Dell Inspiron 14R - N4010, Synaptics touchpad not recognized

[Bruce Kearns]

Binary package hint: xserver-xorg-input-synaptics

Dell Inspiron 14R - N4010. Running Ubuntu Lucid Lynx currently at 2.6.32-25. The synaptics touchpad is failing to be recognized by udev as a touchpad during boot, thus the ID_INPUT_TOUCHPAD environment variable is not being set. The end result is the touchpad is being configured as a pointer under evdev (evdev pointer catchall) instead of a touchpad using the synaptics driver.

This bug is more than likely a kernel bug and not a synaptics driver bug.
---
Architecture: amd64
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
DkmsStatus: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release amd64 (20100429)
MachineType: Dell Inc. Inspiron N4010
Package: xserver-xorg-input-synaptics 1.2.2-1ubuntu4 [modified: lib/udev/rules.d/66-xorg-synaptics.rules]
PackageArchitecture: amd64
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-25-generic root=UUID=bebd2c9c-dd1f-460b-a42c-7e70ca1fe3e4 ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-25.44-generic 2.6.32.21+drm33.7
Tags: lucid lucid
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-25-generic x86_64
UserGroups: adm admin cdrom dialout lpadmin plugdev sambashare
dmi.bios.date: 04/21/2010
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.bios.version: A02
dmi.board.name: 021CN3
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.board.version: A02
dmi.chassis.type: 8
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.chassis.version: A02
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvrA02:bd04/21/2010:svnDellInc.:pnInspironN4010:pvrA02:rvnDellInc.:rn021CN3:rvrA02:cvnDellInc.:ct8:cvrA02:
dmi.product.name: Inspiron N4010
dmi.product.version: A02
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.
glxinfo: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
system:
 distro: Ubuntu
 codename: lucid
 architecture: x86_64
 kernel: 2.6.32-25-generic

[Bruce Kearns (brkearns67)]

apport information

[Bruce Kearns (brkearns67)]

apport information

[Bruce Kearns (brkearns67)]

apport information

[Bruce Kearns (brkearns67)]

apport information

[Bruce Kearns (brkearns67)]

apport information

[Bruce Kearns (brkearns67)]

apport information

[Bruce Kearns (brkearns67)]

apport information

[Bruce Kearns (brkearns67)]

apport information

[Bruce Kearns (brkearns67)]

apport information

[Bruce Kearns (brkearns67)]

apport information

[Bruce Kearns (brkearns67)]

apport information

[Bruce Kearns (brkearns67)]

apport information

[Bruce Kearns (brkearns67)]

apport information

[Bruce Kearns (brkearns67)]

apport information

[Bruce Kearns (brkearns67)]

apport information

[Bruce Kearns (brkearns67)]

apport information

[Bruce Kearns (brkearns67)]

apport information

[Bruce Kearns (brkearns67)]

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[Bruce Kearns (brkearns67)]

apport information

[Bruce Kearns (brkearns67)]

apport information

[Bruce Kearns (brkearns67)]

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[Bruce Kearns (brkearns67)]

apport information

[Bruce Kearns (brkearns67)]

I have been looking into this problem, especially Dmitry Torokhov's work around this issue. It appears that there is a patch that has been implemented in Gentoo for the 2.6.32 kernel series. Since this patch is dated 2010-07-29, I am wondering if this patch has been incorporated into the mainline kernel builds. Please confirm. If it has not, I plan to build a kernel that incorporates this patch.

Patch is as follows

--- a/drivers/input/mouse/synaptics.c 2010-07-29 09:14:58.000000000 -0400
+++ b/drivers/input/mouse/synaptics.c 2010-07-29 09:16:34.000000000 -0400
@@ -136,8 +136,14 @@ static int synaptics_capability(struct p
   return -1;
  priv->capabilities = (cap[0] << 16) | (cap[1] << 8) | cap[2];
  priv->ext_cap = 0;
- if (!SYN_CAP_VALID(priv->capabilities))
+
+ /*
+ * Older firmwares had submodel ID fixed to 0x47
+ */
+ if (SYN_ID_FULL(priv->identity) < 0x705 &&
+ SYN_CAP_SUBMODEL_ID(priv->capabilities) != 0x47) {
   return -1;
+ }

