Ubuntu – Ubuntu 17.10: Lid closing disables touchpad, how to fix

17.10suspendtouchpad

I'm running Ubuntu 17.10 on a Dell Vostro 3559.

I've noticed that when I close the lid on my computer, it seems not only to go into a strange suspend, but also to disable my touchpad.
The strange thing is that the touchpad works fine when I suspend through the power menu. It seems to do something different when I close my lid.

I haven't been able to find the settings in either Tweaks or normal Settings where I decide what it does on lid close.

How to run sudo .sh file after wakeup : Touchpad disabled after upgrading to Ubuntu 17.10 seems to be onto a temporary fix for the problem, the two commands make the touchpad work again, but I'd rather just set the computer to suspend normally on lid close.

Does anyone know how this is done?

EDIT: Switched to xorg, and now it works fine. Seems to be a Wayland specific problem.

Best Answer

Turns out it was a kernel bug. As reported by Askar Timirgazin in How to run sudo .sh file after wakeup : Touchpad disabled after upgrading to Ubuntu 17.10, the bug was fixed by updating the kernel to 4.13.7.

TL;DR

Download the following kernel updates.

http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.13.7/linux-headers-4.13.7-041307_4.13.7-041307.201711060248_all.deb

http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.13.7/linux-headers-4.13.7-041307-generic_4.13.7-041307.201711060248_amd64.deb

http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.13.7/linux-image-4.13.7-041307-generic_4.13.7-041307.201711060248_amd64.deb

Install them with dpkg -i

Run sudo reboot

You should be able to use your mousepad.

Sources:

http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.13.7/

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1723799

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Advanced power options for lid closing

Install gnome-tweak-tool by:

sudo apt-get install gnome-tweak-tool

Hit Super key/Windows key and search for Tweak Tool. Go to 'Power' options and change the behavior as you wish.

Ubuntu – How to run sudo .sh file after wakeup : Touchpad disabled after upgrading to Ubuntu 17.10

To automate the call to your script on wakeup, you can add it under /lib/systemd/system-sleep instead of /usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d

Here is what I've done:

sudo touch /lib/systemd/system-sleep/touchpadwakeup
Put the following content:

#!/bin/sh

case $1 in
  post)
    rmmod i2c_hid
    modprobe i2c_hid
    ;;
esac

sudo chmod +x /lib/systemd/system-sleep/touchpadwakeup

It works fine but I hope we'll have a cleaner solution (e.g, a patch) in the near future.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Advanced power options for lid closing

Ubuntu – How to run sudo .sh file after wakeup : Touchpad disabled after upgrading to Ubuntu 17.10

Related Question