ckline_oz's avatar
ckline_oz
Brass Contributor
Dec 05, 2023
Status:
New

Remote Desktop for Mac 10.9.4 often causes spinning wheel of death when copying from Windows machine

Starting in the last version or two, I frequently get the "spinning wheel of death" after using Remote Desktop for Mac to copy from the remote Windows client. This manifests when I switch back to the...
macOS client
reliability
Session performance
kbluck's avatar
kbluck
Copper Contributor
Apr 17, 2025

Also observed on my host while using Windows App 11.1.4 (2557) on MacOS Sequoia 15.4.1 for Apple M1 Max architecture. This problem has affected every version of Windows App on ARM-based MacOS since its initial public release. I don't know if it affects x86 MacOS.

It seems to affect Microsoft Edge browser and related apps. Slack is particularly prone to the problem, and I believe that is because even the desktop app for Slack is still a browser-based app. But to be clear, I get this spin wait when copy/pasting from Windows App into Microsoft Edge in general, not just Slack.

Sometimes, I don't even make it to the paste operation, or had no intention of pasting at all, but something was on the Windows clipboard when I switched context. The spin wait begins when I merely switch into the MacOS instance of Edge or Slack. 

Normally, the spin wait lasts 60-90 seconds, during which the affected app (Edge or Slack) is unresponsive. Eventually, the spin wait resolves on its own and you can then carry on with whatever you wanted to do, but it's very inconvenient to have to wait for it so frequently.

I am pretty certain this is due to some intereaction between Windows App and Edge, because I can end the spin wait immediately by exiting Windows App. I don't have to log out of the remote Windows session, merely exiting Windows App is sufficient. I can then immediately restart Windows App and reconnect to the remote session. But of course that is also inconvenient.