  /*
   * Unless capExtended is set the rest of the flags should be ignored
--- a/drivers/input/mouse/synaptics.h 2010-07-29 09:15:00.000000000 -0400
+++ b/drivers/input/mouse/synaptics.h 2010-07-29 09:17:10.000000000 -0400
@@ -45,7 +45,7 @@
 #define SYN_CAP_FOUR_BUTTON(c) ((c) & (1 << 3))
 #define SYN_CAP_MULTIFINGER(c) ((c) & (1 << 1))
 #define SYN_CAP_PALMDETECT(c) ((c) & (1 << 0))
-#define SYN_CAP_VALID(c) ((((c) & 0x00ff00) >> 8) == 0x47)
+#define SYN_CAP_SUBMODEL_ID(c) (((c) & 0x00ff00) >> 8)
 #define SYN_EXT_CAP_REQUESTS(c) (((c) & 0x700000) >> 20)
 #define SYN_CAP_MULTI_BUTTON_NO(ec) (((ec) & 0x00f000) >> 12)

@@ -61,6 +61,7 @@
 #define SYN_ID_MODEL(i) (((i) >> 4) & 0x0f)
 #define SYN_ID_MAJOR(i) ((i) & 0x0f)
 #define SYN_ID_MINOR(i) (((i) >> 16) & 0xff)
+#define SYN_ID_FULL(i) ((SYN_ID_MAJOR(i) << 8) | SYN_ID_MINOR(i))
 #define SYN_ID_IS_SYNAPTICS(i) ((((i) >> 8) & 0xff) == 0x47)

 /* synaptics special commands */

[Bruce Kearns (brkearns67)]

It appears that this patch is included in 10.10. I will wait for the final release and test it then. Hopefully, the patch fixes this issue because this touchpad behaving as a pointer makes this laptop very difficult to use. No practical way to turn it off, and the thing is so sensitive that typing is extremely difficult, I'll update this bug report once 10.10 is released and I update from 10.04LTS.

Bruce

[Bruce Kearns (brkearns67)]

I updated to the 10.10 release candidate and this issue is resolved. For the record, kernel info is 2.6.35-22-generic #33-Ubuntu SMP

[Gursimran singh (simar)]

Hi Bruce,

Thanks for reporting the bug and making ubuntu better. There had been some activity in the bug on your part related some patches. Have you been able to make patches for this bug report.

[Bruce Kearns (brkearns67)]

This seems to be working fixed in the maverick release. I have not made patches to apply to Lucid.

[Gursimran singh (simar)]

It seems that you have upgraded to maverick and the bug doesn't seems to be affecting a lot of people. In that case, if you are happy with maverick and does not want lucid, we can close this bug report.

[Gursimran singh (simar)]

Hi again Bruce,

I'm closing the bug report, if you feel you can provide us with the required debugging information (for that you will have to have a bug infected lucid pc), you can reopen the bug report by resetting the status of the bug to New again.

Thanks for reporting the bug..
Cheers!!

[Bruce Kearns (brkearns67)]

Hi,

OK by me. Go ahead and close it.

Bruce

-----Original Message-----
From: Gursimran singh Mohar <email address hidden>
Reply-to: Bug 650529 <email address hidden>
To: <email address hidden>
Subject: [Bug 650529] Re: Dell Inspiron 14R - N4010, Synaptics touchpad
not recognized
Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2010 05:41:37 -0000

Hi again Bruce,

I'm closing the bug report, if you feel you can provide us with the
required debugging information (for that you will have to have a bug
infected lucid pc), you can reopen the bug report by resetting the
status of the bug to New again.

Thanks for reporting the bug..
Cheers!!

** Changed in: xserver-xorg-input-synaptics (Ubuntu)
       Status: Incomplete => Invalid

[Gursimran singh (simar)]

Already closed..
Status - invalid

If you ever want to reopen it reset the status to New again.