After latest kernel update, touchpad no longer works after login

After the latest kernel update (5.15.0-58-generic), when my laptop starts up, the touchpad will work in the login screen—but the moment I log in, it stops working. (Yes, I’ve made sure the touchpad is on, using the touchpad enable/disable button on my laptop.) If I start up using the previous kernel version (5.15.0-57-generic), the touchpad works fine, before and after login.

I’m not quite sure what’s going wrong… for instance, is this an Ubuntu MATE problem, or should I report this to the kernel devs? (For that matter, how do I report this to the kernel devs?)

I’m using Ubuntu MATE 22.04.1 LTS on a Compaq Presario CQ60.

Just verifying touchpad does work with latest kernel UM22.04.1. I normally have it disabled in image along with disabling touchstick Edit in my startup applications.

2 Likes

Based on what you wrote I certainly think it is a kernel bug.
That means it is not restricted to Ubuntu-MATE but at least to all Ubuntu flavours.

Best what you can do is file a bug against the ubuntu kernel.
See this link:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/Bugs

1 Like

Hmmm, I’m not sure what you mean. But, I’ve verified that “Enable touchpad” is checked in the “Mouse Preferences” window.

Thanks. I’ve posted a bug here: Bug #2004531 “Touchpad stops working after login when using late...” : Bugs : linux package : Ubuntu

2 Likes

No problem I thought your

was referring to a hardware switch on the laptop and not in the mouse settings.

1 Like

Ah, I see what you mean. Yeah, I was referring to a hardware switch on my laptop. So, I made sure it was enabled under “Mouse Preferences” as well.

2 Likes

I finally figured out the problem… sort of.

First, after restarting the computer recently, I started having the touchpad-stops-working-after-login problem even on kernel version 5.15.0-57-generic. I’m not sure why that was the case, but it got me looking for other solutions, which led me here: dual boot - Ubuntu 16.04 touchpad stops working after login - Ask Ubuntu

Even though the touchpad wasn’t working, I could still find it in the results for xinput list as “SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad”. So, by using xinput --list-props 'SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad', I could see that one of the results displayed was “Synaptics Off (295): 1”. By using xinput --set-prop 'SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad' 'Synaptics Off' 0, I was able to get the touchpad working again instantly. Just to make sure, I restarted into the latest kernel (5.15.0-60-generic), and once again, the touchpad stopped working after login; but once again, I was able to use xinput --set-prop 'SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad' 'Synaptics Off' 0 in the terminal to restore touchpad functionality. (I’ll have to put that line in my .profile to see if that fixes it every time.)

Of course, that leaves the question: what it setting that flag to “1” in the first place? I haven’t the faintest idea, and seemingly neither does the AskUbuntu community. What a mystery… (if anybody knows the answer, let us know!)

3 Likes