Unable to Copy / Paste Measures

[Userxwa]

Description

Can't use mouse, keyboard, or menu to copy and paste a measure object in the same TE3 instance or to a different model either. It appears the copy action is broken because the paste option when right clicking is still grayed out after the copy attempt is made.

Troubleshooting:

• restarted machine
• upgraded to 3.17.1 from 3.17.0,
• Am able to do other copy/paste operations like text in the description/name of an object and paste that using keyboard just fine.
• tried moving measure out of display folder and into a table before copying didn't work.
• tried model based in Power BI service, desktop, creating a new model native to TE3...didn't work.
• CTRL + X works as expected, but can't CTRL + V to
• clear all items in: C:\Users\888624\AppData\Local\TabularEditor3
• installing on personal computer 3.17.1 and that works as expected for copy/paste
• however, same issue for another person at my company with 3.17.0 installed

System:
Edition Windows 11 Enterprise
Version 23H2
Installed on ‎1/‎27/‎2024
OS build 22631.4317
Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.22700.1041.0

Tabular Editor 3 Version

3.17.1

Screenshots

Steps to Reproduce

Open model.
Select measure.
CTRL + C
CTRL + V

Expected behavior

Measure and properties to be duplicated except the name might change to increment with a 1 at the end or similar.

Crash Report

No response

Windows Version

22631.4317

[mlonsk]

Hi @Userxwa
That does sound a bit odd, but I cannot reproduce it on my end either. I will try to ask internally if we have any ideas, but could it possible be some sort of corporate IT policy that has been enacted or did the issue only start with upgrading to 3.17.1?

[Userxwa]

The issue didn't start with the 3.17.1 upgrade it was present in 3.17.0 as well. I have our IT dept. looking into it and will let them know you couldn't replicate it either.

It is an odd one, but I'll update this with the solution if I ever get one from our team.

[otykier]

@Userxwa

The "Paste" operation is not expected to work, unless the clipboard already contains a successfully copied object from TE2 / TE3. So the question is whether data gets inserted to the clipboard at all, which seems to not be the case (you can always test this by pasting into another application, such as Notepad - objects copied from within TE2 / TE3 are simply stored in the clipboard as JSON text).

The most likely explanation is that some other application is interfering with the clipboard. Does the machine have a 3rd party clipboard manager such as ClipboardFusion installed, or are you accessing the machine through remote desktop?

• When you say that "Cut" (Ctrl+X) works, are you able to subsequently "Paste" (Ctrl+V)?
• What happens if you try to "Copy" (Ctrl+C) several times in a row?
• Could you try some of the workarounds suggested in this thread (ignore the workarounds that require modifying application code).

Looking forward to hear your findings, thanks!

[Userxwa]

CTRL + X does work as expected, but you cannot subsequently CTRL + V. Inspection of the clipboard after CTRL + X doesn't show any entry.

@otykier WHOA! Spamming CTRL + C does work! In fact, just doing two of those works BUT you must hit them in under what I estimate to be a tenth to a quarter of a second. Any longer than that between CTRL + Cs doesn't work.

[edhans]

I am wondering @Userxwa if your org has some security tool or addin installed that is seeing something in the clipboard it doesn't like and is clearing it in the background.

Testing 3.18 on two different machines, CTRL-C and CTRL-V work fine. CTRL-V works fine at least a minute later, so it isn't TE/3 clearing the clipboard.

[otykier]

I think @edhans might be on to something. What happens if you try to copy the snippet below? This is the same type of JSON that TE3 would typically add to the clipboard when copying an object.

{
  "InstanceID": "fe2c4873-946b-4320-b700-a16ae629fb73",
  "measures": [
    {
  "name": "Internet Current Quarter Gross Profit",
  "expression": "TOTALQTD( [Internet Total Gross Profit], 'Date'[Date] )",
  "formatString": "\\$#,0.00;(\\$#,0.00);\\$#,0.00",
  "dataType": "decimal",
  "modifiedTime": "2023-04-05T11:57:06.373333",
  "structureModifiedTime": "2021-11-24T13:13:36.44",
  "annotations": [
    {
      "name": "Format",
      "value": "<Format Format=\"Currency\" Accuracy=\"2\"><Currency LCID=\"1033\" DisplayName=\"$ English (United States)\" Symbol=\"$\" PositivePattern=\"0\" NegativePattern=\"0\" /></Format>",
      "modifiedTime": "2021-11-24T13:13:36.443333"
    },
    {
      "name": "Hello",
      "value": "Test",
      "modifiedTime": "2022-06-30T10:47:35.606667"
    },
    {
      "name": "TabularEditor_InPerspective",
      "value": "[\"Internet Operation\"]"
    }
  ]
}
  ]
}

[Userxwa]

@otykier copying your code within the browser is successful, it shows on the clipboard and can be pasted elsewhere.

There are quite a lot of security tools at play in my org. I'll take this feedback to our cyber team to look into further. If I do hear what the root cause is I'll be sure to share if I can.

Thanks for your help in research and finding a workaround that is good.