Settings of gpointing-device-settings are non-persistent

[hackel]

Binary package hint: gpointing-device-settings

It doesn't seem that my settings are being properly restored by gpointing-device-settings. Specifically, I have set the start point of circular scrolling to the middle-right square, however each time I log in it is reset to the middle square. Also, when I first start gpointing-device-settings, my SynPS/2 Synaptics Touchpad is set to off (even though it works). I can choose "Touchpad on" from the drop-down menu although this doesn't seem to be necessary. I'm still using 1.3.1 from Karmic.

[Marc MAURICE (dooblem)]

Hello !
Similar problem for me under Karmic :
I set the touchpad to "disabled", it works, but about 10 seconds after, the touchpad starts working again and it's marked "Touchpad off" thow it is working.

Marc

[Max Bowsher (maxb)]

In Lucid, it seems to remember the circular_scrolling on/off setting, but the circular_scrolling_trigger value is not getting written to gconf, so is lost between reboots.

I also confirm the reporter's secondary bug ("Also, when I first start gpointing-device-settings, my SynPS/2 Synaptics Touchpad is set to off (even though it works). I can choose "Touchpad on" from the drop-down menu although this doesn't seem to be necessary.") which ought to get its own bug number.

[Rob Candee (rob-candee)]

This does affect me, in that I have to re-enable vertical scrolling each time I plug a USB mouse in. Even though it shows as enabled in gpointing-device-settings, I have to go to the scrolling tab, uncheck (disable) the setting, and then check it (re-enable it) in order for vertical scrolling to be active again. Control of the cursor via the trackpad is not affected.

I am using Ubuntu 9.10 (64-bit) on a Gateway md7818u laptop. Synaptic shows I am using version 1.3.1-2 of gpointing-device-settings.

[lawenlerk (lawenlerk)]

im facing the same problem on karmic too.

[mahfiaz (mahfiaz)]

I affects lucid as well.

[Michal Čihař (nijel)]

This issue should be IMHO fixed in 1.5.1 which is available in Debian.

[webfux (mircofuchs)]

For me it is the same problem as Rob wrote. I always have to disable/re-enable vertical scrolling in order to get it work correctly.
However, I'm running Debian with gpointing-device-settings 1.5.1-1, so it not seems to be fixed.

[hackel (hackel)]

The committed fix does not solve the issue. I've just upgraded to Lucid, gpointing-device-settings 1.3.2-2, and the circular-scrolling trigger point is reset to the middle square each time I boot.

[hackel (hackel)]

I just compiled gpointing-device-settings 1.5.1 and this problem still exists.

[Tom Gelinas (tomgelinas)]

Has anyone used this on Debian with absolutely no issues?

My understanding is that gpointing-device-settings has a plugin for gnome settings daemon

Interesting settings can be found with gconf-editor at /apps/gnome/peripherals . The priority for loading plugins is found at /apps/gnome_settings_daemon/plugins/pointing-device and also in the keys of other plugins.

It seems that gpointing-device-settings stores settings in a way that conflicts with gnome's regular configuration, ie. it uses different keys to store the same settings, or it stores a setting in a way that affects many other gnome-native settings. gpointing-device settings stores settings in /desktop/gnome/peripherals/SynPS@47@2@32@Synaptics@32@TouchPad , while gnome stores them at /desktop/gnome/peripherals/touchpad . I suppose it becomes a little complicated with the trackpoint, since gnome probably sees it as just another mouse.

Maybe we should play with the priority of these gnome-settings-daemon plugins.

[Tom Gelinas (tomgelinas)]

Additionally, /apps/gnome_settings_daemon/keybindings has a list of keybinds (obv.) and XF86TouchpadToggle is only listed there, nowhere else in gconf. Before installing gpointing-device-settings, XF86TouchpadToggle would toggle the touchpad and display a notification using notify-osd. This broken after installing gpointing-device-settings, and I can't get it back after uninstallng it. I suppose this is a per-user issue, but I haven't found a configuration file in my home folder or gconf a key that would cause this.

