disabling touchpad is not persistent

[Doug McMahon]

Happens also with g-s-d
Current Test case:
On a laptop with a usb mouse connected disable touchpad in system settings > Mouse & Touchpad
Reboot
Touchpad will be re-enabled

Test case 2:
with touchpad disabled suspend laptop
after coming out of suspend touchpad will be re-enabled

Could be related to this -
with external mouse connected disable touchpad, it will stop working.
remove external mouse, touchpad is immediately re-enabled.
Possibly during the course of normal use, restarts ect. it is 'sensed' that the mouse is not connected & touchpad -enabled is mistakenly restored?

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
Package: unity-settings-daemon 14.04.0+14.04.20140221.1-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-11.31-generic 3.13.3
Uname: Linux 3.13.0-11-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.13.2-0ubuntu5
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Sun Feb 23 19:28:13 2014
InstallationDate: Installed on 2014-02-22 (1 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Alpha amd64 (20140222)
SourcePackage: unity-settings-daemon
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Doug McMahon (mc3man)]

Also note -
if I use a start up script as below then the touchpad is never re-enabled (unless I of course remove the ext. mouse, in my case wireless

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Exec=gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.touchpad touchpad-enabled false
Hidden=false
NoDisplay=false
X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=true
Name[en_US]=touchpad
Name=touchpad
X-GNOME-Autostart-Delay=2

So whatever is happening occurs between log out & the next log in +2

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thanks for your bug report

> So whatever is happening occurs between log out & the next log in +2

so something out of the session is changing the user configuration? that seems weird...

[Doug McMahon (mc3man)]

I've been struggling with this for a few months now, never could determine what causes, hence the start up command.
I'd think whatever resets it back to 'touchpad enabled' does not occur out of session which would then make most likely time somewhere between unity greeter & desktop loading.

So I'll start over & disable the startup command & make sure that if touchpad disabled is active on log outs/restarts & is disabled on log ins that it doesn't become enabled during the course of a session.
Also considering if this is just hardware specific, I have a new laptop coming soon, will also test there.

It does feel like this is related to the auto re-enabling of a touchpad if an external mouse is 'sensed' as being disconnected..

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thanks, I can't confirm those issues here but I don't usually disable the touchpad so it's on limited testing

[Doug McMahon (mc3man)]

This has now become quite easy here to cause unlike previously.
Disable touchpad
Reboot
At the greeter screen where the touchpad is always active use it to login (move cursor & tap on >
Upon login the the touchpad is now enabled.

Another scenario is at the greeter screen don't purposely use the touch pad but let the cursor be moved by one's palm. This also seems to cause it to be re-enabled.

[Michael Jarvis (michael-a-jarvis)]

I just installed 14.04 Trusty Tahr 64-bit desktop on a Toshiba laptop with a Synaptics touch-pad, and I'm having the same issue. I NEVER use the touchpad, and in Windows it automatically disables it when a USB mouse is present. In Unity I go in and disable the touchpad but it's re-enabled when I reboot.

I'm tempted to go digging in the UEFI settings and see if I can disable it there...

[Doug McMahon (mc3man)]

Also occurs after coming out of suspend

[Michael Jarvis (michael-a-jarvis)]

I have to just manually run "/usr/bin/synclient TouchpadOff=1" as root every time I reboot. It's incredibly annoying.

[Doug McMahon (mc3man)]

This appears to have been fixed with unity-settings-daemon 14.04.0+14.04.20140606-0ubuntu3
At least a short test shows log outs & restarts are not re-enabling the touchpad.

[Doug McMahon (mc3man)]

I now why this 'seems' fixed, now if an external mouse is removed while the touchpad is disabled the touchpad stays disabled.
(at least in 16.04

May have misunderstood the previous behaviour that when an external mouse was removed with touchpad being disabled the touchpad was immediately re-enabled but that seems like the proper behavior.
Now if mouse breaks or whatever user will either have to manually re-enable the touchpad or get another mouse, new batteries, ect.