Touchpad physical buttons not work

[bg01]

I installed Lubuntu 24.10

Touchpad physical buttons on bottom are not working.
How to fix this?

[That_Random_Guy]

Hello,

What is your hardware? What kind of computer are you using? Can you share model?

[bg01]

It’s Acer Aspire ES1-132

[That_Random_Guy]

Thanks!

Can you please run xinput list from terminal/command line and paste the resulting text in a reply?

I see that the keyboard for your laptop has a special keyboard key that seems to toggle something with the touchpad.

I’m looking at this:

User%20Manual%20W10_Acer_2.0_A_A.pdf

If you press the F7 key, does anything happen? Also maybe try Fn + F7.

I only looked very briefly and I found this:
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/244894/touchpad-does-not-work-on-acer-aspire/244895#244895

Some people in the comments are saying to try if going to the BIOS and switching the touchpad between basic and advanced does something.

[bg01]

Thank you for reply.

Fn+F7 is a button for turning on/off touchpad, not just buttons, so that doesn’t help.

xinput list
⎡ Virtual core pointer id=2 [master pointer (3)]
⎜ ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer id=4 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ ELAN0501:00 04F3:3025 Mouse id=10 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ ELAN0501:00 04F3:3025 Touchpad id=11 [slave pointer (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard id=3 [master keyboard (2)]
↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard id=5 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Power Button id=6 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Video Bus id=7 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Power Button id=8 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Sleep Button id=9 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard id=12 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Acer WMI hotkeys id=13 [slave keyboard (3)]

[That_Random_Guy]

Can you try getting into the BIOS and see if there’s a setting for the touchpad to switch it from Advanced to Basic?

[bg01]

I did try Basic setting, and it doesn’t work.

[That_Random_Guy]

Hi, please try the following in a terminal and post the resulting text in reply:

xinput list-props 11 | head -n5

and this one too:

grep -i "Using input driver" /var/log/Xorg.0.log

… and then please try running these and rebooting to see if that does anything.

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-input-synaptics

[bg01]

Thanks for the reply.
I tried what you suggested, still not working.

Here is the output what you asked:
:~$ xinput list-props 11 | head -n5
Device ‘2.4G Mouse’:
Device Enabled (178): 1
Coordinate Transformation Matrix (180): 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000
libinput Natural Scrolling Enabled (309): 0
libinput Natural Scrolling Enabled Default (310): 0
~$ grep -i “Using input driver” /var/log/Xorg.0.log
[ 17.914] (II) Using input driver ‘libinput’ for ‘Power Button’
[ 17.982] (II) Using input driver ‘libinput’ for ‘Video Bus’
[ 18.011] (II) Using input driver ‘libinput’ for ‘Power Button’
[ 18.025] (II) Using input driver ‘libinput’ for ‘Sleep Button’
[ 18.043] (II) Using input driver ‘libinput’ for ‘2.4G Mouse’
[ 18.077] (II) Using input driver ‘libinput’ for ‘2.4G Mouse’
[ 18.108] (II) Using input driver ‘libinput’ for ‘2.4G Mouse Consumer Control’
[ 18.128] (II) Using input driver ‘libinput’ for ‘2.4G Mouse System Control’
[ 18.145] (II) Using input driver ‘libinput’ for ‘ELAN0501:00 04F3:3025 Mouse’
[ 18.208] (II) Using input driver ‘synaptics’ for ‘ELAN0501:00 04F3:3025 Touchpad’
[ 18.243] (II) Using input driver ‘libinput’ for ‘AT Translated Set 2 keyboard’
[ 18.281] (II) Using input driver ‘libinput’ for ‘Acer WMI hotkeys’
[ 18.313] (II) Using input driver ‘libinput’ for ‘2.4G Mouse Consumer Control’

[That_Random_Guy]

Do you recall if when you were installing Lubuntu - did the touchpad work within the installer environment?

Also, another way to maybe tell if the touchpad is bad is seeing if it works at all in BIOS. Like booting into the BIOS and try to use it while navigating the menus. Probably does nothing if the BIOS isn’t UEFI but worth a shot.

My hunch is that it’s a driver issue… I’m just having trouble figuring out what the possible fix could be. Maybe trying an older kernel would help or perhaps the opposite could be true.

[bg01]

I think that touchpad didn’t work at all on install.

There is no pointer in BIOS so I can’t test it there.

I really don’t know how to test if buttons are working at all, except to install Windows and try, but that’s not an option right now.

Thank you for your help.

[humpty]

I’m not claiming I know what’s going on but out of curiosity
run this command in a terminal ;
xev
Move the cursor inside the little window.
Press the button that isn’t working.
Tell us the button number on the last line of the terminal.

[bg01]

I tried that.
It doesn’t react to button press.
It only reacts to tap, button number is 1.

[humpty]

Have you tried toggling the BIOS setting ?
(suggestion #4 in this link)

[bg01]

Yes, nothing worked.

[humpty]

Searches indicate your model has worked on linux in the past. I can only suggest you try some older distros from kernel 5 up. If one of them work, it would at least prove it’s not a mechanical failure.