Has gpointing-device-settings ever worked in perfect harmony with gnome, or has it always been a little wonky? The method it uses for storing in gconf seems a little weird, but I think these "priorities" settings at /apps/gnome_settings_daemon/plugins will allow us to find workarounds here. Please report back if you get something working!

[Tom Gelinas (tomgelinas)]

I'm using Debian's 1.5.1, but using gconf-editor to set /apps/gnome_settings_daemon/plugins/pointing-device/priority to 8 and /apps/gnome_settings_daemon/plugins/mouse to 9 has allowed gpointing-device-settings to have precedence over gnome's default mouse settings app. Settings are now persistent.

I still haven't gotten XF86TouchpadToggle to work, i've tried setting /apps/gnome_settings_daemon/plugins/keybindings to 7, tried disabling the gpointing-device-settings plugin, and tried uninstalling libgpds and gpointing-device-settings. Nothing worked. I'd really appreciate it if someone could explain how the XF86TouchpadToggle binding works by default in Ubuntu Lucid.

Hopefully this solution is reproducible!

[Tom Gelinas (tomgelinas)]

Unfortunately, this seems to randomly stop functioning. I haven't found a consistent reason for this yet.

[Tom Gelinas (tomgelinas)]

Sorry, I should clarify: when the touchpad is disabled in gpointing-device-settings, it re-activates. I don't know if some other input plugin is asserting itself here...

[Sebastian Geiger (lanoxx)]

It seems in lucid the settings get lost after a suspend/resume. But they work after a reboot. So everytime i wake up from a suspend i need to run gpointing-device-settings _twice_ and reset the scroll to button 2.

[jlgoolsbee (jlgoolsbee)]

I noted this in one of this bug's duplicates, so I'll repost it here:

Not sure what (if anything) I've done differently here, but just wanted to note that I'm running the 10.04 final release with kernel 2.6.32-22-generic and gpointing-device-settings 1.3.2-2 (as installed from the default sources), and my scroll settings are persistent through suspend/resume - and I'm not just imagining things; I suspended/resumed my T510 while I wrote this message, and then used the scroll wheel emulation to scroll this very page.

[Tom Gelinas (tomgelinas)]

jilgoosbee, are you able to use the XF86TouchpadToggle (FN+F8) when using gpoining-device-settings? Are you able to disable the trackpad in gpointing-device-settings and have the setting persist?

gpointing-device-settings and gnome-mouse-properties (Gnome's default mouse preferences app) have 2 different methods/gconf keys they use for disabling scrolling or the touchpad. gpointing-device-settings uses /desktop/gnome/peripherals/SynPS@47@2@32@Synaptics@32@TouchPad/off , which can be set as 0 for On with tapping and scrolling, 1 with tapping and scrolling disabled and 2 with the entire touchpad disabled. gpointing-device-settings also has separate keys for toggling vertical/horizontal scrolling and tapping. | gnome-mouse-properties uses /desktop/gnome/peripherals/touchpad/touchpad_enabled to disable the touchpad (which I assume is bound to XF86TouchpadToggle because there is no option to disable the touchpad in gnome-mouse-properties). It also has its own separate keys for toggling scrolling/tapping.

How can these conflicting settings be reconciled? Is this really what these "priorities" settings at /apps/gnome_settings_daemon/plugins are meant to do? If so, it seems it only happens at load-time, but gnome-mouse-properties tries to reassert control over these functions at certain times.

[Tom Gelinas (tomgelinas)]

Also, you say your scroll settings are persistent. I bet this is because you haven't set anything in gpointing-device-settings that conflicts with gnome-mouse-properties, ie. you haven't disabled horizontal scrolling in gpointing, but enabled it in gnome, or something similar.

