Ubuntu
xserver-xorg-input-synaptics package

Tapping on touchpad does not work anymore in MS Win XP after using Live CD

Bug #25927 reported by Roger Erens
8
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
xserver-xorg-input-synaptics (Ubuntu)
Invalid
Medium
Brian Murray

Bug Description

Starting up my Acer Travelmate 739 TLV from the Ubuntu 5.10 Live CD I found that
tapping on the touchpad was not possible. "Nothing much to worry about as it will
surely be fixable" I presumed.
However, when removing the Live CD from the CD-Rom drive and rebooting in MS Windows
XP, tapping also didn't function anymore.
Going to the control panel, mouse properties, hardware tab shows only one entry:
PS/2 compatible mouse
I think there there used to be another entry as well, probably something with
Synaptics, but I'm not really sure anymore. Luckily, I can still use the left mouse
button to click.

Revision history for this message
Jonathan Riddell (jr) wrote :

Confirmed by another user on IRC.

I have no idea what could cause this. Is firmware being loaded that could change the device's behaviour?

Revision history for this message
Roger Erens (rogererens) wrote :

I don't exactly know what you mean by firmware.
However, either via the Acer website or via www.synaptics.com (I don't remember
anymore) I downloaded some driver software for the Synaptics Touchpad and
installed it.
After some configuring via the control panel -> mouse, tapping is functioning again.

Maybe there is some name clash between the synaptic tool of Ubuntu and this
pointing device's manufacturer's files?

Revision history for this message
Conn O Griofa (psyke83) wrote :

Confirmed same behaviour on Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop with Synaptics Touchpad. After a fresh install of Ubuntu Breezy, rebooting to Windows XP causes a New Hardware Found dialogue and asks to reboot the system, after which tap-to-click no longer works.

It is possible to fix behaviour by either installing the Synaptics Touchpad drivers for XP, or by opening the Device Manager (devmgmt.msc) and uninstalling the mouse driver (which should be listed as PS/2 Compatible Mouse). When prompted to reboot, choose no and (this is vital), shutdown your system instead (do not restart). When you power back on and boot into XP, the driver will reinstall and tap-to-click will be working again.

Sorry for posting Windows-specific help here, but it seems to indicate that this is a bug with the Synaptics driver in Linux, and perhaps there is something strange going on with the firmware in Linux that is resolved from a physical power off.

Conn

Revision history for this message
Matthew Lange (matthewlange) wrote :

Does this still happen with the Dapper livecd?

Changed in xserver-xorg-input-synaptics:
status: Confirmed → Needs Info
Revision history for this message
Brian Murray (brian-murray) wrote :

We are closing this bug report as it lacks the information, described in the previous comments, we need to investigate the problem further. However, please reopen it if you can give us the missing information and feel free to submit bug reports in the future.

Changed in xserver-xorg-input-synaptics:
assignee: nobody → brian-murray
status: Needs Info → Rejected
Revision history for this message
Roger Erens (rogererens) wrote :

It did not happen anymore with the 7.04 release on the Acer Travelmate. Thanks for your effort. :-)

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