Copy/Paste Broken - Wayland

[Nick Peyton]

Copy and paste no longer work, and I've seen multiple reports linking this to Ubuntu's recent forced move to Wayland.

VMware Workstation Pro cannot receive pasted text even inside its own interface (for example when renaming a VM), which means the failure is not host to guest but a fundamental clipboard handling break in the VMware application itself under Wayland.

Is there a temporary workaround for this on Ubuntu 25.04?  For the record, I can copy from guest > host, but not from host > guest.

Pro 25H2

25.0.0.24995812

## Software Information:

- **Firmware Version:**                            1301

- **OS Name:**                                     Ubuntu 25.04

- **OS Build:**                                    (null)

- **OS Type:**                                     64-bit

- **GNOME Version:**                               48

- **Windowing System:**                            Wayland

- **Kernel Version:**                              Linux 6.14.0-36-generic

Kind regards,

Nick

-------------------------------------------

[richard612]

After your copy action and before your paste action... Click VMware Workstation's title bar once.

I have no idea why this works.  Changing your app focus to the VM wrapper somehow kicks the clipboard pipeline into gear.

I suspect this pathology is an artifact of VMware Workstation being a gtk3 app (still).

-------------------------------------------

[Nick Peyton]

That makes it slightly more tolerable because it flips the issue: instead of only copying guest to host, I can now only copy host to guest, which is marginally better since I do that more often.

After a reboot, it reverts to the original behaviour.

Note: Clicking the grey bar at the bottom, when the cursor changes to ☝, is what reversed the behaviour for me.

-------------------------------------------

[richard612]

That's strange.  I've never had a one-way clipboard.  It's been fine in both directions after clicking the titlebar.

When copying guest to host (or trying to) you get the same result with ctrl-c as when using "Copy" on the context menu?  My thought is ctrl-c is being intercepted by the host.  Maybe.  Any knobs in gnome-tweaks related to this?  

-------------------------------------------

[Nick Peyton]

I've got two-way clipboard again.  To paste from host > guest I doni't click anything.

I just hover the mouse over the thin status bar on the very bottom of the entire workstation pro window.  

When the cursor is hovered over that, it pastes from the host.  When I move the cursor, the guest pastes itself.

-------------------------------------------

[Himanshu Garg]

Hi Nick,

Can you please share the below details with us-

1) hostOS and guestOS and their versions.

2) Support bundle for WS.

3) vmtools log.

You can follow the below doc link to enable vmtools logs-
https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/313512/enabling-debug-logging-for-vmware-tools.html

Thanks

Himanshu

-------------------------------------------

[Nick Peyton]

1. Host OS: Ubuntu 25.04
   Guest OSs: Windows 11 Home, Pro, Enterprise, and Windows Server 2022.

2. Support bundle attached.

3. Copy/paste is broken across VMware Workstation Pro itself, not just inside guests. For example, pasting text into the VM rename field often fails. This affects all VMs, not a single guest.

The workaround is extremely frustrating and unreliable. It often takes two or three attempts to work, and when it fails the paste instead goes into the guest, requiring me to manually select and delete it. As a result, I avoid copy/paste entirely unless absolutely necessary, such as when pasting long commands or scripts.

As a workaround only, I can sometimes paste by clicking inside the target field, then moving the mouse to the very bottom edge of the VMware Workstation window and pressing Ctrl+V. This appears to inject keystrokes rather than perform a true clipboard paste, similar to "paste clipboard as keystrokes" behaviour in tools like TeamViewer or Datto RMM.

-------------------------------------------

Attachment(s)

vm-2025-12-26.662086.tgz   11.22 MB 1 version

[Nick Peyton]

It may be unrelated, but this forum "Post" button also appears buggy. The page refreshed instead of submitting, and I had to retype this post.

1. Host OS: Ubuntu 25.04
   Guest OSs: Windows 11 Home, Pro, Enterprise, and Windows Server 2022.

2. Support bundle attached: (vm-2025-12-26.662086.tgz)

3. Copy/paste is broken across VMware Workstation Pro itself, not just inside guests. For example, pasting into the VM rename field often fails. This affects all my VMs.

The only workaround is unreliable and frustrating, often requiring multiple attempts. When it fails, the guest pastes itself forcing manual cleanup. As a result, I now avoid copy/paste unless absolutely necessary, such as for long commands or scripts.

Occasionally, pasting works by clicking the target field, moving the mouse to the very bottom edge of the Workstation window, and pressing Ctrl+V. This appears to inject keystrokes rather than perform a true clipboard paste.

-------------------------------------------

Attachment(s)

vm-2025-12-26.662086.tgz   11.22 MB 1 version

[qhartman]

I was having past issues with 25.04 host and Windows 11 guests in VMware Workstation 25H2 (specifically 25.0.0.24995812). This morning I had a kernel update which required the kernel modules to be rebuilt, and now all my copy and paste features are working correctly. I'm running 6.17.0-7-generic. HTH.

-------------------------------------------

[marcel458]

We experience the same issues with 25H2 under Windows 11 Pro OS Build 26200.7462 host and Windows 11 VMs. That is why we went back to the previous version of Workstation and we are waiting for a fix.

-------------------------------------------

[Schnakel Kakel]

Same problem here. VMWare Workstation on Wayland copy/paste is broken. Since x11 is old, Broadcom should fix this.

-------------------------------------------