Touchpad randomly missbehaves on Sony laptop <SOLVED>

[tetris4]

Hello all,

I installed Linux Mint 12 x64 today on a Sony Vaio VGN-CS11Z. All went well during installation, but then I came accross this really annoying bug.

The touchpad after a couple reboots, randomly decides to not work on login, and I have to shutdown/reboot through tty. The touchpad responds to movement (eg: moving the pointer) but left key is not recognised at all, while the right key works.

What really bothers me is that I couldn't find any info on this, and I got the same issue on linux mint 11 and ubuntu 11.10 when I checked to see if this happens there too. I also found out that it can be triggered on the liveCD too.

Is this a known problem? Does anyone know a workaround? Any help would be really appreciated.

Let me know if I need to provide any logs or outputs, am new to Mint.

[tetris4]

It looks like there are 2 mice detected, and am guessing this is what causing this:

Code: Select all

46: PS/2 00.0: 10500 PS/2 Mouse                                 
  [Created at input.183]
  Unique ID: AH6Q.GK9dutOpov5
  Hardware Class: mouse
  Model: "Sony Vaio Jogdial"
  Vendor: 0x104d
  Device: "Sony Vaio Jogdial"
  Compatible to: int 0x0210 0x0011
  Device File: /dev/input/mice (/dev/input/mouse0)
  Device Files: /dev/input/mice, /dev/input/mouse0, /dev/input/event6
  Device Number: char 13:63 (char 13:32)
  Driver Info #0:
    Buttons: 1
    Wheels: 1
    XFree86 Protocol: explorerps/2
    GPM Protocol: exps2
  Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown

47: PS/2 00.0: 10500 PS/2 Mouse
  [Created at input.183]
  Unique ID: AH6Q.ZHI3OT7LsxA
  Hardware Class: mouse
  Model: "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad"
  Vendor: 0x0002
  Device: 0x0007 "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad"
  Compatible to: int 0x0210 0x0002
  Device File: /dev/input/mice (/dev/input/mouse1)
  Device Files: /dev/input/mice, /dev/input/mouse1, /dev/input/event10, /dev/input/by-path/platform-i8042-serio-1-event-mouse, /dev/input/by-path/platform-i8042-serio-1-mouse
  Device Number: char 13:63 (char 13:33)
  Driver Info #0:
    Buttons: 2
    Wheels: 0
    XFree86 Protocol: explorerps/2
    GPM Protocol: exps2
  Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown

Is there some way I can force one of the two mice, so I can workaround this?

[AlbertP]

A jogdial (first mouse) is some kind of scroll wheel. It's reported to have one mouse button (middle button?) and a wheel. The second mouse, with 2 buttons, is the actual touchpad. Having two of them shouldn't be a problem - I can even connect three mice to my computer and they still work fine.

[tetris4]

thnx for responding!

Well only 1 touchpad exists on this laptop, I have no idea what the other one is..maybe something to do with the multimedia keys?

Am thinking if I disable that one (jogdial), touchpad will get detected properly.

[AlbertP]

The touchpad is already detected properly but for some reason not working OK. I don't know how to fix this. Having 2 mice on a system is not a problem at all as I said.
My touchpad also occasionally stops working on Mint 12, and it's a Synaptics PS/2 as well. I do not have a jogdial or any other mouse on my HP laptop.

[tetris4]

In case somebody else has the same issues, this one did the trick for me:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/71776/cannot-scroll-using-trackpad-on-sony-vaio