[Kelly was here (kellywashere)]

I had similar problems, where gpointing-device-settings did not seem to stick. I figured out that in my case the problem was that I set "disable touchpad when typing" in the default gnome mouse setup tool (Ubuntu 10.04: System->Preferences->Mouse under the touchpad tab). I guess the problem is that after typing, the touchpad is turned "back" on, even when disabled in gpointing-device-settings.
Hope this helps...

[Tom Gelinas (tomgelinas)]

Yes that definitely works, un-setting "disable touchpad when typing" allows gpointing-device-settings to consistently disable the touchpad. Thanks! This was actually listed on the gpointing-device-settings mailing list at some point, too.

I've make bug report 577250 for the issue with gpointing breaking XF86TouchpadToggle (keyboard button for toggling touchpad).

[Stan Schymanski (schymans)]

I have a very similar configuration to jlgoolsbe and yet the gpointing-device-settings settings are not persistent on my Dell Studio. TwoFingerScroll is greyed out in the gnome settings, but I can activate it in gpointing-device-settings and then it works. However, after every suspend/hibernate/restart, I have to untick and re-tick this option in gpointing-device-settings to make it work again.

[knut (mr-knut)]

I use the wheel emulation with the trackpoint on my Dell E6400 +Lucid configuration. It works fine after reboot or wake up from hibernation. BUT after resuming from suspend (to RAM) it is somehow disabled and also it is not possible to set up the wheel emulation again with gpointing-device-settings.

[Michael Brower (brower6)]

I can confirm, I am also using a dell e6400 (alps touchpad/pointing stick). after suspending to RAM, the wheel emulation is reset. Rebooting or hibernating also resets the start point for circular scrolling to the center, though i set it to the 3 o'clock position each time i reboot. all other settings appear to be persistent.

[Sebastian Geiger (lanoxx)]

I just cloned and installed the latest version of gpointing-device-settings v1.5.1 from the gnome git repository. However it did not change any thing in regard to the suspend/resume problem, when i suspend and resume, scroll is still broken for my thinkpad trackpoint.

However it seems this bug is upstream related:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=518502
particullarly: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=518502#c9
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=598820

You can try gds 1.5.1 you going trough the following steps, also it wont be of much use:
git clone git://git.gnome.org/gpointing-device-settings
cd gpointing-device-settings
./autogen.sh
./configure
./make
./sudo make install

[fechter (1234-hainzclass)]

I can confirm that the wheel emulation is lost on a Thinkpad T400 after suspend to ram (standby), but will be restored after a reboot. Version 1.5.1-2 (Ubuntu maveric meercat beta 1).

[anis (anis)]

Same problem on a T60 (version 1.5.1-2, mav meer beta).

[lagwagon667 (david-rummel-deactivatedaccount)]

I also can confirm that wheel emulation is lost on a ThinkPad R500 and a SL500 between a suspend to RAM and wakeup. After a reboot wheel emulation is restored again.

[faBIUz (fabiuz84)]

I would like to disable the touchpad when I connect the external mouse but despite this option, if I select the touchpad is not disabled and if I close and reopen gpointing-device-setting the settings are not stored. My os is ubuntu x86-64 10:10 updated daily.

[faBIUz (fabiuz84)]

I tried the workaround of changing the priority in gconf-editor without success, I also tried running as root, the application still get a failure.

[Tommi Mikkola (tommi-mikkola)]

Regarding the duplicate #508754 I managed to get the scroll wheel emulation working with Maverick final on Thinkpad T61p over suspend/resume cycle by creating a file /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-thinkpad.conf with the following content.

Section "InputClass"
    Identifier "Trackpoint Wheel Emulation"
    MatchProduct "TrackPoint"
    MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
    Driver "evdev"
    Option "EmulateWheel" "true"
    Option "EmulateWheelButton" "2"
    Option "Emulate3Buttons" "false"
    Option "XAxisMapping" "6 7"
    Option "YAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Restart of X-server is required for the changes to take effect. The workaround is based on the one found at http://psung.blogspot.com/2010/04/thinkpad-trackpoint-scrolling-in-ubuntu.html with a slight change to the location of the file (/usr/share instead of /usr/lib).

