Page 1 of 1

Touchpad stopped working!

Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 10:50 am
by L551
This morning, my touchpad stopped working. It was working the night before. Plugging in a mouse works, but is annoying. It is a laptop, after all.

I don't know what I should post here in terms of reports, etc.

Fully updated LMDE x86 (32-bit)

Re: Touchpad stopped working!

Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 11:38 am
by dawgdoc
Go to > Menu > Preferences > Mouse and check the settings under both the General and Touchpad tabs.

You do not specify your hardware so this is a bit of a shot in the dark. In THIS post and the post two below it there are links to pages regarding configuring and debugging touchpads. Many of the links are to Ubuntu pages, but they are probably relevant.

Re: Touchpad stopped working!

Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 12:09 pm
by L551
System is a HP Pavilion dv4000, with an ALPS touchpad.

In mouse options, it doesn't have a touchpad tab. It's like it doesn't even know it's there. I booted into Windows XP to see if it was the hardware, but it worked there. Just not on LMDE anymore.

Re: Touchpad stopped working!

Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 12:56 pm
by dawgdoc
An ALPS touchpad uses the Synaptic driver. To see what related modules are active

Code: Select all

lsmod | grep "mous\|syna\|alp"
My touchpad shows up in lsmod as psmouse. I have seen other s report the same

To see if the modules are installed even if not loaded

Code: Select all

/sbin/modprobe -l | grep "mous\|syna\|alp"
Some of the links reached from my post above can help with an ALPS touchpad, they are on an Ubuntu site but not specific for Ubuntu.

Re: Touchpad stopped working!

Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 1:12 pm
by L551
First thing had an output of:

Code: Select all

psmouse                44657  0 
2nd:

Code: Select all

kernel/drivers/usb/misc/idmouse.ko
kernel/drivers/input/mouse/appletouch.ko
kernel/drivers/input/mouse/bcm5974.ko
kernel/drivers/input/mouse/inport.ko
kernel/drivers/input/mouse/logibm.ko
kernel/drivers/input/mouse/pc110pad.ko
kernel/drivers/input/mouse/psmouse.ko
kernel/drivers/input/mouse/sermouse.ko
kernel/drivers/input/mouse/synaptics_i2c.ko
kernel/drivers/input/mouse/vsxxxaa.ko
During the delay between posts, the PC went to sleep, and upon waking, the touchpad was back. Dunno why. Or how.

Re: Touchpad stopped working!

Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 1:29 pm
by dawgdoc
L551 wrote:During the delay between posts, the PC went to sleep, and upon waking, the touchpad was back. Dunno why. Or how.
I am glad it is working, because from all I have read touchpad problems are frequently not easy to resolve.

Re: Touchpad stopped working!

Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2011 7:58 pm
by mudpie
Is there a toggle on the keyboard itself? On both my laptop (Alienware/Dell) and netbook (Asus), there is a combo that will toggle the touchpad, and I think it's actually in the BIOS, not the OS. And on both, sometimes they switch on or off on reboot, or login, or wakeup... it seems somewhat random. And to make it more confusing, the indicator lights don't always display on/off correctly - they get confused, like a lamp on two switches.

Anyhow, that was just a thought, incase it fritzes out on you again.

-Laura

Re: Touchpad stopped working!

Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 12:01 pm
by L551
mudpie wrote:Is there a toggle on the keyboard itself? On both my laptop (Alienware/Dell) and netbook (Asus), there is a combo that will toggle the touchpad, and I think it's actually in the BIOS, not the OS. And on both, sometimes they switch on or off on reboot, or login, or wakeup... it seems somewhat random. And to make it more confusing, the indicator lights don't always display on/off correctly - they get confused, like a lamp on two switches.

Anyhow, that was just a thought, incase it fritzes out on you again.

-Laura
I actually looked for that first thing, but there is not one.

UPDATE:

It did it twice again. It seems to follow this pattern:
1) Video and audio stop playing.
2) Unplugging laptop causes hard freeze. Nothing works. Reboot is only option
3) After reboot, touchpad no longer works. Mouse does.
4) Hibernating/sleeping makes it work again. (I Think.)

My question is....why?!