It's been known to happen. Especially if you have a lot going on on your computer. Richard has often seen such issues when his recording software is on.

It's happened to me as well if I have a lot of stuff open on my computer. Usually, when my system starts acting up and not wanting to cooperate, I break the link in the property dialog (yeah, it's slower). Select the field that the label is linked to, go to the other tab, and delete the label name from there. Then you can just drag the label from the detail section to the header section.

Alternatively, you can use the layout method. Select all the fields with labels you want to have in the header, go to the Arrange tab and click tabular layout. Then with them all selected still, click remove layout and you can drag them around to arrange them how you like, unless you want to use the layout grid to arrange things. All a matter of preference.

Tom, it's definitely not just you. This has been aggravating me for years, and like Donald mentioned, you've probably heard me complain about Access copy/paste acting flaky in more than a few of my videos. For a long time I assumed it was something on my end, such as my screen recording software, Stream Deck, or some other utility interfering with the Windows clipboard. But I've had it happen with all of that stuff shut down too.

I finally spent a bunch of time researching it today and had ChatGPT dig through Microsoft forums, Access MVP discussions, Access World Forums, and other reports. There are quite a few people reporting variations of the same problem. Some specifically report controls in Form or Report Design View failing to copy or paste, particularly when multiple controls are selected. There are reports going back several years, and there are still reports of this behavior in recent versions of Access. Karl Donaubauer and other Access MVPs have been involved in some of these discussions as well.

One known problem involves a Windows feature called "Suggested Actions," which monitors the clipboard and tries to recognize things like dates and phone numbers. Apparently the Access team has recommended disabling that feature as a workaround for some Access clipboard problems. Some users reported that doing so fixed the problem, although at least one later reported that the problem eventually returned. On newer versions of Windows, like mine, the Suggested Actions switch doesn't even appear in Settings anymore, although apparently it can still be disabled through the registry.

Windows Clipboard History has also come up in the discussion. I use Clipboard History constantly and really don't want to turn it off, and at this point I haven't seen enough evidence to blame Clipboard History itself. In fact, I'm going to leave mine enabled while I troubleshoot this because Win+V can help determine whether Access actually put something on the clipboard.

I did some testing myself today and found something very interesting. If I select several controls in Form Design View, hit Ctrl+C, immediately switch to another form and hit Ctrl+V, it will often work. If I wait, however, sometimes those controls will no longer paste. I can reproduce the same behavior without even changing forms. Copy several controls, paste immediately and they appear. Wait a while and sometimes they're effectively gone.

What's especially strange is that copying a single control seems much more reliable. I can copy one textbox, wait 30 seconds or a minute, and generally paste it without a problem. Copy five textboxes and the behavior becomes much more intermittent. Sometimes they'll remain available, sometimes they won't, and sometimes I have to perform the copy/paste operation very quickly for it to work.

That makes me suspect that something is interfering with the Access-specific information on the Windows clipboard. A clipboard item can contain several different data formats simultaneously, and Access obviously has to store more than ordinary text when you copy controls. It has to preserve the controls themselves along with their properties, positions, bindings, attached labels, and so on. Something appears to be interfering with that information, especially when multiple controls are involved.

ChatGPT also found a little utility called InsideClipboard from NirSoft that lets you see all of the actual formats currently stored on the Windows clipboard. When I have some more time, I'm going to experiment with that. The interesting test will be to copy several Access controls, inspect exactly what's on the clipboard immediately afterward, wait until Access refuses to paste them, and inspect the clipboard again. If an Access-specific format disappears, we'll know something in Windows or another process is messing with it. If the formats are all still there but Access won't paste them, that points the finger much more directly at Access itself.

So, short version: no, you're not doing anything dumb. LOL. This appears to be a legitimate, long-standing, intermittent Access/Windows clipboard issue, and there are plenty of other people reporting similar behavior. Donald's workaround of breaking the label association and moving it separately is perfectly reasonable when Access decides not to cooperate.

I'm going to spend some more time troubleshooting this when I get a chance because, frankly, after putting up with it myself for years, now I want to know exactly what's going on. I'm also going to mention this in an upcoming Quick Queries because I suspect a lot more Access users have encountered this and just assumed, like I did, that something was screwy with their own computer.