I hope someone finds this useful, while waiting for the final fix.

[majesty (majesty-nashemisto)]

I also have a similar problem, since upgrading to 10.10 in gpointing-device-settings not save sensitivity (pressure) setting for synaptics touchpad (dell inspiron 1501). Now when i touch device, cursor begin jumping around because is more sensitive. I can show cursor tickness from my heart pulse! Fix it, please. Thanks.

[Michael Brower (brower6)]

Has anyone tried Tommi Mikola's workaround on a Dell e6400 or other ALPS touchstick device? Tommi, has your workaround continued to work?

[Tommi Mikkola (tommi-mikkola)]

@Michael, the workaround described in #30 has been working more or less without problems. There's been few occasional cases, in which the pointer has frozen after resuming from suspend, but this has been fixed by doing another suspend/resume cycle.

[Sheridan Hutchinson (sheridan-shezza)]

I can confirm that in 10.10 that suspending and resuming is enough for this package to forget to continue disabling my trackpad.

[Michael Brower (brower6)]

Dell E6400 Users: tried to implement the workaround stated by Tommi, but with no effect.

However, creating a fdi file in /etc/hal/fdi/policy/mouse-wheel.fdi that looks like this has proven consistent over several suspend/resume/restart cycles:

<match key="info.product" string="DualPoint Stick">
 <merge key="input.x11_options.EmulateWheel" type="string">true</merge>
 <merge key="input.x11_options.EmulateWheelButton" type="string">2</merge>
 <merge key="input.x11_options.ZAxsisMapping" type="string">4 5</merge>
 <merge key="input.x11_options.Emulate3Buttons" type="string">true</merge>
</match>

You may have to alter the “info.product” key for your system to make it work. After restarting hal and the xserver, that gave me my middle button scroll back and I’m a happy (and productive) man again. Thanks to Michael Volgt for the workaround

[James M. Roche (paedomorphosis)]

Same issue in Maverick 64-bit on a HP Pavilion dv7000-series laptop.

Gpointing-device-settings works just fine, but all settings return to their original default values after reboot--touchpad is enabled, even if I disabled it before restarting, circular scrolling is disabled, etc.

[Martin Spacek (mspacek)]

I was having what seems to be this problem on my Thinkpad W510 in 64-bit Maverick. Seems anything I set in gpointing would be lost on suspend/resume, including trackpoint scrolling, two-finger touchpad scrolling (care of the new synaptics-dkms multitouch package from the utouch PPA), and the "faster tapping" option. Sometimes the trackpoint icon would show up twice in gpointing, sometimes not at all. Sometimes the touchpad icon wouldn't show up. Sometimes resetting my desired settings in gpointing would work, sometimes not. Often, I'd have to reboot.

I think I've solved my problem. I disabled the mouse gnome settings daemon in gconf-editor. In "apps/gnome_settings_daemon/plugins/mouse/" I cleared "active". Now all the gpointing settings (at least the ones that I use) stick, even after suspend/resume. I tried this after reading comments in bug # 308191 and bug # 463735.

Note that I don't have much of anything in my xorg.conf.d directory, and I don't seem to have any HAL fdi files hanging around. So it seems that gpointing-device-settings is now solely in control of my trackpoint and synaptics touchpad settings, and gnome itself is no longer getting in the way. I haven't tried running the normal gnome-mouse-properties app since, and I don't really want to try it. Feeling superstitious...

In my estimation, this isn't really a bug in gpointing-device-settings, but rather in gnome itself. Or perhaps gpointing should automatically disable the mouse gnome settings daemon on install. Am I way off base? Can someone confirm?

[Thijs van Dijk (ametheus-deactivatedaccount)]

Martin's fix does not work for my Satellite L555 Ub10.10 64bit.
After setting /apps/gnome_settings_daemon/plugins/mouse/active to false, the problem persists.

