[BUG] Image paste (Ctrl+V) silently fails on Wayland: `xclip` is blind to clipboard, `wl-paste` is not used as fallback
Preflight Checklist
- [x] I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet
- [x] This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs)
- [x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code
What's Wrong?
On a Wayland session (KDE Plasma 6, Kubuntu 26.04), image paste with Ctrl+V at the Claude Code prompt does nothing — no attachment is added and no error is shown.
Root cause: Claude Code relies on xclip to read the clipboard, but on a pure Wayland session xclip cannot read clipboard contents at all (not even ext written via wl-copy) — KDE/kwin does not bridge clipboard reads to XWayland clients in the way xclip expects. The wl-clipboard tools (wl-paste) read the clipboard correctly but Claude Code does not use them.
This affects every Wayland-only desktop. On Kubuntu 26.04 the Plasma X11 session has been removed (startplasma-x11 and plasma-workspace-x11 are no longer available), so falling back to an X11 session is not an option.
What Should Happen?
Pressing Ctrl+V with an image on the clipboard should attach the image to the prompt, regardless of whether the session is X11 or Wayland. When wl-paste
is available and the session is Wayland (XDG_SESSION_TYPE=wayland or WAYLAND_DISPLAY set), Claude Code should prefer wl-paste over xclip, or use it
as a fallback when xclip returns "target not available".
At a minimum, image paste should surface a clear error/warning when the clipboard read fails, instead of silently doing nothing.
Error Messages/Logs
No error is shown in the UI. `xclip` (which appears to be what Claude Code calls) returns:
Error: target image/png not available
but this is not surfaced to the user.
Steps to Reproduce
- On a Wayland KDE session (Kubuntu 26.04 / Plasma 6), install both clipboard backends:
sudo apt install wl-clipboard xclip
- Copy an image to the clipboard (e.g. Spectacle → "Copy to clipboard").
- Verify the clipboard contains the image with
wl-paste:
wl-paste --list-types # shows image/png + many others
wl-paste --type image/png | wc -c # returns a non-zero byte count
- Verify
xclipcannot see it (and cannot see ANY clipboard content, including text):
xclip -selection clipboard -t image/png -o # Error: target image/png not available
echo "test" | wl-copy
xclip -selection clipboard -o # Error: target STRING not available
- Start Claude Code (any version that supports image paste) and press Ctrl+V at the prompt.
- Observe: nothing happens — no attachment, no error.
Claude Model
Opus
Is this a regression?
I don't know
Last Working Version
_No response_
Claude Code Version
2.1.143
Platform
Anthropic API
Operating System
Ubuntu/Debian Linux
Terminal/Shell
Other
Additional Information
Operating system
Kubuntu 26.04 LTS (Ubuntu 26.04)
Desktop: KDE Plasma 6.6.4
Session: Wayland (XDG_SESSION_TYPE=wayland, WAYLAND_DISPLAY=wayland-0)
Terminal: Konsole
Clipboard tools installed: wl-clipboard (wl-paste, wl-copy) + xclip
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