touchpads occasionally gone wild

Bug #12124 reported by Mary Gardiner
38
This bug affects 6 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
xorg (Ubuntu)
Invalid
Low
Unassigned

Bug Description

When I first login to X and touch my laptop's touch pad, the cursor response is
extremely fast and somewhat random. After approximately a second of movement,
the response returns to normal and my cursor does not speed around my screen,
nor does it randomly open things on my dekstop.

A single touch on the touchpad after logging into my Ubuntu system has on
various occasions done the following: opened the calendar application, opened
the trash window multiple times, and resized and moved my panel. This is clearly
undesirable, I would prefer that my system have the mouse not "go crazy" at any
time.

This is 100% reproducible on my system on both warty and hoary.

Revision history for this message
Daniel Stone (daniels) wrote :

Could you please attach /var/log/Xorg.0.log, and dmesg?

Revision history for this message
Julien Olivier (julo) wrote :

Created an attachment (id=1158)
/var/log/Xorg.0.log

Revision history for this message
Julien Olivier (julo) wrote :

Created an attachment (id=1159)
The output of dmesg

Revision history for this message
Julien Olivier (julo) wrote :

I'm having exactly the same problem on a Fujitsu/Siemens Lifebook S6120, so I
attached the desired files.

Revision history for this message
Mary Gardiner (puzzlement) wrote :

Let me know if you want my files too.

Revision history for this message
Daniel Stone (daniels) wrote :

Mary: Yeah, thanks.

Revision history for this message
Daniel Stone (daniels) wrote :

*** Bug 10186 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Revision history for this message
Mary Gardiner (puzzlement) wrote :

Created an attachment (id=1380)
Mary's Xorg.0.log

Revision history for this message
Mary Gardiner (puzzlement) wrote :

Created an attachment (id=1381)
Output of dmesg

Revision history for this message
Daniel Stone (daniels) wrote :

*** Bug 12723 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Revision history for this message
Daniel Stone (daniels) wrote :

*** Bug 12720 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Revision history for this message
Daniel Stone (daniels) wrote :

*** Bug 13912 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Revision history for this message
asubedi (asubedi) wrote :

Since bug 12723 is marked as duplicate of this one, I'm posting additional
comments here. I recently observed that if my usb mouse is not plugged in while
starting my laptop, the kernel recognizes my Synaptics Touchpad (I can see it's
mention in dmesg output) and all the extra frills of synaptics driver works.
However with usb mouse plugged in, the kernel does not recognize it as Synaptics
Touchpad. Tapping works but vertical edge scrolling, etc. do not work.

If I $sudo modprobe -r psmouse and then $sudo modprobe psmouse, it recognizes
the touchpad. I read in Gentoo wiki that USB legacy emulation breaks Synaptics
detection and a possible work around is to load psmouse module after the usb
modules. I've put psmouse at the end of /etc/modules but it still loads before
usb stuff. How to make it load after usb modules? Or is there a way to reload
psmouse before starting X?

Revision history for this message
Santiago Erquicia (santiago-erquicia-gmail) wrote :

(In reply to comment #13)
> Since bug 12723 is marked as duplicate of this one, I'm posting additional
> comments here. I recently observed that if my usb mouse is not plugged in while
> starting my laptop, the kernel recognizes my Synaptics Touchpad (I can see it's
> mention in dmesg output) and all the extra frills of synaptics driver works.
> However with usb mouse plugged in, the kernel does not recognize it as Synaptics
> Touchpad. Tapping works but vertical edge scrolling, etc. do not work.
>
> If I $sudo modprobe -r psmouse and then $sudo modprobe psmouse, it recognizes
> the touchpad. I read in Gentoo wiki that USB legacy emulation breaks Synaptics
> detection and a possible work around is to load psmouse module after the usb
> modules. I've put psmouse at the end of /etc/modules but it still loads before
> usb stuff. How to make it load after usb modules? Or is there a way to reload
> psmouse before starting X?

I'm the original poster of bug 12723. Even though I do not consider it duplicate
of this one, I will follow the discussion here.

I have had a similar experience as the previous poster. The problem with my
mouse is that tapping doesn't generate the expected left click mouse behavior
but middle-click.

Previously, I added comments in the other bug that after updating xorg, the
touchpad started to work correctly. Those times that this happen I could see
actually xorg running a test to reconfigure the server. Maybe then it tried to
load that driver.

Today, I used the laptop outside so I didn't have my usb mouse attached to it.
The touchpad was working correctly then.

