IdeaPad 5 14ARE05 touchpad works intermittently only [SOLVED]

[Charming_dentist]

Hello,
I have a problem with a touchpad on IdeaPad 5 14ARE05. Usually when people post a similar problem their touchpad doesn't work at all. In my case sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I noticed, that if during boot message "i2c_desigware AMDI0010:00: i2c_dw_handle_tx_abort: lost arbitration" is displayed, touchpad will surely not work. In other cases, it usually works.
Here is my spec:

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System:
  Kernel: 5.8.0-50-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: N/A 
  Desktop: Cinnamon 4.8.6 wm: muffin 4.8.1 dm: LightDM 1.30.0 
  Distro: Linux Mint 20.1 Ulyssa base: Ubuntu 20.04 focal 
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: LENOVO product: 81YM v: IdeaPad 5 14ARE05 
  serial: <filter> Chassis: type: 10 v: IdeaPad 5 14ARE05 serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: LENOVO model: LNVNB161216 v: SDK0J40709 WIN serial: <filter> 
  UEFI: LENOVO v: DTCN24WW(V1.10) date: 12/25/2020 
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT1 charge: 31.2 Wh condition: 44.5/44.5 Wh (100%) volts: 11.7/11.1 model: 0x4C 
  0x47 0x43 0x00 0x32 0x30 0x 0x4C 0x31 0x39 0x4C 0x33 0x50 0x4450 
  type: Li-ion serial: <filter> status: Discharging cycles: 2 
  Device-1: hidpp_battery_0 model: Logitech Wireless Mouse M185 
  serial: <filter> charge: 55% (should be ignored) rechargeable: yes 
  status: Discharging 
CPU:
  Topology: 8-Core model: AMD Ryzen 7 4800U with Radeon Graphics bits: 64 
  type: MT MCP arch: Zen rev: 1 L2 cache: 4096 KiB 
  flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm 
  bogomips: 57487 
  Speed: 1397 MHz min/max: 1400/1800 MHz boost: enabled Core speeds (MHz): 
  1: 1397 2: 1397 3: 1397 4: 1397 5: 1397 6: 1397 7: 1397 8: 1397 9: 1399 
  10: 1396 11: 1399 12: 1397 13: 1399 14: 1397 15: 1397 16: 1397 
Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD Renoir vendor: Lenovo driver: amdgpu v: kernel 
  bus ID: 04:00.0 chip ID: 1002:1636 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.9 driver: amdgpu,ati 
  unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: AMD RENOIR (DRM 3.38.0 5.8.0-50-generic LLVM 11.0.0) 
  v: 4.6 Mesa 20.2.6 direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: AMD vendor: Lenovo driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel 
  bus ID: 04:00.1 chip ID: 1002:1637 
  Device-2: AMD Raven/Raven2/FireFlight/Renoir Audio Processor 
  vendor: Lenovo driver: snd_rn_pci_acp3x v: kernel bus ID: 04:00.5 
  chip ID: 1022:15e2 
  Device-3: AMD Family 17h HD Audio vendor: Lenovo driver: snd_hda_intel 
  v: kernel bus ID: 04:00.6 chip ID: 1022:15e3 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.8.0-50-generic 
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8822CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter 
  vendor: Lenovo driver: rtw_8822ce v: N/A port: 2000 bus ID: 03:00.0 
  chip ID: 10ec:c822 
  IF: wlo1 state: up mac: <filter> 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 476.94 GiB used: 20.95 GiB (4.4%) 
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Samsung model: MZALQ512HALU-000L2 
  size: 476.94 GiB speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4 serial: <filter> rev: AL2QFXV7 
  scheme: GPT 
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 43.71 GiB used: 10.45 GiB (23.9%) fs: ext4 
  dev: /dev/nvme0n1p6 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 41.2 C mobo: N/A gpu: amdgpu temp: 41 C 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Repos:
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list 
  1: deb http://packages.linuxmint.com ulyssa main upstream import backport #id:linuxmint_main
  2: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal main restricted universe multiverse
  3: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates main restricted universe multiverse
  4: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-backports main restricted universe multiverse
  5: deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ focal-security main restricted universe multiverse
  6: deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ focal partner
Info:
  Processes: 336 Uptime: 4m Memory: 15.08 GiB used: 1.30 GiB (8.6%) 
  Init: systemd v: 245 runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 9.3.0 alt: 9 Shell: bash 
  v: 5.0.17 running in: gnome-terminal inxi: 3.0.38

I tried all of the solutions I was able to find on the internet. Thank you in advance

[Joe2Shoe]

Maybe this will help.

Cinammon Release Notes: Touchpad drivers

The default touchpad driver in this edition is "libinput" (provided by the xserver-xorg-input-libinput package).

If you experience problems with it, you can switch to another driver called "synaptics" (provided by the xserver-xorg-input-synaptics package).

To know which driver is used by your input devices, run the following command:
grep -i "Using input driver" /var/log/Xorg.0.log

When both drivers are installed, "synaptics" takes priority.

To switch to the "synaptics" driver, install it with the command:
apt install xserver-xorg-input-synaptics

Then log out and log back in.

To go back to using "libinput", simply remove the "synaptics" driver:
apt remove xserver-xorg-input-synaptics

Then log out and log back in.

Note: You can also try installing the "evdev" driver (provided by the xserver-xorg-input-evdev).