If I set /apps/gnome_settings_daemon/plugins/pointing-device/active to false as well, not only are the settings are not persistent after logout/login, but changing them in gpointing-device-settings has no effect. (I suppose this last bit was to be expected.)

[harpreet bhatia (bluepicaso)]

No its not fixed. I have an issue with touch pad sense. I always choose it to be more lighter. but it resets on each login

[Martin Spacek (mspacek)]

I think the problem I was writing about was a suspend/resume problem. The gconf change fixed that for me. It seems some of us here are talking about a logout/login problem. The two might be different.

I've now noticed that after login, my touchpad speed setting is way faster than it should be. The speed sliders in gpointing-device-settings are in their normal positions, but I have to tweak any one of them slightly to make them actually apply. This slows my mouse down to the level I want.

I think this might also point to yet another bug: it seems that while the very first tweak to the touchpad speed after logout/login does indeed affect the speed (by simply resetting it to what it was set to last time), any other changes to the speed sliders does nothing. I'm not sure, but perhaps such changes might not apply until after the next logout/login. Strange.

[Mats Ahlgren (mats-ahlgren)]

This has been happening since Karmic, and affects at least up to Lucid.

This issue *also* occurs with gsynaptics. A manually-configured /etc/X11/xorg.conf also suffers from this bug.

[Piers Titus van der Torren (ptt)]

I have added two patches to https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gpointing-device-settings/+bug/697415 which seems to be a duplicate - or actually a part - of this bug. These solve circular scrolling starting point, scrolling speed, and direction of scrolling speed (slow - fast reversed).

[Patrick (ccz)]

=> same problem here on ubuntu 11.10 / Gnome Shell : when the screen turn in energy save mode, middle button of mouse is not emulated anymore....

[Someone (temp4746)]

Also happens in Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric in Unity 3D/2D once you restart or sleep, the settings from gpointing-device-settings are forgotten.

[Peter Gaultney (petergaultney)]

The current incarnation of this bug is definitely a suspend/resume problem where the setting for middle mouse button emulation is forgotten (the checkbox is still checked, but the emulation doesn't work unless it is unchecked, rechecked, and the settings are saved).

[RiverDude (asdfgh321-deactivatedaccount)]

Me to, in Xubuntu 11.10 Oneiric the settings of gpointing-device-settings will be forgotten with restart (or standby).

A little workaround, which works fine here, is to add the configuration to "/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-synaptics.conf".
Inside 'Section "InputClass"', you can make vital configurations like activate "PalmDetect" or "SHMConfig". They'll after restart (or standby).

It seems, that the file can vary in "20-thinkpad.conf" (post above) or "50-synaptics.conf" (most hardware), depends on your hardware.

[turbolad (turbolad995)]

This bug also affects Lubuntu. I have Lubuntu 11.10 installed on the netbook, but I can't get the settings to "stick" for turning off "tap to click" and "edge scrolling".

[AlexWinner (scukonick)]

Same problem at Ubuntu 11.10. Acer Aspire 5740 if it does matter.

[Bolik (bbolik)]

same problem =(
Thinkpad edge 11.

[Sancho (sashb)]

Xubuntu 11.10
Macbook Pro 4,1

[Simon Hirscher (codethief)]

I can confirm the issue on a ThinkPad W510 with Ubuntu 11.10. Please – this is annoying as hell and renders the gpointing-device-settings completely useless.

[Tom Gelinas (tomgelinas)]

On 12-01-05 07:21 PM, Simon Hirscher wrote:
> I can confirm the issue on a ThinkPad W510 with Ubuntu 11.10. Please –
> this is annoying as hell and renders the gpointing-device-settings
> completely useless.
>
Under Ubuntu 11.10, I don't think gpointing-device-settings is necessary
for simple TrackPoint style middle-click+downward-motion scrolling. It
works fine on my end by default.

