[147e:2016] UPEK TouchStrip fingerprint reader not supported

[Ugo Riboni]

I'm using Ubuntu Gutsy, final release, with most updated packages available to date of this report.
The hardware is a Lenovo IMB Thinkpad R61 (model code 8918-5WG), acquired around mid october 2007.

Kernel is Linux 2.6.22-14-generic #1 SMP Sun Oct 14 23:05:12 GMT 2007 i686 GNU/Linux

The laptop has a fingerprint reader that ubuntu completely fails to recognize, even by installing the thinkfinger package that is used by many previous Thinkpad models.

According to lsusb the reader is an internal USB device with USB ID 147e:2016 (manufacturer: TouchStrip , product: Fingerprint Sensor).
According to the Windows Thinkpad diagnostics tool it's a "TouchChip Fingerprint Coprocessor"

I will attach to the bug the full lsusb report and the windows diagnostics tool report. Please let me know about any further information you need and I will gladly provide it.

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

Hi Ugo,

Thanks for your report. Can you also _attach_ the output of dmesg? Thanks.

[Ugo Riboni (uriboni)]

Of course. Here's the dmesg, some minutes after end of a reboot.

By the way, further investigation seems to lead to the fact that the device is made by UPEK.

See this page for more information:
http://reactivated.net/fprint/wiki/Unsupported_devices#UPEK_TouchStrip_device_variant

And this page for a capture in windows of the USB communication with the device:
http://www.reactivated.net/fprint/bugs/task/9

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

Hi Ugo,

Thank you for the information. It's unfortuante that your hardware does not seem to be supported the the upekts driver. Also I don't see that this driver is in the mainline kernel either. This is something that we strongly encourage to have happen. As you can see, I've tagged this report as 'hardy-kernel-candidate' so that we carry this report forward to the upcoming Hardy Heron release. However, against the linux-source-2.6.22 package this report is being marked as 'Won't Fix' as is does not meet the criteria for a stable release update. You can learn more about the stable release update process at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates . Please keep us posted on any further updates you may come across. Thanks!

[Wouter Stomp (wouterstomp-deactivatedaccount)]

Libfprint might support the fingerprint reader. It supports the T61 fingerprint reader that is probably the same. There is a packaging bug here: bug 179923

[Ugo Riboni (uriboni)]

As far as I know it doesn't support the reader in the R61 I have here.
At least it didn't last time I checked a few months ago and in the mailing list I see no news about it.

The work so far is blocked by the fact that by reverse engineering the USB traffic on Windows, we know how to get the reader to acquire an image. But so far no one has been able to understand what is the format of that image.

So effectively, libfprint for now is not a solution (at least as far as I know, maybe please double check just to be sure).

Regarding the sensor being the same as the T61, that may be true for some early models of R61, but at some point Lenovo started fitting the R61s with readers from another brand (UPEK) which are not Linux friendly (and they did the same with the touchpad+trackpoint).

It's really disappointing when manufacturers change the specs of a product without changing its name, and it's definitely something I wouldn't have expected by the Thinkpad brand.

[Mackenzie Morgan (maco.m)]

This bug affects more than just ThinkPad R61's. Asus Z37E / ZaReason UltraLapSR also use this fingerprint reader. Not supported in Hardy either.

[Mackenzie Morgan (maco.m)]

Sony Vaios and some System76 also use this hardware.

[Mackenzie Morgan (maco.m)]

Upstream bug because Launchpad doesn't support FlySpray: http://projects.reactivated.net/fprint/bugs/index.php?do=details&task_id=9

[stefanlew (stefan-lew)]

The latest development version of fprint supports the 147e:2016 sensor.
Here's an installation guide:
http://knowledge76.com/index.php/Fingerprint_Reader_Installation

[Michael Doube (michael-doube)]

Just tried those instructions and I can see a scan of my finger. Haven't got a working fingerprint enrolled yet, but this is a huge improvement, thanks.

This is on a Sony Vaio SZ650N/C

lsusb:
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 147e:2016

[Mackenzie Morgan (maco.m)]

Any chance the updated libusb and libfprint can make it into Intrepid?

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

The Ubuntu Kernel Team is planning to move to the 2.6.27 kernel for the upcoming Intrepid Ibex 8.10 release. As a result, the kernel team would appreciate it if you could please test this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. There are one of two ways you should be able to test:

1) If you are comfortable installing packages on your own, the linux-image-2.6.27-* package is currently available for you to install and test.

--or--

2) The upcoming Alpha5 for Intrepid Ibex 8.10 will contain this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. Alpha5 is set to be released Thursday Sept 4. Please watch http://www.ubuntu.com/testing for Alpha5 to be announced. You should then be able to test via a LiveCD.

Please let us know immediately if this newer 2.6.27 kernel resolves the bug reported here or if the issue remains. More importantly, please open a new bug report for each new bug/regression introduced by the 2.6.27 kernel and tag the bug report with 'linux-2.6.27'. Also, please specifically note if the issue does or does not appear in the 2.6.26 kernel. Thanks again, we really appreicate your help and feedback.

