Illustrator applies effects on copy?

Question

I'm using several objects with vector effects in Adobe Illustrator CC 2015. When I select such an object either by clicking it in the layers panel or using the select-tool, copy and paste it again, then the effects are applied to the object and don't seem editable anymore. This means, that

1. The object is transformed into a group which contains the object without effects and the effects as a bitmap
2. The effects disappear in the appearance panel when the objects are selected.

But I need that effects to remain editable after copying. How can I change this behaviour? On my Windows computer the effects still exists after copying, and sometimes grouping the objects and then copying the group fixes it.

Answer 1

Make sure no third-party-applications are watching / modifying your clipboard. Often some clipboard handling applications, e.g. for clipboard history, access the contents copied from illustrator, and discard important information.

For example, contents copied from illustrator contain a graphic thumbnail of the content next to the content itself. The clipboard managing software recognizes the thumbnail contained in the copied content, understands the copied content as an image and discards any other information in that copied content. When pasting into illustrator again, only the thumbnail information is contained in the clipboard, so the graphic is posted as an image and not as the original illustrator object.

Of course are effects and other properties applied when generating the thumbnail, so the pasted graphic does not have any attributes and all effects applied.