Comment 91 for bug 59867

I'm having this problem with Karmic on an old Toshiba Tecra. I started having a similar but less serious problem with Intrepid. Now when I resume from suspend, the touchpad often locks up completely - even the button's don't work. I found this in Xorg.0.log

(EE) PS/2 Mouse: Failed to reopen device after 10 attempts.
(II) config/hal: removing device PS/2 Mouse
(II) PS/2 Mouse: Close
(II) UnloadModule: "evdev"
(II) config/hal: removing device AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint
(II) UnloadModule: "synaptics"
(II) config/hal: Adding input device PS/2 Mouse
(**) PS/2 Mouse: always reports core events
(**) PS/2 Mouse: Device: "/dev/input/event7"
(EE) Unable to open evdev device "/dev/input/event7".
(II) UnloadModule: "evdev"
(EE) PreInit returned NULL for "PS/2 Mouse"
(EE) config/hal: NewInputDeviceRequest failed (8)
(II) config/hal: Adding input device AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint
(II) Synaptics touchpad driver version 1.1.2
(**) Option "Device" "/dev/input/event8"
(EE) xf86OpenSerial: Cannot open device /dev/input/event8
 No such file or directory.
(EE) Synaptics driver unable to open device
(EE) PreInit failed for input device "AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint"
(II) UnloadModule: "synaptics"
(EE) config/hal: NewInputDeviceRequest failed (8)

Solution that worked for me:
$ sudo rmmod psmouse
$ sudo modprbe psmouse

...and the touchpad springs back to life!