Touchpad buttons not working correctly due to missing ClickPad support

[Lynton]

Synaptics is now making touchpads that have one "physical" button which is the whole pad. To determine if a click is on the left or right side, the buttons are part of the touchpad and the synaptics driver detects where the finger is placed (this works due to multi-touch support)

Known laptop models with this clickpad:

• Dell Inspiron Mini 10v
• Asus UX31A
• Asus UX32A
• HP series 4500 ProBooks
• ThinkPad X220
• ThinkPad X1

By default, the whole pad is detected as the left mouse button.. so basic functionality exsists.

More Information: ​https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Touchpad_Synaptics#Buttonless_TouchPads_.28aka_ClickPads.29

[Lynton]

Output from listdev if its of any use

[mmlr]

Is this touchpad hooked up as a USB device? Can you attach a listusb -v output as well to check for that?

[Lynton]

Replying to mmlr:

Is this touchpad hooked up as a USB device? Can you attach a listusb -v output as well to check for that?

OK please find the output from listusb -v attached. I don't see the touchpad in the list to be honest.

Interestingly enough the problem gets worse to debug because the buttons have worked intermittently in the last few minutes. Its almost like its dependent on where you have had your fingers previously on the touchpad.

Quite hard to explain but am happy to provide more info if needed.

[mmlr]

Yes, it's not a USB touchpad then.

[mmlr]

Reassigning to Clemens as he implemented the synaptics support.

[Lynton]

Replying to Lynton:

Replying to mmlr:

Is this touchpad hooked up as a USB device? Can you attach a listusb -v output as well to check for that?

OK please find the output from listusb -v attached. I don't see the touchpad in the list to be honest.

Interestingly enough the problem gets worse to debug because the buttons have worked intermittently in the last few minutes. Its almost like its dependent on where you have had your fingers previously on the touchpad.

The mechanical left/right buttons are located beneath the active area on the touchpad. I have just noticed that if I click the buttons by using the extreme left right corners of the touchpad the buttons do actually work but one has to be very precise which is awkward to say the least. I seem to recall reading somewhee that the Windows/Linux drivers use some sort of filter to get around this issue?

[czeidler]

Hi Lynton,

I think its the following problem: What I can see from the pics at google the buttons are integrated in the touch area. Correct? I had the problem that the touch area size listed in the synaptics specs where to small on my touchpad so I extend them a little bit so they reach over the buttons on your machine now. The problem is that you click a button and the button flag is set by the touchpad. But the driver think it is a movement on the touch area and remove the flag again...

On linux or windows could you use the button area also to move the mouse? (by start the movement somewhere else)

Hope to look into it next week...

Clemens

Will look into it next year...

[Lynton]

Hi Clemens, You are correct about the buttons being located in the touch area. The buttons are mechanical devices located beneath the touchpad but it seems the area where the buttons are located is also part of the active touchpad area. I have never tried Windows on the machine but thinking back a little I did have an odd problem with "Linux Mint 7" on the machine where the touchpad behaved strangely. The pointer would jump around all over the screen if I tried to use the button area whilst moving the mouse say to resize a window.

I now run Ubuntu Netbook Remix and that seems to work OK.

I will of course be happy to test any modifications you make to the driver code.

Kind Regards

Lynton

[HaikuBot]

I have same touchpad or how it called correctly - clickpad. ​http://www.synaptics.com/solutions/products/clickpad

Laptop HP Probook 4520s.

[czeidler]

I don't have a synaptics touchpad anymore, so I can't even test changes... Siarzhuk are you interested to look into it?

[romain]

Some interesting news on this issue: ​http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTA2NTQ

and the xorg patch available here: ​http://lists.x.org/archives/xorg-devel/2012-March/029609.html

Since I have the same issue on my hp probook 4320, I will try to look at it I if have some time within the next weeks.

[kallisti5]

I have an Asus ultrabook that has the same clickpad... adjusting description to be more generic.