[Fionn (fbe)]

On Fri, 06.01.2012, 07:46 +0000 Tom Gelinas wrote :

> > I can confirm the issue on a ThinkPad W510 with Ubuntu 11.10. Please
> –
> > this is annoying as hell and renders the gpointing-device-settings
> > completely useless.
> >
> Under Ubuntu 11.10, I don't think gpointing-device-settings is
> necessary for simple TrackPoint style middle-click+downward-motion
> scrolling. It works fine on my end by default.

So, you basically write here "not using the faulty software doesn't
cause problems on my end". That, of course, will always be true and is -
sorry to have to say this - an utterly useless statement.

You need GDS if you're NOT satisfied with the xorg defaults. If you
happen to have an application that makes you need to change Wheel
Emulation to Button3 instead of Button2 then you either need extensive
xorg knowledge and a text editor or gpointing-device-settings to make
the change happen. After having changed the setting with
gpointing-device-settings this setting will be reset to the Button2
default on every suspend or reboot.

So the choice is to either fix gpointing-device-settings to be a tool
that actually works up to its promises or remove it from ubuntu
entirely, because, as it is, it wont work fine on ANY end.
Since removing usability from gnome/ubuntu seems to be the way to go
these days, I suspect the latter will happen.

kind regards,
              Fionn

[Simon Hirscher (codethief)]

I agree with Fionn. It would be a huge disappointment to see
gpointing-device-settings being either removed from Ubuntu or just not
getting fixed.
Am 06.01.2012 10:50 schrieb "Fionn" <email address hidden>:

[Tom Gelinas (tomgelinas)]

On 12-01-06 04:50 AM, Fionn wrote:
> So, you basically write here "not using the faulty software doesn't
> cause problems on my end". That, of course, will always be true and is
> - sorry to have to say this - an utterly useless statement. kind
> regards, Fionn
Most people only needed it for TrackPoint scrolling. Those who have had
gpds installed over several versions of Ubuntu for only this purpose
should try uninstalling it, and enjoy their working mouse2+down
scrolling by default. I assume this is set by
/usr/share/X11/xorg/conf.d/11-evdev-trackpoint.conf , assumed it could
have been a udev rule.

Hiroyuki Ikezoe is probably busy, if you're this impassioned you should
go upstream to gnome git. This isn't a binary module, fix it yourself,
pay someone or politely ask a capable person to help. Don't whine in an
echo chamber.

[Martin Spacek (mspacek)]

Sure, I use gpds to enable scrolling with the trackpoint, but I also use it to set the touchpad speed. It's waaay too fast by default on natty (and I think lucid and maverick too) on my Thinkpad W510, and I've noticed the same on an X120e. What's more, the sliders aren't scaled properly it seems. I have to tweak the "minimum speed" slider one pixel at a time near the very bottom end of its range to get it right. The "maximum speed" and "acceleration" sliders don't seem to do anything. And then, every time I reboot, I have to do it again. Not a killer, since I usually suspend/resume, but definitely a paper cut, and a very obvious one on what is fairly common hardware.

[Alex Burdu (alex.burdu)]

yes, the settings not restoring after resume from suspend is pretty annoying. i have the same problem. to work around it i just created a script that configures all those settings and dragged it's shortcut into the unity bar so i click on it everytime i want them restored... it's a silly workaround but i got used to it... been using this for over a year. here's my script:

[code]
#!/bin/sh
sleep 1
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
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-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" --type=int "Synaptics Circular Scrolling" 1
xinput set-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" --type=int "Synaptics Circular Scrolling Trigger" 3
xinput --set-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" "Device Accel Constant Deceleration" 2 #this line sets the touchpad deceleration
#for my mouse
xinput --set-prop --type=float "HP Wireless Optical Mobile Mouse" "Device Accel Constant Deceleration" 1.3 #this line reduces my mouse acceleration because otherwise it just flies on the screen

[/code]

of course, your may have to change de device name according to yours. just check it with:
# xinput list

[Fionn (fbe)]

Am Samstag, den 07.01.2012, 01:13 +0000 schrieb Tom Gelinas:

> Hiroyuki Ikezoe is probably busy, if you're this impassioned you
> should go upstream to gnome git. This isn't a binary module, fix it
> yourself, pay someone or politely ask a capable person to help. Don't
> whine in an echo chamber.