[Charming_dentist]

Installing synaptics drivers doesn't seem to help. I've downloaded evdev, but it does not take priority over libinput. Libinput controls also other drivers. How am I supposed to switch to evdev? (removing libinput seems to be a bad idea)

[hglee]

I have a problem with a touchpad on IdeaPad 5 14ARE05. Usually when people post a similar problem their touchpad doesn't work at all. In my case sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I noticed, that if during boot message "i2c_desigware AMDI0010:00: i2c_dw_handle_tx_abort: lost arbitration" is displayed, touchpad will surely not work. In other cases, it usually works.

Your issue seems similar to Bugzilla #208171: Lenovo IdeaPad 5 14ARE05 Touchpad randomly failing. This bug is attributed to a kernel regression in handling the i2c interface hardware. The bug ticket was closed by accepting kernel 5.8 as the solution, which evidently doesn't work for you.

A similar touchpad issue is also reported as Ubuntu Bug #1884981, "Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 Ryzen (14ARE05): Touchpad/trackpad unpredictably fails from any given boot", which appears to have closed without a solution.


Then there's Bugzilla Bug #207759, for which Jan-Marek Glogowski created a script solution. That script must run at every boot-up, so dl3it implemented it as a systemd service. Then Ivan Zakharyaschev devised a way to do the same thing simply by adding kernel command-line parameters to the grub configuration file. I chose that last solution for translation into several Terminal command-lines that are easy enough for Linux newcomers here to just copy-and-paste, step by step. My code makes a time-stamped backup of /etc/default/grub, adds the kernel parameters, then updates grub:

The parameters to be added are initcall_blacklist=elants_i2c_initialize initcall_blacklist=elants_i2c_initialize.cold initcall_blacklist=elants_i2c_driver_init

Open a Terminal window (Ctrl-Alt-T), then copy-and-paste the following 3 command-lines, one by one...

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B=initcall_blacklist=;E=elants_i2c_;I=initialize;D=driver_init;P="$B$E$I $B$E$I.cold $B$E$D" # add parameters
S=/etc/default/grub;T=GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=\";sudo cp $S{,-`date +%F.%s`}
L=`grep -n ^$T $S`&&L=${L:0:2}&&sed "${L}s/$P//" $S|sed "${L}s/$T/$T$P /"|tr -s ' '|sudo dd of=$S&&sudo update-grub

Reboot, after the grub update completes.

Does your touchpad work okay? If so, just ignore the tips that follow.

If you later wish to remove the above kernel parameters, such as if they do nothing for you:

Open a Terminal (Ctrl-Alt-T), then copy-and-paste the following 3 command-lines, one by one...

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B=initcall_blacklist=;E=elants_i2c_;I=initialize;D=driver_init;P="$B$E$I $B$E$I.cold $B$E$D" # remove parameters
Q=/etc/default/grub;R=GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=\";sudo cp $Q{,-`date +%F.%s`}
N=`grep -n ^$R $Q`&&sed "${N:0:2}s/$P//" $Q|tr -s ' '|2>/dev/null sudo dd of=$Q&&sudo update-grub

Reboot.


Arch Linux has a Lenovo IdeaPad 5 14are05 page which says, "The touchpad works almost as expected starting from linux [kernel] 5.9-rc1". They also recommend upgrading to the most recent BIOS.

Before trying kernel 5.9, I suggest installing the kernel Hardware Enablement Stack (HWE) for your current kernel 5.8:

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sudo apt install --install-recommends linux-generic-hwe-20.04

The HWE stack pulls in new hardware support as it gets added to recent and future kernels, on a rolling-release basis.


Other potential factors: In your BIOS, disable Secure Boot, as it's known to interfere with device drivers. Also disable Fast Boot in the BIOS, to avoid system hardware initialization and diagnostic shortcuts. If you're dual-booting Windows, disable Fast StartUp in Windows power options.


If none of the above helps, try upgrading the kernel. Mint's update manager stops at kernel 5.8, so you'll need the Ubuntu Mainstream Kernel Installer (a fork of ukuu). It keeps track of updates for the kernels it installs:

Open a Terminal window (Ctrl-Alt-T), then copy-and-paste the following 2 command-lines, one by one...

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sudo add-apt-repository ppa:cappelikan/ppa && sudo apt update # Mainline Kernel Installer
sudo apt install -y mainline

Choose from the list of all available kernel releases.

If you later wish to remove Mainline Kernel Installer and its PPA (this doesn't remove your installed kernels) ...

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sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:cappelikan/ppa && sudo apt update # Uninstall Mainline PPA and App
sudo apt remove -y mainline

Let us know how it turns out.

[Charming_dentist]

The previous steps didn't work but running kernel 5.9.16 actually did. Everything works fine (Wi-Fi, adjusting brightness etc.). Anyway I'm a little concerned (in the end that kernel is not supported in mint). Should I use it on a daily basis?

[hglee]

The previous steps didn't work but running kernel 5.9.16 actually did. Everything works fine (Wi-Fi, adjusting brightness etc.). Anyway I'm a little concerned (in the end that kernel is not supported in mint). Should I use it on a daily basis?

Linux generally is low risk. I'd use 5.9 on a trial basis for a while, to see how often it may get updates via Mainline.

As countermeasures, install antivirus software (e.g. ClamAV) and activate your Gufw firewall. I use those anyway.


Remember to edit your first post in this thread to add "[SOLVED]" to the subject title.

[Charming_dentist]

Thank you very much!