Fedora 27 on Lenovo Thinpad: Touchpad stopped working

nesbit12 · 01-21-2018, 11:07 AM

Hi,
I run Fedora 27 on my ThinPad W530. Previously I had F26 which worked fine, but the screen brightness buttons didn't work, unfortunately.
These days, I did the update to F27. Now, the screen brightness buttons work fine, but the touchpad stopped working!
Well, I used

Code:

libinput list-devices

where the touchpad is listed and apparently, it is enabled. Then I used

Code:

libinput debug-events

and when I move a finger on the touchpad, the event is displayed in the console (POINTER_MOTION). However, the mouse pointer does not move at all!
The trackpoint works fine, but I prefer the touchpad because it is more intuitive in my opinion.

What should I do to fix the touchpad problem?

ferrari · 01-21-2018, 07:03 PM

That is odd, and perhaps a bug report may be needed here.

Which desktop are you using?

Code:

loginctl list-sessions

Assuming 1 session, do

Code:

loginctl show-session 1

and report back.

nesbit12 · 01-22-2018, 02:43 PM

Hi ferrari!

That problem is quite strange, isn't it? Funny enough, the buttons at the bottom of the touchpad work, but not the touchpad itself....

anyway, I executed the commandlines you mentioned. Here is the output:

Code:

# loginctl list-sessions
   SESSION        UID USER             SEAT             TTY             
         2       1000 tobias           seat0                            

1 sessions listed.

apparently, I need to modify your 2nd commandline slightly, because the session ID is 2, and not 1 (weird!).

Code:

# loginctl show-session 2
Id=2
User=1000
Name=nesbit
Timestamp=Mon 2018-01-22 21:37:36 CET
TimestampMonotonic=181209893
VTNr=1
Seat=seat0
Display=:0
Remote=no
Service=lightdm
Desktop=xfce
Scope=session-2.scope
Leader=1390
Audit=2
Type=x11
Class=user
Active=yes
State=active
IdleHint=no
IdleSinceHint=0
IdleSinceHintMonotonic=0
LockedHint=no

what does that tell us?

ferrari · 01-22-2018, 03:26 PM

I was just wondering about the DE and whether Wayland or Xorg was in use. Now, I can know its XFCE and the standard Xorg server.

ferrari · 01-22-2018, 03:34 PM

I'm now wondering if this is some desktop (mouse and touchpad) setting that inhibits the touchpad because another pointing device is attached. It might be an untended consequence of the trackpoint being detected. I'm not familiar with XFCE unfortunately.

nesbit12 · 01-28-2018, 04:11 PM

Hmm, previously I never had problems with the touchpad and trackpoint being detected at the same time.
Currently I have an external mouse, but it makes no difference whether the mouse is connected or not.

ferrari · 01-28-2018, 05:12 PM

Hmmm....what is reported by gsettings? I assume that's the relevant API for XFCE.

Code:

gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad send-events

I'm just wondering if its set with 'disabled-on-external-mouse' perhaps?

nesbit12 · 01-29-2018, 02:04 PM

Hi,

I get the following:

Code:

# gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad send-events
'enabled'

so it seems like it is actually enabled. Nothing happens if the external mouse is disconnected, even if the machine is rebooted without the external mouse.

ferrari · 01-29-2018, 03:28 PM

Since the events are being generated but no corresponding cursor movement, I would consider raising a bug report.

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Bugzilla

It may well be related to the DE you're using rather than with libinput IMO.

nesbit12 · 04-26-2018, 02:12 PM

Hey hey,
long time ago, and I already gave up the touchpad problem - but recently, I was watching a movie, and it was a PITA not to be able to use the touchpad, so I started investigating in the problem once again. After hours of googling, I actually found out, that the touchpad drivers in X11 have been changed, and installing

xorg-x11-drv-libinput

was enough to completely fix the problem! just in case anyone else has the same problem, hope he/she will find this thread and it helps a bit :-)

Giordano · 05-26-2018, 10:42 AM

Hi... I wonder if should I try it?
on a Dell Insipiron e5: Fedora 28; "the right button: copy, paste, text corrections, open new tab – of my touchpad, are not working" some suggestions pleas…
I would appreciate

Quote:

Originally Posted by nesbit12

Hey hey,
long time ago, and I already gave up the touchpad problem - but recently, I was watching a movie, and it was a PITA not to be able to use the touchpad, so I started investigating in the problem once again. After hours of googling, I actually found out, that the touchpad drivers in X11 have been changed, and installing

xorg-x11-drv-libinput

was enough to completely fix the problem! just in case anyone else has the same problem, hope he/she will find this thread and it helps a bit :-)

ferrari · 05-26-2018, 09:29 PM

I'd be very surprised if libinput was not already employed. Most current distros using recent Xorg versions and desktop environments have been using it by default for some time now. In any case it is easy to check the Xorg log to examine the input driver(s) in use. For example....

Code:

grep "Using input driver" /var/log/Xorg.0.log

syg00 · 05-26-2018, 11:34 PM

Not going to find those files on a default Fedora install - wayland remember.

This is mentioned in the F28 common bugs. But isn't a bug, it was forced on everyone by the pinheads at gnome - see this for an example of their disregard of their users.

Read this for the Fedora entry. I am also affected on a new-build I did.

ferrari · 05-27-2018, 01:51 AM

Quote:

Not going to find those files on a default Fedora install - wayland remember.

Well wayland only uses libinput

ferrari · 05-27-2018, 01:55 AM

Quote:

This is mentioned in the F28 common bugs. But isn't a bug, it was forced on everyone by the pinheads at gnome - see this for an example of their disregard of their users.

That is an unfortunate situation. I haven't paid much attention to date, since I don't use Gnome and openSUSE still provides Xorg (and Wayland as an option for experimentation purposes) at present.