[Mackenzie Morgan (maco.m)]

Since the driver required is not in the mainline kernel and the driver/libfprint require a much newer version of libusb (v 0.9 or 1.0beta) than what is in Intrepid (v 0.1), I would be extremely surprised if 2.6.27 fixed this.

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

Hi McKenzie,

Yup, thanks for the feedback. We're actually hitting all open kernel bugs with that call for testing so it was bound to happen that the stock reply wouldn't completely make sense with all reports. So I apologize for that and for any additional spam you may get from it. But regardless, we would still appreciate any testing you'd be willing to do just to verify there are no major regressions with the 2.6.27 kernel. Thanks

[Fernando Miguel (fernandomiguel)]

From lsinfo

  116: udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_147e_2016_noserial'
  usb_device.num_interfaces = 1 (0x1)
  usb_device.linux.device_number = 4 (0x4)
  usb_device.device_class = 0 (0x0)
  linux.sysfs_path = '/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb1/1-1'
  info.subsystem = 'usb_device'
  usb_device.device_subclass = 0 (0x0)
  info.vendor = 'TouchStrip'
  usb_device.speed = 12.0000
  info.parent = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_1d6b_1_0000_00_1a_0'
  usb_device.device_protocol = 0 (0x0)
  info.product = 'Fingerprint Sensor'
  usb_device.version = 1.00000
  usb_device.vendor_id = 5246 (0x147e)
  usb_device.is_self_powered = false
  info.udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_147e_2016_noserial'
  usb_device.product_id = 8214 (0x2016)
  usb_device.can_wake_up = true
  linux.hotplug_type = 2 (0x2)
  usb_device.vendor = 'TouchStrip'
  usb_device.bus_number = 1 (0x1)
  linux.subsystem = 'usb'
  info.linux.driver = 'usb'
  usb_device.product = 'Fingerprint Sensor'
  linux.device_file = '/dev/bus/usb/001/004'
  usb_device.linux.sysfs_path = '/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb1/1-1'
  usb_device.device_revision_bcd = 1 (0x1)
  usb_device.configuration_value = 1 (0x1)
  usb_device.max_power = 100 (0x64)
  usb_device.num_configurations = 1 (0x1)
  usb_device.num_ports = 0 (0x0)

 uname -a
Linux blubug 2.6.27-1-generic #1 SMP Sat Aug 23 23:19:01 UTC 2008 x86_64 GNU/Linux

[Mackenzie Morgan (maco.m)]

Status Update:

Good news:
Jaunty includes libusb-1.0, which is required to make recent revisions of libfprint work.
Libfprint's git tree has a driver for this device.

Bad news:
Jaunty still has libfprint 0.0.6, which is from March 2008. It's too old to have the driver for this device.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Per a decision made by the Ubuntu Kernel Team, bugs will longer be assigned to the ubuntu-kernel-team in Launchpad as part of the bug triage process. The ubuntu-kernel-team is being unassigned from this bug report. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeamBugPolicies for more information. Thanks.

[Jim Lieb (lieb)]

This is not a kernel issue. The kernel supports libusb1.0 and that supports libfprint and friends. Debian may not have the current version as noted in earlier but the new lib was released in Nov 2008 and it is packaged by other distros.

[Lucio Crusca (lucrus)]

My reader is 147e:1000 and it is not recognized. Is it possible to vote for a bug with Launchpad?

[Mackenzie Morgan (maco.m)]

See that link just under status about "this does not affect me *change*"?
Click the "change" and you'll up the number of people-affected counter on the
bug.

[jerzy (jpiter)]

These reader is supportet by "upeksonly" driver. http://www.reactivated.net/fprint/wiki/Upeksonly
It's contained by libfprint 0.1.0

[Kees de Kooter (kees-boplicity)]

The Ubuntu Karmic repo currently contains libfprint 0.0.6.

When will 0.1.0 be stable? Is there a PPA we can use to get version 0.1.0?

[David Jurenka (jurenka)]

Kees, you can get the very latest fprint code from this PPA:

https://launchpad.net/~fingerprint/+archive/fprint

[Fabián Rodríguez (magicfab)]

Here are the steps to get the PPA version installed:

1) Add the fprint PPA to your repositories:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fingerprint/fprint
2) Update your repositories package list and update your packages:
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade -y

No need to reboot or restart any daemons. I tested this with another fingerprint reader (AES1600) and it worked.

[Pander (pander)]

On Karmic, this is resulting in:

# apt-get upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages have been kept back:
  fprint-demo libfprint0 libpam-fprint
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 3 not upgraded.

Is it working for later versions of Ubuntu?

[Pander (pander)]

On Maverick this works via the extra PPA.

[Pander (pander)]

Any update on this bug?

[Robert Ancell (robert-ancell)]

Based on comment #28 and looking at the libfprint source this reader is now supported. Since 10.10 is no longer supported this bug will now be closed.