Two-finger scrolling doesn't work on synaptics touchpad

Seems also to not work on Lucid on Asus 1008HA.

NB: trackpad appears during dmesg as:

[ 14.086198] Synaptics Touchpad, model: 1, fw: 7.2, id: 0x1a0b1, caps: 0xd04731/0xa40000
[ 14.161555] input: SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad as /devices/platform/i8042/serio1/input/input8

The option appears but is inactive to select.

Oddly enough, two-fingered scrolling can be enabled in Gnome from the command line, but not from the GUI. Run the following command:

gconftool-2 --set /desktop/gnome/peripherals/touchpad/scroll_method 2 --type int

This will enable two-fingered scrolling. The appropriate radio button will be shown selected in gnome-mouse-properties, but it will still be disabled.

Jeff Epstein Its still disabled even after running the command you stated

@simar: Please check gnome-mouse-properties. Is the correct radio button selected?

Please also submit the output of the command synclient -l

sorry for delayed response

this is the output of synclien-l

As I myself is triaging the bugs related to this package now ... so i think this might also help
cat /proc/bus/input/devices

and also the output of

xinput -list --long

xorg.conf file

This may not be needed though but still..
xorg.conf file

and finally xorg.0.log file

Further no distinct events are recorded in the xev output file by using two fingers. Only Button Press and Button release of Button1 occurs. By pressing the two buttons of touchpad Button1(left click) and Button 3(right click) Button 2 is involked..

If any other information is needed please ask for it..

From these files I can see that you haven't enabled two finger scrolling. Are you running Lucid? Please uninstall gpointer-device-settings if you have it installed, run the gconftool-2 command above, restart the computer. Please also send me the output of the execution of the gconftool-2 command. Thanks.

@Jeff Epstein
For any purpose the output of gconftool-2 is

 simar@simar-laptop:~$ gconftool-2
Run 'gconftool-2 --help' to see a full list of available command line options.

@Everyone

Please mind that this is a confirmed bug that has created a lot of heat around. It follows that while the synaptics touchpad supports multitouch in windows OS. The kernel reports that the the touchpad does not support multitouch. Now the touchpad is multitouch or not is a question that is still being figured out. Surely this bug is not related to x-server-xorg-input-synaptics while it corresponds to linux kernel..

With the above reason in mind I'm changing the Affects package to Ubuntu Kernel..

@Gursimran

You are running the wrong command. The correct command is

gconftool-2 --set /desktop/gnome/peripherals/touchpad/scroll_method 2 --type int

Please try it again, reboot, and let me know the result. Also please
include the result of synclient -l

Other than that, this bug has a workaround that I am trying to help
you with. There is no need to edit the Affects package.

On 7/5/10, Gursimran singh Mohar <email address hidden> wrote:
> With the above reason in mind I'm changing the Affects package to Ubuntu
> Kernel..
>
> --
> two-finger scrolling doesn't work
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/462166
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in “xserver-xorg-input-synaptics” package in Ubuntu: Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> Binary package hint: gnome-control-center
>
> The gnome-mouse-properties dialog in Karmic has an option to enable
> "Two-finger scrolling" for touchpads. This option does not appear to work
> on my laptop (Dell XPS M1330).
>
> ProblemType: Bug
> Architecture: i386
> Date: Tue Oct 27 14:17:39 2009
> DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
> Package: gnome-control-center 1:2.28.1-0ubuntu1
> ProcEnviron:
> PATH=(custom, user)
> LANG=en_US.UTF-8
> SHELL=/bin/bash
> ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-14.48-generic
> SourcePackage: gnome-control-center
> Uname: Linux 2.6.31-14-generic i686
>
> To unsubscribe from this bug, go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-input-synaptics/+bug/462166/+subscribe
>

simar@simar-laptop:~$ gconftool-2 --set /desktop/gnome/peripherals/touchpad/scroll_method 2 --type int
simar@simar-laptop:~$

The command runs but still the the Two finger Scroll is not activated neither the two finger scroll works

This is the output of synclient -l >syncient.txt

Your workarounds are always welcome but still workarounds are not the solution of the bug. But still these workarounds may help in fixing them. Anyways Please continue the further discussion in the bug https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-input-synaptics/+bug/308191 . Also as per this bug I should change the package of this bug also ...

Refer https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/MarkingDuplicate

on why this has been marked a duplicate bug ...

I disagree that this is a duplicate.

This bug deals with two-finger scrolling, which is easy to fix with a workaround. The workaround works for me and many other people, on any synaptics touchpad.

