

Samsung Copy and Paste Bug - threedaymonk
http://shkspr.mobi/blog/2013/02/samsung-copy-paste-bug-aka-never-buy-samsung-galaxy-phones/

======
ansible
OK, I get that this is a bug. And it was reported a while ago. And it still
hasn't been fixed. And yes, there have been other bugs by Samsung (and every
other company, ever).

But please, does this bug really warrant "never trust Samsung", and
"...Samsung's atrocious attitude to its customers..." and all that? I think
someone needs to take a deep breath and try to calm down a little.

Here's the thing. There's a lot that goes into fixing even "simple" bugs for
an existing product that is in production. Ideally, there is a lot of testing,
and a lot of review for each and every fix.

In the case of mobile phones, there's even more hurdles, because the carrier
has to approve the update too. They do their own testing, and it can take a
while to get it pushed out. The carrier may be all up in your grill about
other issues that you don't see (like something on the network side) that they
prioritize over a clipboard bug that only affects users of alternate
keyboards.

I don't know why a fix for this particular issue hasn't been pushed out yet.
But there may be a good reason for that. Or a bad reason.

I'm not terribly impressed with some Samsung product divisions myself. My
Bluray player does indeed play discs, but beyond that it is quite slow and
crash-tastic. And my SK4G's original firmware was rather buggy. And my Nexus
10's video playback is a little glitchy.

Hmmm... maybe it is Samsung after all. At any rate, I don't know if there's a
need to rant and rave about that though.

~~~
homosaur
Samsung makes gorgeous, inexpensive products but their software leaves a lot
to be desired. I never understood the boosters of the GSIII, really. I can
understand loving the hardware and the form factor but I booted it up once,
saw the third party Android shell and put it back on the shelf.

I still don't get what manufacturers are thinking here. I know they want to
differentiate their devices and have unique features but I've yet to see an
Android shell that wasn't buggy, slow, and usually ugly.

Not only does their software suck, but it keep users from updating their
phones. I suffered through this with the horrible worthless Motorola Photon 4G
(don't buy Moto phones kids, they are garbage), a dual core piece of
overpowered bugware they wouldn't bring to Android 4 because they were too
lazy to rewrite their nearly worthless third party tools like Moto Blur.

Companies like Samsung and Motorola clearly cannot handle software development
and should leave it to the pros instead of cluttering and messing up an
attractive, usable interface.

~~~
timdorr
It's funny you mention Motorola as an example of bad software, since Google
owns them now. They're trying to maintain a separation between the two
companies, and I guess that's a sign that it's working!

~~~
homosaur
Well to be fair to Googlerola, the Photon 4G was a pre-Google phone. I haven't
tried any of the post-Google phones.

------
rogerbinns
I highly recommend reading "The Saga of a CyanogenMod Exynos4 device
maintainer" showing a history of dealing with Samsung, Samsung's tech
practises and outright lies about their hardware, and repeated broken promises
[https://plus.google.com/101093310520661581786/posts/aoAGK5yo...](https://plus.google.com/101093310520661581786/posts/aoAGK5yo13Y)

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veeti
The title is wrong. There is no specific threshold for the bug: all that is
known is that the clipboard crashes at some point if you use it and it becomes
disabled until you wipe the /data/clipboard directory. (This directory doesn't
exist in stock Android, so it's a problem with Samsung's software). Any
attempt to copy something results in the app crashing.

Another possibly related problem is that spamming the setPrimaryClip function
will cause a reboot. I haven't been able to cause the permanent lockup using
this method, but running a program that runs an infinite loop seems to reboot
the phone with 100% success.

You can see for yourself:

<http://rojekti.fi/samsung.apk>

Or if you don't trust random APK's off the internet (this one has no
permissions, though), just write your own test app - it takes 5 minutes:

[http://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/Clipb...](http://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/ClipboardManager.html)

Once again, this doesn't happen in stock Android or on any other
manufacturer's device.

~~~
JosephRedfern
The title is still wrong. You can be using a Samsung phone with a custom ROM
and not experience any issues. It's an issues with Samsung's ROM, not the
hardware.

~~~
cooldeal
I think that's too pedantic. The title is generally true for 99% of folks.

Car analogy: Headline: "Honda Civics prone to stalling".

You> Headline is wrong because if the Civic's engine is replaced with a
Porsche engine, the problem does not occur.

The phones as sold to end users are subject to the bug.

~~~
StavrosK
Well, it's not _too_ pedantic. I have a Galaxy Nexus, which is a Samsung
phone, and it doesn't have that problem (because it runs stock android).

~~~
veeti
Yes, it is. The Galaxy Nexus is:

\- an exception

\- a 1.5 year old model

\- a discontinued product

\- a model that Samsung did not ever advertise themselves

\- the only high-end Samsung phone not running their software

The Galaxy Nexus is a Google phone manufactured by Samsung. It is not a
Samsung phone like the SIII or Note II.

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daemonl
I tried... But i can't crash my s3 and I've been copying and pasting for 5
solid minutes (which I'm probably not getting back)

~~~
edent
For best results (!) try using the Chrome Browser. I've found that it crashes
in all sorts of apps - but Chrome seems to be the most common.

