MacBook Air Trackpad issue

erovborabva · 2017-09-22 17:46:42

I am running Arch on a 2011 MacBook Air, and have been experiencing track pad issues off and on for quite some time. It seems that sometimes after system upgrades, the trackpad will become overly pressure sensitive and click when it is just slightly tapped or brushed. I have been trying to disable tap to click and tap and drag all together to prevent this issue from coming up in the first place, however I have not been able to get tap to click/drag to turn off.

In my /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/40-libinput.conf file I have done:

# Match on all types of devices but joysticks
[...]
Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "libinput touchpad catchall"
        MatchIsTouchpad "on"
        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
        Option "Tapping" "false"
        Option "TapAndDragGesture" "false"
        Option "TappingDrag" "false"
        Driver "libinput"
EndSection
[...]

However the touchpad does not seem to have been affected at all by disabling the options. Am I doing something wrong?

circleface · 2017-09-22 19:58:10

What WM/DE are you using? It's possible that the DE is overriding the defaults, and you should be able to configure it in the control panel of that DE.

seth · 2017-09-22 20:02:39

It seems that sometimes after system upgrades, the trackpad will become overly pressure sensitive

You mean you run an upgrade, then the touchpad becomes overly sensitive but after a reboot the problem is gone?
Well, what packages did you update in that case?

erovborabva · 2017-09-22 20:21:39

circleface wrote:

What WM/DE are you using? It's possible that the DE is overriding the defaults, and you should be able to configure it in the control panel of that DE.

I am using X11 with Openbox, don't think it has any separate tack pad settings.

erovborabva · 2017-09-22 20:24:36

seth wrote:

It seems that sometimes after system upgrades, the trackpad will become overly pressure sensitive
You mean you run an upgrade, then the touchpad becomes overly sensitive but after a reboot the problem is gone?
Well, what packages did you update in that case?

I am not 100% sure, but I can't think of anything else that would change it, and as far as I can tell it seems to normally happen when there are kernel updates. It does not go away after rebooting, but after a few days/weeks eventually the problem has always disappeared again (possibly due to package changes?). I am not really sure how to narrow this down, since its hard to pinpoint exactly when the change occurs, I just start to notice a lot of extra clicks.

seth · 2017-09-22 20:47:28

Could rather be temperature or physical stress?

As for disabling tap when writing: please paste the xinput properties for the device ("xinput --help", list and list-props will be helpfull ;-)

erovborabva · 2017-09-22 21:59:16

seth wrote:

Could rather be temperature or physical stress?
As for disabling tap when writing: please paste the xinput properties for the device ("xinput --help", list and list-props will be helpfull ;-)

I don't think it is physical, as it works fine in OSX. Here is the output from xinput:

[archbox]/home/user/Development/% xinput list         
⎡ Virtual core pointer                    	id=2	[master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer              	id=4	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ bcm5974                                 	id=12	[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)]
    ↳ Power Button                            	id=8	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                            	id=9	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)           	id=10	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad	id=11	[slave  keyboard (3)]
[archbox]/home/user/Development/% xinput list-props 11
Device 'Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad':
	Device Enabled (142):	1
	Coordinate Transformation Matrix (144):	1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000
	libinput Send Events Modes Available (262):	1, 0
	libinput Send Events Mode Enabled (263):	0, 0
	libinput Send Events Mode Enabled Default (264):	0, 0
	Device Node (265):	"/dev/input/event12"
	Device Product ID (266):	1452, 588

I would actually like to disable tap to click entirely, not just while typing, as I don't really use it anyway, and it is causing this problem.

Last edited by erovborabva (2017-09-22 21:59:45)

seth · 2017-09-22 22:10:35

It's device 12 (bcm5974)
If you dual boot, OSX could adjust and leave behind the sensitivity in some nvram - but that's uninformed speculation. (It's just weird that the proble would randomly appear and disappear for longer time periods)

erovborabva · 2017-09-22 23:24:34

seth wrote:

It's device 12 (bcm5974)
If you dual boot, OSX could adjust and leave behind the sensitivity in some nvram - but that's uninformed speculation. (It's just weird that the proble would randomly appear and disappear for longer time periods)

Ah, I see in the info for device 12 that tapping drag is actually set to on. Not sure where that is coming from though, since I have the option set to false.