Telling people who report bugs to "go fix it yourself" instead of
honouring their effort by at least taking them seriously is the most
efficient way to drive them away from reporting anything at all.

If that is what you want, go ahead and continue doing so.

kind regards,
             Fionn

[Ridgeland (rambutan1)]

Thank you Alex Burfee (joop-wow)
I've had this bug since gnome3/unity 11.04. In 12.04 beta 1 there is a new version of gpointing-device-settings 1.5.1-6 and the bug is still there.
Thanks to Alex I have a fix - I posted it in ubuntuforums:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1941067
basically just xinput edits in a script with a little more how to automate it.

[Alex Burdu (alex.burdu)]

You're welcome Ridgeland.
It does work by putting it into start-up applications if you shut down your computer normaly, but if you close your computer by using suspend (like I do) it does not load start-up applications again, so we're back to rerunning the script :)

[Piers Titus van der Torren (ptt)]

Half a year ago I submitted some patches for this bug in another bug report: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gpointing-device-settings/+bug/697415
Probably that wasn't the right place, since nothing happened with it. So here it is again, can someone with package maintenance rights apply those patches?

attached is a patch which corrects the following:
* circular scrolling start point saved in gconf, was not saved at all
* scrolling speed saved as int, was saved as bool

Reading properties worked correctly, so adding on or more of the following in gconf in /desktop/gnome/peripherals/SynPS... works as a temporary fix:
circular_scrolling_trigger = 3
vertical_scrolling_distance = 255
horizontal_scrolling_distance = 255

This is a copy of a comment on http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=615092

[Piers Titus van der Torren (ptt)]

and another patch for a related (but small) issue:
Another small bug is that the sliders for scrolling speed (vertical and horizontal) are the wrong way around, here is a small patch to fix that.

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

The attachment "savesettings.diff" of this bug report has been identified as being a patch. The ubuntu-reviewers team has been subscribed to the bug report so that they can review the patch. In the event that this is in fact not a patch you can resolve this situation by removing the tag 'patch' from the bug report and editing the attachment so that it is not flagged as a patch. Additionally, if you are member of the ubuntu-reviewers team please also unsubscribe the team from this bug report.

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[tekstr1der (tekstr1der)]

This bug is still affecting the soon-to-be-released 12.40 Precise Pangolin.

I use a Lenovo X201s and have both trackpoint and touchpad. I use g-p-d-s to disable the touchpad.

Since this option isn't available in the default Mouse and Touchpad system settings, is there any other gui workaround or must I modify xinput settings manually to get this otherwise basic and expected functionality?

[Henry Gomersall (hgomersall)]

This has suddenly stopped on my system. I've no idea what changed it, but multiple reboots and it's still retaining the settings. Is this common to other people?

[Douglas Moyes (aragorn-stellimare)]

This is still an issue with 12.04.1. I'm suprised it's been over 3 years now and there's no fix. I've never needed this feature before till I needed to configure a system to use a trackball instead of a mouse to enable the middle mouse button emmulation.

The new Ubuntu system config menu doesn't even give an option to configure a pointing device. Almost all systems had an option to swap left/right mouse buttons--even MS-DOS mouse drivers, Unbuntu has become one of the few OS's to NOT have this ability.

Most new people aren't familair with creating and editing an xorg config file, nor using xinput to work around these issues. They'd just see a broken OS, so this is a pretty important bug IMO.

