[Wayland] Broken clipboard and drag-and-drop in VMware guests using open-vm-tools

[0Ky]

Describe the bug

The clipboard sharing (copy & paste) and drag & drop between VMware host and guest do not function when the guest is running a Wayland session. This is reproducible on a fresh install of Kubuntu 26.04 LTS (Plasma 6.6), which ships without X11, making it impossible to fall back to the standard workaround of switching to an X11/Xorg session out-of-the-box.

This issue has been tracked for nearly a decade. Given that distros are now shipping without X11, we are respectfully requesting that native Wayland support for clipboard sharing and drag & drop be fast-tracked.

Environment

Component	Detail
Host OS	Windows 11 Pro 25H2, x64-bit (build 26200.8457) 10.0.26200
VMware Product	VMware Workstation Pro 25H2u1 (25.0.1.25219725)
Guest OS	Kubuntu 26.04 LTS
Desktop Environment	KDE Plasma 6.6
Display Protocol	Wayland
open-vm-tools	2:13.0.10-1ubuntu1
open-vm-tools-desktop	2:13.0.10-1ubuntu1

Reproduction steps

1. Install Kubuntu 26.04 LTS (Plasma 6.6) as a VMware guest VM
2. Install open-vm-tools and open-vm-tools-desktop packages
3. Reboot
4. Attempt to copy text or a file on the host and paste into the guest
5. Attempt to drag and drop a file from host to guest, and vice versa

Expected behavior

Clipboard sharing and drag & drop should work bidirectionally between host and guest regardless of whether the guest session uses X11 or Wayland.

Actual behavior

• Copy & paste between host and guest does not work
• Drag & drop from host to guest fails
• Drag & drop from guest to host fails
• No X11 fallback is available, as Kubuntu 26.04 LTS ships without an X11 session option

Additional context

Many other users are affected by the same underlying problem, here are some relevant open issues:

• Guests on Linux (19.3) hosts no longer have drag 'n drop or cut & paste support for files after upgrade to 15.5.5 or later, even with open-vm-tools 11.1 (or 11.0.6 for MS-Windows) #435
• Copying text to the host from (pure) Wayland clients doesn't work on Fedora 32 #443
• Copy-and-paste doesn't work between host and client when client is running dwm window manager #447
• Copy/paste is not working in wlroots-based window managers #510
• CentOS 8.4: Copying files from host to guest via Drag&Drop leads to incomplete copies #552
• Drag and drop is not working for fedora35. #559
• Drag and drop on Wayland Desktop #592
• Drag and drop cannot be used normally when using Wayland #571
• Using VMware's Drag-And-Drop Feature Under Gnome on Wayland on Debian 11 Leads to Freezes #614
• Copy and Paste / Drag and Drop not working - This is how I fixed it for jelly #627
• No clipboard sharing with Kubuntu 22.10 guest #629
• When will perfect support for Wayland be available? #660
• Copy and paste not working from host to guest (VMWare Workstation Pro 17.5) #701
• Clipboard and drag and drop #708
• Support paste, copy, drag and drop under the Wayland protocol #721
• Copy and paste file fails on Debian Linux guest from Windows 11 host #777
• Copy / Past does not work between host and guest VMs while Ubuntu 26.04 LTS is the host OS  #788

X11 support is being actively deprecated across major desktop environments and distributions:

• Ubuntu Joins the Movement: X11 Officially Being Phased Out - Linuxiac
• Ubuntu Resolute Raccoon spits out Xorg, but still lets you run X11 apps - The Register
• X11's dying days mean you'll be forced to switch to Wayland - ZDNet
• Kubuntu 26.04 LTS comes with Plasma 6.6 and extended support, but without X11 - Ubunlog
• Kubuntu 26.04 LTS Drops X11 Support and Goes All in On Wayland - It's FOSS
• KDE is finally killing X11, and I'm not as sad as I thought I'd be - XDA Developers
• After 30 years, KDE says goodbye to X11 - How-To Geek
• An update on the X11 GNOME Session Removal - GNOME Blogs
• GNOME 50 Releases With X11 Session Support Removed and Wayland - Ghacks
• Archinstall 4.2 Shifts to Wayland-First Profiles, Leaving X.Org Behind - Linux Journal
• X11 on GNOME is finally dead as its newest version goes all in on Wayland - XDA Developers

[guyharris]

For what it's worth, I'm seeing this on:

Host: M5 MacBook Pro running macOS 26.4.1
Guest: Debian 13.5 with KDE Plasma

I'm not seeing it on Ubuntu 24.04.4 with GNOME or Debian 13.5 with GNOME.

The sessions all claim to be Wayland sessions. open-vm-tools and open-vm-tools-desktop installed on all guests.

For what it's worth, on Debian 13.5 with KDE Plasma I'm also seeing that, when the focus is on the VM, I can't move the cursor outside the VM, but I can do it on both GNOME platforms.

[Sedighzade]

I have the same issue.

Vmware Workstation 26H1
Vmware Tools version: 13.1.0
Host OS: Ubuntu 26.04
Guest OS: Win 11 Pro 10.0.22621

Also Alt+Tab does not work inside guest os and it is very annoying.

[henning-schild]

Same here

Host: Windows 11 with Workstation Pro 26H1
Guest: Ubuntu 26.04 with Plasma on Wayland and open-vm-tools+desktop from distro
Guest: Fedora 44 with Plasma on Wayland and open-vm-tools+desktop from distro

Forcing Fedora44 to xlibre helped, but is not officially supported by fedora and is not sustainable.

[henning-schild]

I have the same issue.

Technically you do not have the same issue.

open-vm-tools for you do not run on a wayland guest

you have a wayland using host

[Galex88]

Same here.

Host: Windows 11 24H2 with Workstation Pro 25H2u1
Guest: Debian 13 with Niri (wayland compositor) and open-vm-tools+desktop from trixie-backports (13.0.5).

It seems that if it's not GNOME, it's not working.
Before going to Niri, I used GNOME Desktop and it was working fine (but well, GNOME's kind of boring)

[krisztianfekete]

Hello, I hit this problem, and have a potential solution for thrill-seekers: https://github.com/krisztianfekete/clipway/, use it at your own risk!

[ayan312002]

@krisztianfekete I can confirm it works on the following setup:

Host: Windows 11 23H2
VMware: Workstation 26.0
Guest: CachyOS (Arch Linux)
Desktop: KDE Plasma 6 (Wayland)
open-vm-tools: 13.0.5 (patched with clipway)

With the official open-vm-tools, only host->guest copy/paste was working but with your patch, both host->guest and guest->host are working, thank you!

[DizzyThermal]

Host: Windows 11 24H2
VMware Workstation: 25.0.0.24995812
Guest: Kubuntu LTS 26.04
Desktop: KDE Plasma 6 (Wayland)
open-vm-tools-desktop: 13.0.10
open-vm-tools: 13.0.10

Same problem:

• Host -> Guest: Works
• Guest -> Host: Broken

[lamskoy]

for ArchLinux-based distros have created AUR package open-vm-tools-clipway