Device 'bcm5974':
	Device Enabled (142):	1
	Coordinate Transformation Matrix (144):	1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000
	libinput Tapping Enabled (277):	0
	libinput Tapping Enabled Default (278):	0
	libinput Tapping Drag Enabled (279):	1
	libinput Tapping Drag Enabled Default (280):	1
	libinput Tapping Drag Lock Enabled (281):	0
	libinput Tapping Drag Lock Enabled Default (282):	0
	libinput Tapping Button Mapping Enabled (283):	1, 0
	libinput Tapping Button Mapping Default (284):	1, 0
	libinput Natural Scrolling Enabled (285):	0
	libinput Natural Scrolling Enabled Default (286):	0
	libinput Left Handed Enabled (287):	0
	libinput Left Handed Enabled Default (288):	0
	libinput Accel Speed (289):	0.000000
	libinput Accel Speed Default (290):	0.000000
	libinput Scroll Methods Available (291):	1, 1, 0
	libinput Scroll Method Enabled (292):	1, 0, 0
	libinput Scroll Method Enabled Default (293):	1, 0, 0
	libinput Click Methods Available (294):	1, 1
	libinput Click Method Enabled (295):	0, 1
	libinput Click Method Enabled Default (296):	0, 1
	libinput Middle Emulation Enabled (297):	0
	libinput Middle Emulation Enabled Default (298):	0
	libinput Send Events Modes Available (262):	1, 1
	libinput Send Events Mode Enabled (263):	0, 0
	libinput Send Events Mode Enabled Default (264):	0, 0
	libinput Disable While Typing Enabled (299):	1
	libinput Disable While Typing Enabled Default (300):	1
	Device Node (265):	"/dev/input/event11"
	Device Product ID (266):	1452, 588
	libinput Drag Lock Buttons (301):	<no items>
	libinput Horizontal Scroll Enabled (302):	1

erovborabva · 2017-09-23 02:26:56

Ok so I got TappingDrag to be off

	libinput Tapping Drag Enabled (279):	0

but the touchpad is still allowing tap and drag. Is it possible there is another setting somewhere?

seth · 2017-09-23 07:02:10

Also Tapping should be disbaled according to

libinput Tapping Enabled (277):	0

Is this only in "some" clients or does xev register the tap (as mouse press/release) as well?
for gtk clients, try to

export GDK_CORE_DEVICE_EVENTS=1

Otherwise try substituting libinput with evdev.

erovborabva · 2017-09-23 16:53:13

seth wrote:

Is this only in "some" clients or does xev register the tap (as mouse press/release) as well?

Tapping still gives mouse presses with

xbindkeys -k

which I believe gets its inputs directly from xev.

seth wrote:

Otherwise try substituting libinput with evdev.

I will give this a try.

erovborabva · 2017-09-23 21:38:51

seth wrote:

Otherwise try substituting libinput with evdev.

So I was trying to set up evdev, but I am not seeing any Options in the man page about tapping. Does evdev not have them or are they just hidden somewhere?

seth · 2017-09-23 21:56:19

Not entirely sure about xorg config options, but xinput should work likewise (with potentially other option names and IDs, though)

erovborabva · 2017-09-24 04:04:13

seth wrote:

Not entirely sure about xorg config options, but xinput should work likewise (with potentially other option names and IDs, though)

From xinput list-props there doesn't seem to be any options about tapping.

erovborabva · 2017-09-24 06:27:22

Was using OSX again today and noticed that now it is indeed having the same problem, so I guess it might be a hardware issue. Will try some suggestions on mac forums. Thanks for the help.

Arch Linux

#1 2017-09-22 17:46:42

MacBook Air Trackpad issue

#2 2017-09-22 19:58:10

Re: MacBook Air Trackpad issue

#3 2017-09-22 20:02:39

Re: MacBook Air Trackpad issue

#4 2017-09-22 20:21:39

Re: MacBook Air Trackpad issue

#5 2017-09-22 20:24:36

Re: MacBook Air Trackpad issue

#6 2017-09-22 20:47:28

Re: MacBook Air Trackpad issue

#7 2017-09-22 21:59:16

Re: MacBook Air Trackpad issue

#8 2017-09-22 22:10:35

Re: MacBook Air Trackpad issue

#9 2017-09-22 23:24:34

Re: MacBook Air Trackpad issue

#10 2017-09-23 02:26:56

Re: MacBook Air Trackpad issue

#11 2017-09-23 07:02:10

Re: MacBook Air Trackpad issue

#12 2017-09-23 16:53:13

Re: MacBook Air Trackpad issue

#13 2017-09-23 21:38:51

Re: MacBook Air Trackpad issue

#14 2017-09-23 21:56:19

Re: MacBook Air Trackpad issue

#15 2017-09-24 04:04:13

Re: MacBook Air Trackpad issue

#16 2017-09-24 06:27:22

Re: MacBook Air Trackpad issue

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