Bug 308191 is different; it is related to support of multitouch, a particular hardware feature that is not present in all touchpads. That bug is essentially asking for support for additional hardware, which is much more complicated than just turning on two-finger scrolling support, which is already present in the driver.

"support for additional hardware, which is much more complicated than just turning on two-finger scrolling support, which is already present in the driver"

The support for multitouch is necessary(if not mandatory) to get the two finger scroll support. If the hardware supports multitouch then only it can detect two fingers and so features such as pinch zoom and two finger scrolling is supported. Though you could get workaround emulation to get the two finger scroll by a tricky solution but still the bug cannot be fixed with that as the setting is different for different touchpads.

Still you may provide your workaround to help Jeff

@Gursimran:

No, two-finger scrolling does not require multitouch. That is why there are two bugs: one for two-finger scroll, one for multitouch. If you'd like to get two-finger scrolling working without multitouch, you can try my fix. If you'd like to enable support for multitouch, you should see the other bug.

@ Jeff Epstein

Ok then that would be really great if you can provide me and Jason (the origional bug reporter) the solution by providing a workaround. After your workaround we will again reconsider wheather this bug is really a duplicate or not. But Jeff you must understand that with just workarounds you cannot have a bug fixed. The bug is fixed only when the normal operation is restored by default ie without doing anything. For this the developers must have a general solution that is applicable to everything .. We hope your workaround is universal then this bug which could be fixed by multitouch support could be looked from another prospective ...

But without the workaround this bug is surely a duplicate ...

have a nice day ...

We hope to have a workaround soon, you may start from the next comment onwards ...

Nearly all synaptics touchpad v7.2 face this problem.

on my lenovo ideapad s10-3 running ubuntu 10.10 two finger scrolling did not work, the option in gnome-mouse-properties is disabled (greyed out). i installed the package "gpointing-device-settings", which allowed me to activate two-finger scrolling. however after waking up from suspend (don't know about reboot right now) it forgot the settings and used the value defined in gnome-mouse-properties (probably because x is reinitialized and it rereads the gnome-mouse-properties).

however using gconf-editor or

gconftool-2 --set /desktop/gnome/peripherals/touchpad/scroll_method 2 --type int

i could actually set the value to two finger scrolling (scroll_method=2) and it keeps the setting after suspend. thus it seems to me that this is a gui bug, where the gnome-mouse-properties gui does not detect the capabilities of the touchpad correctly.

On Lenovo Ideapad U150, the touchpad supports two-finger vertical and horizontal scroll, after executing the following commands:
xinput set-int-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" "Synaptics Two-Finger Pressure" 32 10
xinput set-int-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" "Synaptics Two-Finger Width" 32 8
xinput set-int-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" "Two-Finger Scrolling" 8 1
xinput set-int-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" "Synaptics Two-Finger Scrolling" 8 1 1

As two-finger scroll works flawlessly using xinput to configure the touchpad it does not seem probable to me that the kernel is reporting the device as not supporting multitouch.

The problem seem to be the applications that are included in the distribution for configuring the pointing devices:
* In gnome-mouse-properties the Two-Finger-Scrolling option in Touchpad settings tab is greyed out, so the application cannot be used to activate two-finger scroll.
* In gpointing-device-settings, the one can activate the options, but with no effect; two-finger scroll does not work.

Thanks Ali Onur Uyar (comment #31) for the commands, they made two-finger scrolling work on my netbook :-) I have Asus Eee PC 1201 NL.

By the way, this bug is also present in System Settings in KDE (tested in version 4.5.1 on Kubuntu 10.10). When you go to it and choose Input devices -> Touchpad -> Scrolling, you can enable and disable two-fingers scrolling with a checkbox, but it has no effect.

Hi there,

You will happy to know that an experimental version of the 'multitouch protocol' based dkms package is released here in bug #308191 which is providing true multitouch support for people who have touchpads with true multitouch capabilities(like in some latest synaptics touchpad). So if that works for you unsubscribe here and continue there instead..

Jason Kraftcheck, this bug was reported a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue? If so, could you please test for this with the latest development release of Ubuntu? ISO images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/ .

If it remains an issue, could you please run the following command in the development release from a Terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal), as it will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report:

apport-collect -p xserver-xorg-input-synaptics REPLACE-WITH-BUG-NUMBER

Please note, given that the information from the prior release is already available, doing this on a release prior to the development one would not be helpful.

Thank you for your understanding.

Helpful bug reporting tips:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingBugs

[Expired for xserver-xorg-input-synaptics (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]