[Gameover (a20365354-z)]

A fix without using gpointing-device-settings:
First, type "xinput" in terminal. It will list your input devices. You should see something like this:
⎡ Virtual core pointer id=2 [master pointer (3)]
⎜ ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer id=4 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ Genius Optical Mouse id=8 [slave pointer (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard id=3 [master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard id=5 [slave keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button id=6 [slave keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button id=7 [slave keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard id=9 [slave keyboard (3)]
In my case, Genius Optical Mouse is my mouse, its id is 8.
Then, type "xinput list-props <your mouse device id> | grep "Evdev Middle Button". You will get something like this:
 Evdev Middle Button Emulation (259): 0
 Evdev Middle Button Timeout (260): 50
The id in my case, the id of "Evdev Middle Button Emulation" is 256
Then, type "xinput set-int-prop <your mouse device id> <id of Evdev Middle Button Emulation> 8 1"
In my case, I should type "xinput set-int-prop 8 259 8 1"
BONUS: you can set the timeout with "xinput set-int-prop <your mouse device id> <id of Evdev Middle Button Timeout> 32 <timeout>"

If it works, then add "xinput set-int-prop <your mouse device id> <id of Evdev Middle Button Emulation> 8 1" to your session startup application. Please refer to https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AddingProgramToSessionStartup

Hope this helps. :)

[Alexander Adam (7ql6)]

I just made a fresh install of 12.04 from the alternate installer and the issue is still present.
Piers van der Torren do you have a prebuild .deb where we could download your fixed version?

PS: The "fixes" from #59 and #67 aren't fixes but workarounds. That's a huge difference

[Sheridan Hutchinson (sheridan-shezza)]

Is there any movement on getting a fix for this?

[Aleve Sicofante (sicofante)]

gpointing-device-settings seems stalled at version 1.5.1 from february 2010 (that's the date of the latest source downloadable from Gnome's project). Three years without updates seems like a dead project to me.

There's probably a need to create a new pointing device settings app, pick that project up from where it stalled, fork it or something.

I'm surprised the Ayatana project is not involved here. Many people might just leave Ubuntu because there's no way to make their touchpads work. If that's not a usability problem, I don't know what is.

Pretty much a showstopper bug.

[Joschi Poschi (joschiposchi)]

Very annoying bug. I even tried to have the values set in gconftool-2 by a startup script. But they only get active when I change the settings in gpointing-device-setting Gui itself.

[Jack Senechal (jacksenechal)]

Workaround for this issue from question at http://askubuntu.com/questions/64334/gpointing-device-settings-lost-on-reboot:

In dconf-editor you can edit the settings like this:

Go to org/gnome/settings-daemon/peripherals/touchpad There you can select e.g. two finger scrolling instead of boarder scrolling, disable while typing, tap-to click and all the other nice usability-enhancing features.

[karlsebal (karlsebal)]

dconf-editor does not allow to change settings like circular scrolling or locked dragging. But you can create a custom configuration in /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf (german description here: http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/Touchpad)

[Tom Gelinas (tomgelinas)]

Zwylicht, thanks for the information, I will definitely use that for fine-tuning.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Quirks
X.Org settings are easily set with "Quirks", which can be distributed with Ubuntu. Simply submit a patch and explain the reason. For examples, please see the files @ /usr/share/ubuntu-drivers-common/quirks/ .

Touchpads definitely need some extra configuration in the Linux environment, we need to properly document these "quirks".

[mc0e (xgcsufw02)]

It's not nice to have to run dconf-editor that every time you start your Xsession. Here's a scriptable way to store and recover your settings that you can wire into a startup script.

Store your current settings:

    synclient -l | sed '1d;s/ //g' > ~/.synpadSettings

Recover them:

    cat ~/.synpadSettings | xargs synclient

[oriolpont (oriolpont)]

mc0e, as previously mentioned, a somewhat more canonical workaround is using g-s-d's hotplug-command script (see the hotplug-input-device.sh attachment to this bug). This has the advantage that it works not only at startup but also after suspend/resume and if the device is hotplugged.

[Andreas Moog (ampelbein)]

This package has been removed from the Ubuntu development release, so I am closing all remaining open bug reports.

Sorry that we couldn't fix your problem properly, but gpointing-device-settings is dead upstream, buggy and completely unmaintained.

For more information, see https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=870961

Thank you for your understanding and please continue to report any bugs you may find.