Comment 3 for bug 783641

This also affects my Eee PC 1001P, though it does not appear to relate to windows popping up as far as I can tell - it works for a while, then stops. Like Mirko, it will restart on logging out and logging in, or switching user.

I have done some digging to find out what the issue is. The device is still being recognised by the HAL, and also by the input layer. cat /dev/input/event8 will produce output when the trackpad is used, even after it's stopped moving the pointer, and evtest in one of the virtual terminals produces the output you'd expect.

What is more interesting is the first two lines of the output from xinput --list-props:
Device 'SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad':
 Device Enabled (135): 0

Issuing xinput --set-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics Touchpad" "Device Enabled" 1 returns no error, but does not enable the device. The log of another window running xinput --watch-props is attached - in short, the Device Enabled flag is immediately returned to 0, as well as another set of settings being switched. FWIW, the first "Property 'Synaptics Off' changed. Synaptics Off (290): 0" happens before the enable command is sent

This is as far as I have got. I don't know what software is disabling the touchpad, or why - but I hope this post spurs some ideas from people who may know.

Thanks,
Tom