Bug 302242 – synaptics - newer kernels cause touchpad's buttons malfunction on Dell Latitude D600

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED NEEDINFO

[Description Kuba 2010-01-26 00:01:59 UTC]

The main problem is (in my opinion) from some version of kernel my Touchpad buttons on my Dell Latitude D600 stopped to work properly. They do not respond to clicks exactly the way I want them to do. Touchpad tap-clicks works perfectly. Moving pointer with touhpad or stickpoint (including scrolls and other stuff) works perfectly. The problem is in buttons. After pressing (for example) left button several times (standard usage) it accidently freezes on screen in 'pressedOn' state. Buttons stops to work for random time of another clicks.

Examples:
1. When dragging vertical scrollbar in any application it freezes. I release button but it doesn't do that in system. So scrollbar is behaving still as pushed and moving around with pointer.
2. When moving windows - click and hold on title bar, moving it - works good. Problem is when i want to release button and leave window in the place - that doesn't work. Pointer still behaves as the left click button was hold.
3. When want to simple click on the shortcut at gnome's bar - it doesn't release click and executes application but behaves as "move shortcut icon" - with frozen buttons its especially anoying because when it finally release you have one more free shortcut somewhere at desktop (or, whats worse, runs apps function for shortcut drag'n'drop)

Dell D600 got two pairs of buttons - they act the same.

The main clue is that - in elder linuxes - everything works fine. Now I have installed Ubuntu 9.04 (temporary solution) - it works fine with those main packages versions:
Kernel: 2.6.28-17-generic
Xorg: 1.7.4~5ubuntu18
Hal: 0.5.12~rc1+git20090403-0ubuntu4
DBus: 1.2.12-0ubuntu2.1
xserver-xorg-input-synaptics: 0.99.3.-2ubuntu4

On that configuration it all works perfectly.

Problem starts on newer version of linux. I write linux instead of gentoo because I tried also newest ubuntu and newest sabayon and problem is exactly the same (in sabayon buttons work even in graphical installer). Even when i did clean installation of jaunty ubuntu (9.04), and then update it to karmic (9.10 - from update manager) - it broke buttons.
Ubuntu Jaunty was the last of linuxes I tried, where touchpad buttons worked great (and of course they worked in all other older distros - for example Debian Lenny which I had installed just after its release, older fedora or openSUSE).

In my opinion synaptics driver is not responsible for that bug - I tried to completely remove it with all libs and confs (fdi and device section in xorg.conf) - after restart touchpad worked without features as scroll or tap but buttons still acted the same.

My laptop is that one:
http://www.gentoo-wiki.info/Dell_Latitude_D600_/_D800
(one difference is that I had ipw2100 wifi card instead of ipw2200 - they made mistake, ipw2200 is in D800, and graphics works good with radeon and fglrx drivers)

Experimentally tried also using /dev/psaux as device for touchpad - no difference.
I can happily share all other information that you'll ask if you only can help me solve that mystery

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install newer version of linux (sometimes even loaded graphical installer is just enough to see buttons malfuncion - for ex. Sabayon 5.1)
2.
3.

Actual Results:  
Touchpad buttons (Dell Latitude) do not react properly to "Button released" event - they freeze and block

Expected Results:  
Buttons should work as user expected them to do

I do not really know where to post my bug report, as it is generally newer linux issue, than just gentoo (but I want to use it without any problems, so maybe here I would find support)

[Comment 1 Jeroen Roovers (RETIRED) 2010-02-22 18:58:59 UTC]

Please attach your kernel config and dmesg output from after one of these errors has occurred.

[Comment 2 Mike Pagano 2010-04-08 23:26:42 UTC]

Please provide the requested info if you would like us to debug further