Revision history for this message
Santiago Erquicia (santiago-erquicia-gmail) wrote :

I think that my problem is solved now. Yesterday I made some changes to my
xorg.conf files and up to now everything is okay.

The change was just to put the touchpad configuration before the other mouse
configuration in xorg.xonf. I don't know if it makes sense. Since the problem
was with the order of loading I thought that this could have work. Apparently,
it did.

The file has the following structure:

<some conf text>

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"
        Driver "synaptics"
        Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
        Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
        Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
        Option "HorizScrollDelta" "0"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
 Identifier "Configured Mouse"
 Driver "mouse"
 Option "CorePointer"
 Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
 Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
 Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
 Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

<some conf text>

Section "ServerLayout"
 Identifier "Default Layout"
 Screen "Default Screen"
 InputDevice "Generic Keyboard"
 InputDevice "Synaptics Touchpad"
 InputDevice "Configured Mouse"
EndSection

<some conf text>

Revision history for this message
Santiago Erquicia (santiago-erquicia-gmail) wrote :

The changes in xorg.conf file explained before do not work evertime. They work
if I boot my computer with my usb mouse plugged in only. I can unplug it
afterwards and everything keeps working correctly. If I boot without the usb
mouse, the behavior is the same as usual: tapping generated the left-click behavior.

I don't know if these comments are of any use for all the other people or to
help to find the real bug.

Revision history for this message
Kai F. Lahmann (kl) wrote :

I'm not shure, if Bug 13912 is really a dup of this, as it's the only one, where the synaptics driver detects the device...

Revision history for this message
Karl Hegbloom (karl.hegbloom) wrote :

I've seen similar behavior as that described in the initial bug report message
on a laptop that had a buggy ACPI BIOS. When the Gnome battery applet was
running and polling the battery status every 5 seconds, it would apparently drop
pointer and keyboard interrupts. It was as if the ACPI BIOS routines had the
interrupts locked out and took too long to run. There was always messages about
the synaptics pad resyncing in the kern.log and dmesg. Upgrading the BIOS and
reducing the battery status polling frequency fixed the pointer warps and
extraneous button events.

Revision history for this message
Julien Olivier (julo) wrote :

It's fixed for me with linux-image-2.6.12-2-386.

Revision history for this message
Julien Olivier (julo) wrote :

Oups, forget it. The bug is back after latest breezy upgrade. I don't remember
what I updated though... Sorry.

Revision history for this message
Julien Olivier (julo) wrote :

After an upgrade of xorg, it seems fixed anew...

Revision history for this message
Julien Olivier (julo) wrote :

OK, my last false-hope post: actually it seems to work quite randomly.

Revision history for this message
Daniel Stone (daniels) wrote :

could you guys please try with xorg-driver-synaptics 0.14.3-1ubuntu1 and the
latest kernel and let me know how it goes?

Revision history for this message
Julien Olivier (julo) wrote :

The problem is still there for me. Anything I could test in particular ?

Revision history for this message
LinusGLarsson (lgl) wrote :

I'm not sure I had the same bug - on my machine (Sony VGN-S3XP) the touchpad has
been working all the time, but scrolling to the side, middle clicks and such
quit working some time ago (same behavior as
http://bugzilla.ubuntu.com/show_bug.cgi?id=5734#c13). However, since I updated
the day before yesterday, it works again. Thank you for your immense work, Daniel!
Just one thing, though: I'm not sure, but I think the touchpad is more sensitive
to tap-to-click now than before, ie I seem to accidentally click while moving
the mouse more now than before. I'm not sure about this.

Revision history for this message
Santiago Erquicia (santiago-erquicia-gmail) wrote :

Yesterday I upgraded to breezy from hoary. Since my xorg configuration was not
working I had to dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg. The changes I had made
previously to my xorg.conf were erased (as supposed). Now, without touching
anything, my touchpad is working fine.

Revision history for this message
Julien Olivier (julo) wrote :

As everybody seems to have different problems with their touchpad, I want to
make clear that mine is the "mouse cursor moves quickly and randomly on first
touch" problem.

And, I'd also like to add that the behaviour seems to happen a lot less now, but
it still happens from time to time.

Revision history for this message
Mary Gardiner (puzzlement) wrote :

(In reply to comment #27)
> As everybody seems to have different problems with their touchpad, I want to
> make clear that mine is the "mouse cursor moves quickly and randomly on first
> touch" problem.

My problem is the same, with the additition that things also get randomly
clicked on. I haven't observed this behaviour with
0.14.3+revertedto+0.13.6-0ubuntu2 yet, but I only upgraded to Breezy a few days
ago and as with comment #27, it doesn't happen all the time.

