[Solved] Cut, copy, and paste not working

[Hagar Delest]

I've been using Open Office for over a year, but just within the last week, copy, cut, and paste functionality simply stopped working from the edit menu and the shortcut keys. It works fine in any other application that I use, but not in Open Office. I can use drag and drop to copy and paste between applications, however, which is annoying as hell. I figure that I somehow triggered some weird setting in OOo. Yesterday I upgraded from 3.0.1 to 3.1.0 hoping to correct the problem, but it is still there.

Can someone tell me what might be going on?

[FJCC]

Try resetting your user profile as explained here

[gdc555]

That didn't fix it. I guess I should have said that I have two users on this computer and it is affecting both of them.

When I get some time, I will probably uninstall OOo, delete all OOo folders, and do a clean installation. In the mean time, are there any other ideas?

[FJCC]

I think that upgrading from 3.0.1 to 3.1 doesn't replace all of the code, it just does selective changes. I could easily be wrong about that. If I'm right, you would have to uninstall your existing version and then re-install. You might want to wait a bit to see if someone says I'm wrong.

[Bill]

Unless the upgrade process has changed, upgrading should replace all the code. I know that on OOo 2, the old version was automatically uninstalled--old program files and registry settings which were part of the old version installation were completely removed before the new version's program files and registry settings were installed. That's why it wasn't necessary to manually uninstall the old version first. The old version would have to be manually uninstalled only if you wanted to do a clean installation, which also requires manually deleting the user profile folder, cleaning the registry and deleting any leftover OOo program file folders.

[gdc555]

Either way, it didn't make a difference. I did a fresh install and still have the problem. I have a couple other programs that are acting up now, so I'm thinking it is a systemic thing. I'll probably have to rebuild the entire machine.

[RoryOF]

If you insert the XP CD and boot from it, I think it gives you the option to rebuild your installation, preserving installed programs and settings.

[gdc555]

I found my problem! I remembered that just before I encountered the cut'n'paste issue, I had accidentally shutdown in the middle of a Java update . This is a Bad Thing(tm), apparently. So I removed all copies of Java from my machine, removed OOo, downloaded a fresh Java JRE and installed it (tested it too!), then reinstalled OOo. Cut'n'paste is working again.