An issue I had with Windows 11 recently was that I tried to Ctrl+C to copy, but it didn't copy. I thought my Ctrl key might be broken, so as a workaround I clicked on Edit -> Copy in the menubar. To my surprise, that also didn't work, as the Edit -> Paste option remained grayed out, indicating that there was nothing in the clipboard to paste.
Solution
I managed to solve this by typing "Clipboard settings" in the start menu and switching Clipboard history on and off. It was initially off.
Presumably, what happened was that the program that manages the clipboard crashed or froze somehow, and switching "Clipboard history" to "on" terminates the program and restarts it in a different mode. Switching it back to "off" restarted the program in its initial setting.
Turning things on and off really solves most of the computer problems!
Observations
Irresponsive?: While unable to copy things, I noticed that when I tried to copy applications would hang for a short while, presumably waiting for the clipboard program to respond to the copied data they were trying to send to the clipboard. As none of them hanged indefinitely, I assume there's a timeout implemented somewhere in Windows.
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