Revision history for this message
Julien Olivier (julo) wrote :

> My problem is the same, with the additition that things also get randomly
> clicked on.

Actually, I also get this. So we have exactly the same problem :)

Revision history for this message
Daniel Stone (daniels) wrote :

okay, thanks for the feedback.

Revision history for this message
Julien Olivier (julo) wrote :

I just noticed that the bug doesn't happen if I start my computer without my USB
mouse plugged in. Does it help ?

Revision history for this message
Julien Olivier (julo) wrote :

Hmm... after further testing, it seems I was wrong. Actually it's quite random.

Revision history for this message
Mary Gardiner (puzzlement) wrote :

Now seems to work for me, ever since upgrading to Breezy.

Revision history for this message
Nicolò Chieffo (yelo3) wrote :

Also my touchpad had same problems... too fast movements, random taps on move...
I've changed the touchpad configuration and everything is good now: this is
touchpad section of my xorg.conf taken by
/usr/share/doc/xorg-driver-synaptic/Readme.DEBIAN:

Section "InputDevice"
  Driver "synaptics"
  Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"
  Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
  Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
  Option "LeftEdge" "1700"
  Option "RightEdge" "5300"
  Option "TopEdge" "1700"
  Option "BottomEdge" "4200"
  Option "FingerLow" "25"
  Option "FingerHigh" "30"
  Option "MaxTapTime" "180"
  Option "MaxTapMove" "220"
  Option "VertScrollDelta" "100"
  Option "MinSpeed" "0.06"
  Option "MaxSpeed" "0.12"
  Option "AccelFactor" "0.0010"
# Option "SHMConfig" "on"
# Option "Repeater" "/dev/ps2mouse"
EndSection

tell me if you like it...

Daniel Stone (daniels)
Changed in xorg-driver-synaptics:
assignee: daniels → nobody
Revision history for this message
Tor Harald Thorland (linux-strigen) wrote :

Looks definitive confirmed...
Any news on this random movement? Fixed? Any Working configs/patches?

Changed in xorg-driver-synaptics:
status: Unconfirmed → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
nanophase (nanophase) wrote :

It happens to my system only after a suspend to ram. I can't fix it not even with reloading ps2 related modules, restarting X or anything. My bug has been set to a duplicate of this one, which is only partially true IMO.

My touchpad works perfectly after suspend to disk and on first logins aswell.

Revision history for this message
Tristian (tr-ce) wrote :

his was a problem for me in Dapper and remains an issue in Edgy.

I have a Alps Glidepoint touchpad on my Toshiba M100, and it is detected as such. Unfortunately, sometimes the mouse jumps around on screen, quadruple taps on movement. Sometimes, moving the mouse results in whatever application I have focused behaving as if I pressed the F7 key (which is really annoying in Firefox- I get ~10 windows asking if I want to enable Caret Browsing).

I opened up /var/log/syslog when using both Dapper (2.6.15) and Edgy (2.6.17) and something approximating the following always shows up when my touchpad goes berserk:

Oct 20 00:35:04 localhost kernel: [17180160.432000] psmouse.c: GlidePoint at isa0060/serio4/input0 lost sync at byte 1
Oct 20 00:35:04 localhost kernel: [17180160.436000] psmouse.c: GlidePoint at isa0060/serio4/input0 - driver resynched.
Oct 20 00:35:04 localhost kernel: [17180160.436000] psmouse.c: GlidePoint at isa0060/serio4/input0 lost sync at byte 1
Oct 20 00:35:04 localhost kernel: [17180160.448000] psmouse.c: GlidePoint at isa0060/serio4/input0 - driver resynched.

In Edgy (2.6.17), a new behavior will sometimes occur:

Oct 20 00:35:05 localhost kernel: [17180161.272000] psmouse.c: GlidePoint at isa0060/serio4/input0 lost synchronization, throwing 1 bytes away.
Oct 20 00:35:06 localhost kernel: [17180161.776000] psmouse.c: resync failed, issuing reconnect request
Oct 20 00:35:06 localhost kernel: [17180162.504000] input: PS/2 Mouse as /class/input/input6
Oct 20 00:35:06 localhost kernel: [17180162.524000] input: AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint as /class/input/input7

This resyncing results in the Glidepoint being treated only as a PS/2 Mouse (i.e no vertical/horizontal scrolling, no tap-and-drag). Everytime this behavior happens, the two mice are reattached to /class/input/n+1

Revision history for this message
Pascal d'Hermilly (pascal-tipisoft) wrote :

I also have this problem with a toshiba satellite-m100.
see the bottom of this dmesg output.