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Stratoscope
Doesn't happen on my Verizon Galaxy Note II running CleanROM ACE 4.5. Didn't
happen with 4.2.5 or the stock Verizon ROM either. I've been using SwiftKey on
each and have never seen this happen. And I do a lot of copy and paste - I've
never counted, but easily more than 20 times without rebooting.

~~~
drivers99
It says _in the article_ the problem is with Samsung's keyboard app, in which
they've added a clipboard history feature. Since you are using a different app
(SwiftKey) it doesn't apply to you.

~~~
andrewaylett
However, it also says:

If you don't use the Samsung Keyboard, items are still copied onto their
clipboard - but you're unable to access them.

Which suggests that the issue should be affecting me, but it's not. Nor did I
see it for the few days after getting the phone when I was using their
keyboard.

I'm not suggesting that he's not experiencing the issue, but it's obviously
not as universal as he suggests.

~~~
inigoesdr
The article mentioned that you have to be running the Samsung stock build,
because the issue is with the Samsung clipboard manager.

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aristidb
Sad that every criticism of a phone operating system requires an explicit
justification of not being biased.

~~~
edent
I'm used to it by now. Whenever I post a criticism, I try very carefully to
make verifiable and repeatable claims with as much evidence (preferably video)
as possible.

Even so, I've been accused of being a paid schill for Apple, Dell, Google,
RIM, Nokia, Samsung, Sony and - on one memorable occasion - Panasonic!

I really wish I was in the pocket of all these companies - I'd be minted :-)

------
kecebongsoft
I've experienced this many times, but not to the point where my phone get
restarted. I used to buy a $5 prepaid phone credits through online banking,
and I have to copy and paste the serial number onto the caller app, that's
when the browser crashes and I literally lost my $5. What a frustration.

This happened when there are quite amount of elements in the page (text,
images, tables, divs). So instead of directly copying from the e-banking site,
I now choose 'Search <s/n> in Google' option after blocking the text, and then
Google, with much simpler output will render the S/N once again where I can
copy it safely. Not sure if this is the problem with Android, or Samsung. I
have a moderate amount of installed apps and running background services, my
phone is S3.

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wslh
It seems like copy&paste are a challenging computer science problem [irony]. I
remember how the crowd applauded when Steve Jobs presented this feature in
iOS.

Fast forward a couple of years and even Google Chrome in Android has bugs in a
textbox when you remove characters with backspace (it swaps characters, move
the cursor).

~~~
lloeki
> _It seems like copy &paste are a challenging computer science problem
> [irony]_

You have no idea. Issues that cross my mind:

\- plain vs rich vs embedded: which one to paste, and at that time, if
applicable, how to degrade one into the other? ask the original app, which
knows the semantic? store multiple versions? store once, as-is, and hope the
target app knows how to handle it, leading to inconsistencies?

\- persistence across app life cycle: copy, close app, paste into other app.
For years Linux, X or something simply could not do that and your paste would
fail.

\- UI concerns: it's easy to take the current, refined by the years way to
handle clipboard for granted. remember how at some point some implementations
_required_ you to click a button on a damn toolbar. Notice how competing
alternatives exist, such as X autofill with selection buffer pasted with
middle click, xterm's left click to move left + right click to move right,
OSX's growth of selection to the closest selection edge, or the infamous quick
mode CMD.EXE way that gets copied with enter.

\- security concerns: apps could be running with different levels of
privilege, and you certainly don't want less privileged ones to have
uncontrolled access to the clipboard buffer data, whose data may come from a
more privileged source.

~~~
wslh
I know of these issues, but have been already solved. Look at the Microsoft
Windows implementation for example:

> plain vs rich vs embedded

When you copy you have multiple formats that you can apply. The target can
accepts many of them.

> persistence across app life cycle

shared memory

~~~
wslh
Some people likes downvoting instead of discussing.

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dobbsbob
I buy google branded phones and make my own build. By not building all the
junk my battery lasts almost 3days with average use which is pretty amazing
for a nexus s. It would need constant recharging with the stock build

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Jleagle
My Galaxy Nexus doesn't do this, the author clearly has issues but shouldn't
generalize so much.

~~~
veeti
Because this is an issue in Samsung's software. The Nexus devices run pure
Android by Google.

------
Jenk
This article really reads as "Hey guys, we can finally jump down Samsung's
throat for something, who's with me?"

~~~
_Simon
I suggest that you read to the bottom of the article.

~~~
Jenk
I had read the article in it's entirety before posting that comment, thank you
very much.

~~~
sturmeh
Somehow we highly doubt that.

