cannot left click and drag with touchpad (regression)

Confirmed; I can reproduce this behavior on my netbook. But not my laptop (which also has a synaptics touchpad). I'll update both to current natty to see what happens.

@Chase - is this due to recent touch changes? It seems to have started within the last week or so.

This is actually a kernel bug. The dell mini netbooks have a special synaptics trackpad that has semi-multitouch capabilities on top of a pair of integrated buttons. Linux 2.6.38 adds support for the semi-multitouch feature.

Before the addition of the multitouch feature, the bottom 1/3 of the trackpad was disabled in the X synaptics driver. Now, we've got touch functionality in the kernel that probably will need to be masked out in the driver. I had been looking into this a few months ago, but I gave the work up to focus on other parts of the stack. I probably should take another look at it now.

This is fixed for me now after the recent updates

Interesting, not so for me - tried a different repo in case mine was out of sync. You can make the touchpad present itself like a ps2 mouse but then you lose the ability to use vertical scrolling. To do this you would do something like sudo echo psmouse proto=exps > /etc/modprobe.d/psmouse.modprobe and reboot. For me I find this worse than the problem as I find vertical scrolling more important (most of the time web browsing)...

I should point out, the workaround of making sure you are only touching the very most corner of the track pad for clicking works. I guess this works because the Dell mini 10v trackpad actually has left and right mouse buttons under the trackpad where I think others don't incorporate actual physical buttons but just use zones.

This is very strange, its definitely fully working for me now. Is there anything I can post here to help you understand why?

Contrary to what I wrote earlier, this is best described not as a kernel bug but as a deficiency with the X synaptics input module. I made some changes to how it handles multi-finger functionality and I believe it works much better as a result.

However, the changes are larger than I would like this late in the Natty cycle, so testing is important. I uploaded a new version of xserver-xorg-input-synaptics to ppa:utouch-team/unstable. Please test out the package to confirm that it fixes any issues you have and does not introduce any regressions.

The only remaining issue that I see occasionally is a second light touch warping the pointer from one location to another half way across the screen. To get this fixed will require better filtering logic, but the fix will require too large of a change at this point in the Natty cycle. Perhaps we can fix it in Oneiric.

Thankyou Chase, I've tested this on my machine and it works well. I can now click and drag, tapping and side scrolling still work.

I've committed the changes to the packaging tree for xserver-xorg-input-synaptics. After the Beta 1 release we plan to push it into Ubuntu.

This bug was fixed in the package xserver-xorg-input-synaptics - 1.3.99+git20110116.0e27ce3a-0ubuntu9

---------------
xserver-xorg-input-synaptics (1.3.99+git20110116.0e27ce3a-0ubuntu9) natty; urgency=low

  * Fix handling for SemiMultitouch trackpads with integrated buttons
    (LP: #736523)
    - Added 119_active_area_touches.patch
    - Added 120_active_touches_num_fingers.patch
    - Added 121_semi-mt_num_fingers.patch
  * Fix spurious right click events on some trackpads (LP: #742213)
    - Added 122_revert_pressure_finger_default.patch
 -- Chase Douglas <email address hidden> Wed, 30 Mar 2011 10:54:50 -0400

well on a HP dv6-3315 with xserver-xorg-input-synaptics 1.3.99+git20110116.0e27ce3a-0ubuntu10 the left click button sends a right click instead. This is a new computer that i just ran ubuntu 10.10 beta on a live usb drive..

Hi Sérgio,

This bug is for a very specific type of touchpad that is not available anymore due to defective design :). Please open a separate bug in launchpad for your issue by running:

$ ubuntu-bug xserver-xorg-input-synaptics

Thanks!

I am using Kubunt 11.04 with xserver-xorg-input-synaptics 1.3.99+git20110116 on a HP dv7 with Synaptics Touchpad (model: 1, fw: 7.4, id: 0x1e0b1).
I can't highlight text or move windows. On the same laptop with Kubuntu 10.10 the touchpad works?

Hi Reinhard,

Please open a new bug for your issue by running "ubuntu-bug xserver-xorg-input-synaptics". After creating the bug, please subscribe me (my LP id is chasedouglas).

Thanks!

It's regressed again in 11.10 Oneiric.

I confirm this problem under 11.10 Oneiric : new installation in my Laptop ASUS N71V (X77J).
I have installed Synaptics and Pointing Device but no effect : click and drag impossible.
No problem for clicking but impossible to select text too dragging or to move an icon.

I did a fresh install on my Dell Mini 10v after the release (previous was beta 1 upgrade from 11.04) and all working now.

Must say, its pretty polished - running lubuntu 64bit, 15s to boot into a fully working environment. Working Citrix Receiver, Skype, flash is stable and VPNC even working with Gnome-Network-Manager rather than dropping to command line with some parameter.