Arch Linux

Maelodic

Member

Registered: 2013-12-19

Posts: 10

[SOLVED] Touchpad issues on Acer Laptop

Hey guys, my touchpad isn't working most of the time when I reboot, though occasionally it'll stay persistent. I have an Acer Aspire E5-573G.
The touchpad does not show up in xinput at all when it's not working. To fix it, every single time I reboot I have to uninstall any touchpad driver (xf86-input-synaptics or xf86-input-libinput), reboot, reinstall one or both, and then reboot again.Sometimes it works through multiple reboots, most of the time, it breaks.
I've tried using i8042.kbdreset=1 as a kernel perimeter and have entered it both in config and in boot, neither work.
There are no config files in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ for the touchpad and adding the synaptics config file does not remedy.
I'm on Gnome3 if that makes a difference. I get the same behavior from all my other UIs as well.

Last edited by Maelodic (2016-09-22 12:20:20)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,742

Re: [SOLVED] Touchpad issues on Acer Laptop

Xorg logs and/or journallogs? A package I see missing from your account is xf86-input-evdev which can play a pivotal role. You should have either xf86-input-libinput or  xf86-input-evdev and xf86-input-synaptics installed. Preference, especially on GNOME, is to use xf86-input-libinput, therefore remove both xf86-input-evdev and xf86-input-synaptics and only keep xf86-input-libinput and see if that improves things

Maelodic

Member

Registered: 2013-12-19

Posts: 10

Re: [SOLVED] Touchpad issues on Acer Laptop

Xorg logs and/or journallogs? A package I see missing from your account is xf86-input-evdev which can play a pivotal role. You should have either xf86-input-libinput or  xf86-input-evdev and xf86-input-synaptics installed. Preference, especially on GNOME, is to use xf86-input-libinput, therefore remove both xf86-input-evdev and xf86-input-synaptics and only keep xf86-input-libinput and see if that improves things

Thank you - I uninstalled both synaptics and evdev but no luck there. Having them all installed gave me the greatest success rate with having the touchpad work because AFAIK gnome defaults back to synaptics should libdev fail to load. I don't think it's a driver issue, moreso a detection issue, however, as it doesn't show up in xinput at all.

⎡ Virtual core pointer                    	id=2	[master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer              	id=4	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Chicony Wireless Device                 	id=12	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Chicony Wireless Device                 	id=13	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                   	id=3	[master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard             	id=5	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                            	id=6	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                               	id=7	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                               	id=8	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                            	id=9	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                            	id=10	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ HD WebCam                               	id=14	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard            	id=15	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Acer WMI hotkeys                        	id=16	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Chicony Wireless Device                 	id=11	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Chicony Wireless Device                 	id=17	[slave  keyboard (3)]

When the touchpad is working it shows up as an ELAN device under ID10.

When it works, the Xorg log will show:

[   157.236] (II) config/udev: Adding input device ELAN0501:00 04F3:300B Touchpad (/dev/input/event10)

Where otherwise nothing shows up. Nothing related shows up in journal either.

I think it's likely related to the issue listed on the bottom of the page here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Touchpad_Synaptics

I also think it's related to the most recent kernal upgrade. Going back to 4.3 fixes the issue but then I don't have wireless. I'm not sure what changed there and I'm not quite sure how to dive that deep into kernel changes...

Maelodic

Member

Registered: 2013-12-19

Posts: 10

Re: [SOLVED] Touchpad issues on Acer Laptop

I managed to find a solution. I needed to set the "Touchpad" option in the BIOS to "Basic" where it was "Advanced" before. Apparently this has been broken since kernel 4.4.

jcb2016

Member

Registered: 2019-02-24

Posts: 1

Re: [SOLVED] Touchpad issues on Acer Laptop

I managed to find a solution. I needed to set the "Touchpad" option in the BIOS to "Basic" where it was "Advanced" before. Apparently this has been broken since kernel 4.4.

This resolved my issue today 9/13/2023

Last edited by jcb2016 (2023-09-14 06:06:40)

2ManyDogs

Forum Fellow

Registered: 2012-01-15

Posts: 4,645

Re: [SOLVED] Touchpad issues on Acer Laptop

Closing this ancient solved topic.