Mar 20, 2010
Dreamweaver CS4 Copy/Paste Bug Workaround
If you are working with Dreamweaver CS4 and find that you have weird select – copy – paste problems, then read on.
Ever been working in code view and find that trying to highlight and copy any text (either ctrl-c or right click>copy) suddenly results in the entire page or code block you are working in being selected? Yeah, me to – and it has made me FURIOUS, going on 3 or 4 months now.
The only way I was able to get it to STOP doing that was to click somewhere in the code editor and make a change in the doc – like clicking Enter to make a new blank line and then deleting it again. Once the file was “touched” like that, copy again worked correctly. While this worked, it was EXTREMELY annoying, because it happened every single time I opened a bit of code that I wanted to grab a snippet from. Constantly clicking and making changes in files that I really didn’t want to change, only to start forgetting which ones I really wanted to save… Oh, how I loathed the day I upgraded from CS3!
Well, I’m glad to announce that I found a way to fix the stupid problem – not permanently – but at least I don’t have to use the stupid file change method anymore.
It appears that the problem is due to “workspace” issues. A CS4 Workspace is essentially a screen layout configuration that you can customize and save and return to at any point. For example, you may want certain windows open when you are writing your code, and other windows open when you are debugging the code, etc. CS4 ships with several neat Workspaces out of the box – I’ve primarily used the “Dual Screen” workspace for most of my time in the app. Well apparently something in the Workspace config gets borked and causes this problem.
To Fix the Problem:
- First, select the “Classic” Workspace and let the windows reconfigure themselves. The easiest way to do this is to select a new Workspace from the upper right hand side of the top of your Dreamweaver window, as seen below.
Its Easy to Change your Workspace
- Second, change back to your preferred workspace (like “Dual Screen” in my case) and the problem will be gone!
Now, be advised that it may show up again in a few weeks or a few days, or never – I don’t know. It doesn’t seem to be consistent – but it will at least give you some peace while you try to bang out that next web masterpiece.
A final thought – it may even work to select the Reset option – seen above as “Reset ‘Dual Screen’”, but I haven’t tested that myself personally. Drop a note if it you try that and works for you!
Happy coding! 
OMG! THANK YOU!!! This problem has been driving me nuts.
Heh.. Drove me nuts too! Glad it helped you… Thanks for dropping a note!
Glad it worked for you!
THANK YOU!
I can’t believe Adobe never issued a patch for this. Flash CS4 had an issue with the library panel that was solved by changing layouts as well, it seems this feature has caused a LOT of trouble.
What is up with their QA?
Thanks a lot! Your fix is a lot less intrusive than the one I’d been using previously, which was to delete Dreamweaver’s config files every time this annoyance cropped up. Here’s to hoping CS5 will have a working implementation of copy/paste, at the very least…
Awesome! I thought i was going crazy, even changed my keyboard to find out that was not the problem. Good workaround since those Adobe people are working on CS5 now.
OMG! THANK YOU!!! This problem has been driving me nuts.
Every time Adobe updates Dreamweaver, it get bigger, more bloated, buggier and it pisses me off. Then Adobe has the nerve to tell us that the problem does not exist except in a few ‘rare’ circumstances yet there are tons of pages dedicated to this problem. Yup, give me Notepad++ or TextMate. Get stuffed Adobe!!!
Sorry, but this is only an temporaly workaround. After a while the problems start again.
Yup, you are right. But, doing it again normally fixes it again. Wish there was a better way.
hi,
thank you for that workaround, but unfortunately it doesn’t work in my case – although the symptons were the same…
Thanks, that works!! It’s very annoying!!!!!
Great. Not just me!
WOW Thank you! This problem even exists in CS5! Great help!
Yep! Worked for me. Nice catch!
this has been driving me crazy – thanks!!
What an awesome way to explain thisnow I know erveything!
Sadly, this doesn’t work for me in CS5, Windows 7.
Thanks. Been battling this issue for MONTHS!
Hello people, the work around I’ve by googling solved my problem.
Basically I had to erase my preferences folder for Dreamweaver, we dreamweaver closed.
As soon as I re-opened it, the folder is created again and everything works again.
Here is what I’ve found:
“Also – have you tried removing your Dreamweaver Configuration folder located in ~/library/Application Support/Adobe/Dreamweaver # where # is your Dreamweaver version number and restarted Dreamweaver? Don’t neccessarily delete it, but move it out of that location and restart Dreamweaver – see http://forums.adobe.com/thread/417116“
This trick solved the problem for me (working with CS4)
many thanks
Update to my previous comment:
as you said, switching to the “classic” workspace and then to your usual workspace solve the problem temporarily.
I found a very good solution here: http://www.tom-elliott.net/html-css/dreamweaver-cs4-code-selecting-problem/
Switching the workspace to “classic” and then reordering the panels like you want seems to solve the problem for good. Apparently, the trick is to stay on the “classic” workspace… then feel free to move the panels to make the interface look like whatever you want.