Revision history for this message
kjon (kurt-andereya) wrote :

Waaahhh! My alps touchpad doesn't wanna work. I prayed to God and Ala, but they haven't give me any answer.

I tried the trick of changing the device (in xorg.conf) to "/dev/input/whatever" and the protocol to "event". These changes resulted in a slower touchpad, however I couldn't fix the erratic movement. Moreover, my dmesg shows a lot of "lost sync" and "resync failed" messages from "psmouse.c". I don't know what else can I do...

I even tried to add "psmouse.rate=40" to the kernel bootline (and "acpi=off"), but It didn't helped either.

Seems that I have to be on the dark side (winblowz) for a while until this issue gets solved. TT_TT

p.s. My box: Toshiba Satellite M105-SP1031.
p.s.2. option "maxtaptime" looks quite broken!

Revision history for this message
Mike Dahlgren (dahlgren) wrote :

I believe Bug #63919 is a duplicate

Revision history for this message
Nicolò Chieffo (yelo3) wrote :

this has been fixed for me. reopen it if you still have the problem

Changed in xorg-driver-synaptics:
status: Confirmed → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Rudy85 (rudy-phelippeau-hotmail) wrote :

Hi , my touchpad is crazy too , Acer 5310

apparement it works better with KDE ( backtrack )

(French)

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"
    Driver "synaptics"
    Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
    Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
    Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
    Option "HorizEdgeScroll" "0"
        Option "MinSpeed" "0.7"
    Option "MaxSpeed" "1"
    Option "AccelFactor" "0.05"

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Rudy85 (rudy-phelippeau-hotmail) wrote :
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Rudy85 (rudy-phelippeau-hotmail) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Rudy85 (rudy-phelippeau-hotmail) wrote :

I have recently re install ubuntu .

The problem is disappear .
It's cool for me

Revision history for this message
Rudy85 (rudy-phelippeau-hotmail) wrote :

The probleme is re -comming

Sorry

Smith (smws-box)
Changed in xorg-driver-synaptics (Ubuntu):
status: Fix Released → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
Smith (smws-box) wrote :

I've noticed that this bug (touchpad gone wild) appears when wireless driver activated: [Broadcom B43 wireless driver] or [Broadcom STA wireless driver]

If I deactivate this wireless driver, problem disappears. Wireless works well.

Revision history for this message
Julien Olivier (julo) wrote :

With lucid, I don't have the problem on boot anymore. However, I still have it after resume.

Changed in xorg-driver-synaptics (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
rusivi2 (rusivi2-deactivatedaccount) wrote :

Thank you for reporting this bug.

Does this occur in Maverick?

Changed in xorg-driver-synaptics (Ubuntu):
status: Confirmed → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
Julien Olivier (julo) wrote :

I don't have this laptop anymore, so I can't test it.

Revision history for this message
Thomas Hotz (thotz-deactivatedaccount) wrote :

Marking as confirmed. Waiting for other subscribers if they could help us.

Changed in xorg-driver-synaptics (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
penalvch (penalvch) wrote :

Mary Gardiner, this bug was reported a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue? If so, could you please test for this with the latest development release of Ubuntu? ISO images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/ .

If it remains an issue, could you please run the following command in the development release from a Terminal as it will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report:

apport-collect -p xorg 12124

Please ensure you have xdiagnose installed, and that you click the Yes button for attaching additional debugging information.

Thank you for your understanding.

Helpful bug reporting tips:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingBugs

affects: xorg-driver-synaptics (Ubuntu) → xorg (Ubuntu)
Changed in xorg (Ubuntu):
importance: Medium → Low
status: Confirmed → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
dino99 (9d9) wrote :

Time to close it now.

Changed in xorg (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → Invalid
Revision history for this message
balsoft (balsoft-f) wrote :

Still have this problem both in Aartful and Bionic. Touchpad sometimes goes crazy after suspend (both Wayland and Xorg), reloading psmouse doesn't help. The problem persists even after rebooting and it goes away after about 5 minutes of touchpad going absolutely crazy.

Revision history for this message
penalvch (penalvch) wrote :

balsoft, given this report is closed, it will help immensely if you use the computer the problem is reproducible with, file a new report with Ubuntu by first ensuring the package xdiagnose is installed, and click the Yes button for attaching additional debugging information after running the following from a terminal:
ubuntu-bug xorg

Also, please feel free to subscribe me to it.

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