Drag and drop stopped working in Editor

I was attempting to import a .c4d asset using drag-and-drop when unity halted and warned me that it needed to install a new importer so that it could handle that file type, but it had to be run in administrator mode to do so.

So I exited unity, restarted it as admin, and attempted to import the file - but drag and drop wasn't working any more. So I had to use the menu function to import the c4d file. That succeeded, so I'm guessing whatever mods unity needed to make had been made.

But now all drag-and-drop functionality is disabled. When I attempt to drag an asset from the windows desktop onto the asset folder I just get the little black slashed circle. I cannot drag it to a subfolder either. This is for any asset type at all, textures or fbx files or whatever.

I tried exiting unity and restarting - no difference.
I tried rebooting windows - no difference.
I tried creating a completely new project and importing an asset - no difference.
I tried using windows explorer to manually copy assets into the folder - that works, but drag and drop remains disabled.

Currently I can only import assets by menu, not by drag and drop. The only thing left to do I can think of is uninstall Unity and then reinstall but it seems a bit desperate.

Has anyone encountered this problem and do you know how to fix it?

Edit: I'm using windows 7 64 bit.

 

Problem solved by a clever person on Reddit: I had to recreate the "explorer" task with administrator privileges. Here's how:

If the drag and dropping isn't working on any other non-Unity related applications then you need to run your explorer as administrator.

To do that open the Windows Task Manager, end the explorer.exe process and click on the 'Show processes from all users' button. Now just go to the Applications tab in the Task Manager, hit 'New Task..', write 'explorer' in the input field and check the box 'Create this task with administrator privileges'.

 

I set Unity to "Run as Administrator" but now it doesn't let me drag and drop assets in the Editor.

OS: Windows 8.1 64 bit
Unity version: 4.2.2f1

Running as admin is very important because that's the only way I can build working Mac versions through my Windows.

What's the workaround to make the drag and drop work?
"Right clicking > Import New Asset..." still works, but it makes the workflow too slow.

 

Anyone with updates on this?...

 

He already said you need to run your explorer with admin privileges.

 

In my Windows 8 64 bit version Task Manager is slightly different. There is no "Show processes from all users button" and nor Application tab. I can "end task" and I can do File>Run New Task that lets me add Explorer and click on the Run As Administrator check box. However that doesn't correct the problem for me.

The only solution I've fond is to click on Assets at top of Unity Editor and choose "Show in Explorer" then do a copy from that folder to the Unity Project Assets Folder, all within Explorer, to bring the object in.

Anyone else try this solution for Win 8 and it wasn't fixed?

 

thank you this work perfectly

 

working first and now it's not working anymore anyone can help please !

 

I can't drag & drop to inspector panel a gameobject. Help me please. (Windows 8 64Bit) Explorer.exe and Unity.exe with admin permission.

Its not draggable. All is true.

 

Up. I need help.

 

I had the same problem. It started after adding a new script. My problem was that suddenly several components of the same type was added to some of the objects. The new script was at the object twice! After removing these duplicates recompiling code and running the game everything works fine for now. Drag and drop is again possible.
So I guess you should try to check the gameobjects you created when the problem started occuring.

 

This helped me out, thanks!

 

I found similar issue here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/comments/2jxyn9/cant_drag_things_from_my_project_into_my_scene_or/

Believe me or not but leaving Unity for a while in the empty project have SOLVED the issue.
It did not work with coffee break for me , but when I left it when smoking cigarette, drag and drop starts working after when I come back !!! hehehe.

 

On Windows 8.1, I found that the problem was solved by moving the unity project files out of my documents 'library' and to "C:\Users\Username\Unity projects". I noticed the address was something weird prior to moving it, so decided to try it and it worked! No other suggested fixes did anything, so I highly recommend Windows 8.1/Unity 5 users try this before reinstalling anything

 

Bumping this. I have the same problem on Win8.1 64-bit. None of the fixes above have worked, including the latest (moving the project files). Uinstall/Reinstall didn't do anything either. Neither did using an older version of Unity. The problem is obviously Windows related. As an interesting side note, I have COMPLETELY disabled UAC. I did this both in the control panel AND in the registry. UAC/"Run as Admin" isn't even a thing on my machine.

 

Not sure how relevant it is now but, pressing the Esc key in windows explorer while holding down mouse button one on some file(any) seems to have fixed it.

 

I couldn't fix it, but here is my work around. Place the assets into the asset folder manually.
for me it was located here.
C:\Users\Public\Documents\Unity Projects\Project_Name\Assets

 

Yes, holding escape and clicking the windows task bar corrected the problem.

 

Worked for me as well on Win 8.1 x64. (with ClassicShell)

 

Holding Esc and clicking around in the explorer window worked for me too. But could anybody explain why that's the solution, please?

 

Thanks worked for me as well. Strange....

 

I had to turn off administrative privileges to get it to work. (Unity 2017.1.0f3) Unfortunately, Al-Anselmo made it sound like that can cause issues.

 

Works for me too. Weird ....

 

I encountered the same issue yesterday (Unity 2017.2.0f3 x64) and restarting my PC did the trick. If it happens again I'll try the above method.

