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Can't Paste Text in Blogs

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Firefox on Mac OS when on Youtube I can paste any text in the blogs. This works in Safari, and Chrome but no with Firefox. This feature has not worked for several weeks now.

Firefox on Mac OS when on Youtube I can paste any text in the blogs. This works in Safari, and Chrome but no with Firefox. This feature has not worked for several weeks now.

All Replies (8)

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Hi dickcheneyisaliar, where are you pasting? More specifically, it is a "visual" editor that shows formatting, or is it a plain text field (like on this forum)?

Rich text editors may do fancy scripting tricks with pastes. You could check this setting:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button promising to be careful or accepting the risk.

(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste CLIPB and pause while the list is filtered

(3) If the dom.event.clipboardevents.enabled preference is bolded and "modified" or "user set" to false, double-click it to restore the default value of true

Does that help?

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Hmm, sorry, I guess they changed how the comments/replies work, since that does not help.

Unfortunately, it's the opposite. Making the settling false allows you to paste into YouTube comments. Problem is, this is known to break other sites. WTH is Google doing?!

One kind of cheesey workaround is to compose your comment/reply in the search box, then select all of it and drag-and-drop it onto the open comment form.

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It is already set to True

the text fields in the YouTube blogs are simple text like this. There maybe bit more in that it can have a hyperling and there is a way to bold text but beyond that it does not offer any features like numbering, indent, color, etc...

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That is due to something being changed in YouTube. Makes is very hard to "quote" a Reply comment - gotta type what I had been pasting.

I have been having the same copy & paste issue for at least a couple of weeks now with YouTube with Firefox 47.0.1; so it's not just with Firefox 60.0.2 .

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I can highlight and drag text from the blog page to the text field but if I want to copy and past text from another source I cannot. Haven't tried to drag from another file to a text box yet but that just not a reasonable work around.

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the-edmeister said

That is due to something being changed in YouTube. Makes is very hard to "quote" a Reply comment - gotta type what I had been pasting. I have been having the same copy & paste issue for at least a couple of weeks now with YouTube with Firefox 47.0.1; so it's not just with Firefox 60.0.2 .

If this is a known problem between Firefox and YouTube is Firefox working to fix it or is it up to YouTube to fix this?

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Google's scripting is notoriously complex. I can't figure out what they're doing, but there is a way to bypass it that might work for you. You'll need to click this button when you notice paste not working (it doesn't run automatically).

One-Time Setup

See next reply for an easier method.

(1) Select and copy this JavaScript code:

javascript:void(addEventListener('paste', function(e){e.stopPropagation()}, true));

(2) Right-click (or on Mac: Ctrl+click) the Bookmarks Toolbar or Bookmarks Menu near where you want the button and choose New Bookmark

(3) Paste the script code in the Location box

(4) Type something in the Name box like YTPaste and click Add Bookmark

When you click the button, it will inject the script into the page, blocking the site's paste interception scripts. After that, you should be able to paste into the comment box.


I'll break down the script for you:

javascript: ... => this protocol informs Firefox that the bookmark is actually a script

void( ... ); => this prevents Firefox from trying to load the script as a web address

addEventListener('paste', function(e){ ... }, true) => this instructs Firefox to take action when you paste into the page (addEventListener on MDN)

e.stopPropagation() => this instructs Firefox not to pass the paste event to any other elements/scripts in the page, so Firefox just proceeds with pasting as normal (stopPropagation on MDN)

jscher2000 - Support Volunteer trɔe

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I added the bookmarklet to this page for easier installation:

https://www.jeffersonscher.com/res/sumomarklets.html#ytpaste