Mouse pointer won't move with two fingers on trackpad

[nixer]

Hello,

The mouse pointer does not move when I have two fingers on the touchpad. I am using a "mac-like" touchpad, produced by dell. The model is the Dell Inspiron 15 7000.

The way I usually use my touchpad is that I use my middle finger on my right hand to move the pointer, and the middle finger on my left hand to activate the left and right click buttons. I also have taken advantage of the AreaBottomEdge parameter as shown below.

What happens is that I usually have my middle finger or thumb on my left hand resting on the left click button. Since this new laptop though, I seem not to be able to do this.

If I have a finger (either thumb or middle finger) resting on the left click button, and then go to use my middle finger on my right hand to move the pointer, it will not move.

What I have to do, for example when trying to do a drag and drop operation, is make sure to have no fingers resting on the touchpad before attempting to move the pointer. I must then use my left hand to press down on the left click button, and then only at that point can I use my right hand to manipulate the position of the pointer.

What I would think the intended functionality should be is that any and all finger motion outside of the active touch area should be completely dis-regarded, with the exception of physical click events (no taps). This would almost certainly alleviate the issue at hand.

What additional information can I provide to make this easier to debug and solve? See my included stats below:

lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
Release: 14.04

uname -r
3.13.0-24-generic

dpkg -l | grep synaptics
ii xserver-xorg-input-synaptics 1.7.4-0ubuntu1 amd64

cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-synaptics.conf
# Example xorg.conf.d snippet that assigns the touchpad driver
# to all touchpads. See xorg.conf.d(5) for more information on
# InputClass.
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE, your distribution will likely overwrite
# it when updating. Copy (and rename) this file into
# /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d first.
# Additional options may be added in the form of
# Option "OptionName" "value"
#

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "touchpad catchall"
        Driver "synaptics"
        MatchIsTouchpad "on"

 #Option "AreaBottomEdge" "3750"
 # Palm detection
 Option "PalmDetect" "on"
 Option "PalmMinWidth" "5"
 Option "PalmMinZ" "20"
 #Option "IgnorePalm" "true"
 Option "FingerLow" "30"
 Option "FingerHigh" "40"
 # Dragging & tapping
 #Option "LockedDrags" "on"
 #Option "FastTaps" "on"
 #Option "AccelFactor" "0.1028806" #2x
 #Option "MinSpeed" "1"
 #Option "MaxSpeed" "1.75"
# This option is recommend on all Linux systems using evdev, but cannot be
# enabled by default. See the following link for details:
# http://who-t.blogspot.com/2010/11/how-to-ignore-configuration-errors.html
 MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
EndSection

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "touchpad ignore duplicates"
        MatchIsTouchpad "on"
        MatchOS "Linux"
        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/mouse*"
        Option "Ignore" "on"
EndSection

# This option enables the bottom right corner to be a right button on
# non-synaptics clickpads.
# This option is only interpreted by clickpads.
Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "Default clickpad buttons"
        MatchDriver "synaptics"
        Option "SoftButtonAreas" "50% 0 82% 0 0 0 0 0"
# To disable the bottom edge area so the buttons only work as buttons,
# not for movement, set the AreaBottomEdge
 Option "AreaBottomEdge" "75%"
EndSection

# This option disables software buttons on Apple touchpads.
# This option is only interpreted by clickpads.
Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "Disable clickpad buttons on Apple touchpads"
        MatchProduct "Apple|bcm5974"
        MatchDriver "synaptics"
        Option "SoftButtonAreas" "0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0"
EndSection

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.