 

Doesn't work

 

I'm having the same issue here. I've tried all of the tricks listed above, but no joy.

It's extremely frustrating not being able to drag and drop. Not all functions have a menu work around. :-/

 

Mine won't drag and drop from the project explorer to scene.

 

I've just updated to Unity 2017.3.1 and I can no longer drag and drop files into the project explorer. Obviously I can just drop them into the project using Windows Explorer but its rather annoying. Has anyone found a fix?

 

I had the same issue after updating. It was resolved after closing unity and reopening it again. When you dragged an asset in, you when get the circle with a line through it icon (like Ghostbusters sans Ghost)

 

n case someone else is still looking for an answer to this, I had the problem just now on Unity 5.2. The problem was that the Unity editor was open with administrator privileges, but the default copy command (by dragging and dropping) is not an administrator privilege command, so it won't let you do it for security reasons. To fix it I just opened the editor in normal user mode.

 

Yes. You are right. This worled for me. I have opened unity with out administrator privilages and drag and drop is working now.

 

yes any idea how drag and drop in game view editor directly ?

 

Nothing worked for my, in my case the problem was my mouse. Hitting it actuallay worked. So did my mouse pad and my friends mouse. Be sure to check that first.

 

I had similar problem, could not drag and drop any element in Unity Editor (hierarchy, project, etc). Explorer.exe process restart helps.

 

Helll yeah!!! This was the problem. I disabled priviledges on Unity 2018.3 and it's working now. Thank you

 

I have tested all the solutions here and that is the only one that works.

 

Did you have the same problem if you dragged the object and dropped it in the Hiearchy View?

 

Thanks worked for me too! I couldnt drag anything in the hierarchy around. No idea why that solution works

 

Wow this was easily fixed on my PC. since it didn´t work in the explorer either. I googled not unity but explorer. And this is what i came up with.

1. Click and hold a file in Microsoft explorer.
2. press esc
3. now it works again.


I tried the end explorer.exe task and run it as admin before but that didn´t work.

 

Canceling admin mode and running editor in normal mode worked for me. (win10 / unity 2019.2.14.f1)

 

It seems like different solutions are working for different people. For me (Windows 10), I fixed it this way:

1) Close Unity and open task manager
2) Among the tabs along the top, click 'Details'
3) find 'explorer.exe'
4) READ THE NEXT FEW STEPS BEFORE DOING STEP 5
5) right click 'explorer.exe' and click 'End process tree'. This will cause your screen to go black and your applications to close (except task manager) so you have to memorize the next two steps
6) In Task Manager, click 'File' (along the top options) and click 'Run New Task'
7) In the Input Field, type 'explorer' and click OK. This will bring back your desktop and your screen will no longer be black
8) Step 7 will run explorer, and you should be able to drag and drop files in there. If so, open Unity and drag and drop should be fixed!

 

If dragging and dropping is not working in UNITY it's not working anywhere on your computer

When drag and drop doesn't work, left click a file in Windows Explorer or File Explorer, and keep the left click mouse button pressed. While the left click button is held down, press the Escape key on your keyboard, once.

Try to drag and drop again. This feature should work now.

 

YES!, dragg dropping is working anywhere on my computer, but not into Unity Editor, none of the solution above or yours worked so far.

 

Sorry to hear that. That usually solves the problem because Unity integrates the Windows file explorer in their hierarchy so it's using the same "code" so to speak.

 

Still got this problem yesterday everything worked fine and now i cant drag and drop any files in to unity tried everything above nothing worked any help?

 

I find the problem , for me , it was my esc button that was stuck on my keyboard

 

Encountered this problem yesterday, tried the "escape + mouse" solution, tried to run unity on admin privileges, without them, same with unity hub, and still can't drag and drop assets in the project tab. Has anyone else encountered this and more importantly managed to solve it? I'm using Unity 2021.1.20f, unity hub 2.4.5 and windows 10.

EDIT: The default permissions keep reverting to what they were before I changed them once I launch unity for some reason

EDIT2: uninstalled unity & unity hub, messed around with permissions some more, found other threads, but still no solution.

EDIT3: Uninstalled everything, switched my unity project to another drive, and now when I drag an existing asset into a new folder it lets me do just that, but only once. New assets? Can move them, only once, then it becomes "tainted" like everything else and it won't let me move it ever again.

 

Also dealing with this issue. Tried every suggestion here to no avail. I recently installed Google Drive and selected my project folder for auto upload, but have since uninstalled that in case it was messing with permissions. No difference.

Copying the project files to a new folder, and creating a new project still yields the same issue. New projects, or backup versions of said projects do not have the issue.

 

Getting the same problem, got it after the new google drive update after things resynced, however uninstalling it did not help, reinstalling unity does not help. Creating new projects anywhere on any of my HDDs or SSD does not help, I can no longer drag and drop from windows to unity or even within unity folders themselves on any project on any Unity version I have tried.

This problem is really baffling me, I can not find any solution or cause for this problem to be so persistent.

 

I have the same problem. I think it also went wrong when Google Backup/Restore became Google Drive.