PowerToys\PowerToys.MouseWithoutBordersHelper.exe"

Here's a PowerShell version (I called it Repair-CopyPasteMWB.ps1):

Write-Host "Killing PowerToys.MouseWithoutBordersHelper processes..."
Stop-Process -Name "PowerToys.MouseWithoutBordersHelper*" -Force
Write-Host "Starting PowerToys.MouseWithoutBordersHelper.exe..."
Start-Process -FilePath "C:\Users\Aymeric\AppData\Local\PowerToys\PowerToys.MouseWithoutBordersHelper.exe"

[mystery4f]

我创建了一个快捷方式，可以在复制/粘贴不起作用时杀死并重新启动可执行文件。这很方便，但我宁愿不必这样做^^

@echo off
echo Killing PowerToys.MouseWithoutBordersHelper processes...
taskkill /F /IM "PowerToys.MouseWithoutBordersHelper*" /T
echo Starting PowerToys.MouseWithoutBordersHelper.exe...
start "" "C:\Users\Aymeric\AppData\Local\PowerToys\PowerToys.MouseWithoutBordersHelper.exe"

下面是一个 PowerShell 版本（我将其称为 Repair-CopyPasteMWB.ps1）：

Write-Host "Killing PowerToys.MouseWithoutBordersHelper processes..."
Stop-Process -Name "PowerToys.MouseWithoutBordersHelper*" -Force
Write-Host "Starting PowerToys.MouseWithoutBordersHelper.exe..."
Start-Process -FilePath "C:\Users\Aymeric\AppData\Local\PowerToys\PowerToys.MouseWithoutBordersHelper.exe"

oh, using your script, it's finally fine！

[tmairegasnighto]

I have noticed that it stops working very reliably when using RDP windows on one or the other computers. When I move to an RDP window, I typically need to use the shortcut. Which means I'm using it multiple times per hour.

[maicol07]

I've created a simple AHK script that will do this automatically:
https://github.com/maicol07/AHK-scripts/blob/main/powertoysMWBHRelaunch.ahk

[CharltonEBCI]

After updating to the latest version, 80.1, and disabling "Use Service" on both computers, copy and paste seems to actually work now with files under the size limit. It also doesn't seem to be crashing as much now. However, that means you have to unlock your secondary computer with a physical mouse and keyboard before Mouse without Borders starts working. I'm also still having issues with it picking up correctly when working with Hyper-V and Remote Desktop. Just wanted to give everyone an update.

[agldiasdigital]

After updating to the latest version, 80.1, and disabling "Use Service" on both computers, copy and paste seems to actually work now with files under the size limit. It also doesn't seem to be crashing as much now. However, that means you have to unlock your secondary computer with a physical mouse and keyboard before Mouse without Borders starts working. I'm also still having issues with it picking up correctly when working with Hyper-V and Remote Desktop. Just wanted to give everyone an update.

Thanks for the info! I just tested it the way you mentioned and it worked :)

Now copy/paste files and drag and drop are working.

It would be great if it was running with service mode, but this is better than nothing.

[AJolly]

Augh but then it wont work with elevated apps :/

[davehouser1]

I tried the following:

• Turned off MouseWithoutBoarders service from PowerTools settings
• Tried starting and stopping powertoys and WindowsWithoutBoarders executable
• Tried the powershell script / Windows script above to do it via cli

Nothing works except for a logoff and log backon. I am guessing there is some other application on my host that is stealing clipboard, will do more research to figure out. But yeah, this stinks. Wish there was someway to tell when clipboard stops working and why.

[CharlesLiaoO]

After updating to the latest version, 80.1, and disabling "Use Service" on both computers, copy and paste seems to actually work now with files under the size limit. It also doesn't seem to be crashing as much now. However, that means you have to unlock your secondary computer with a physical mouse and keyboard before Mouse without Borders starts working. I'm also still having issues with it picking up correctly when working with Hyper-V and Remote Desktop. Just wanted to give everyone an update.

Thanks! It really helps! Fortunately, I use a Windows tablet supports Windows Hello Facial recognition as the secondary computer, so no need for a physical keyboard to connect to the tablet. ^_^

[Ador-able]

I hope this issue is fixed. Frequent crashes greatly affect the user experience

[ZephWyrm]

It does not work more often than it does. It also does not correctly detects when connected computers are turned on without refreshing the connections - something that the stand-alone version never had problems with.

[zimoxvi01]

That thing is how to use these scripts?? 🤥

[VicPariah]

Lately the MWB Helper app has been stacking crashes after using the clipboard for just 2 or 3 uses without ever deviating from that pattern even once. It seems like it could be a memory leak.

Also, activating a UAC prompt or any application running elevated privileges guarantee a crash. I can never keep up with all of the Windows event logs that continually pop up, so much so that I had to forcefully disable log reporting entirely.

I mean, I get that Github is now a Microsoft-owned service, but seriously.. this is frankly embarrassing. This doesn't constitute good open-source development practices if bugs like this aren't triaged in a timely manner.

[YDKK]

I've created a fix for this issue.
Hopefully this PR will solve the issue with the helper process in service mode.