Often after hibernation, after login but also frequently randomly while using the OS the touchpad seems to stall while keyboard is still working.

There has been a bug report a long while ago so this issue seems to have been occurring on multiple hardware and Ubuntu versions, and so it does in my case:

$ lsb_release -rd
Description:	Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS
Release:	20.04

$ uname -r
5.4.0-42-generic

There are a few proposed solutions:

  • Upgrade kernel to 5.6. As other users pointed out that this did not solve the issue, I did not bother to try out this.
  • Disable/enable the touchpad
  • Remove psmouse module and add it again
  • Restart the desktop environment

The one that works for me (at least momentarily) is restarting the desktop environment

Restarting the Desktop Environment⌗

There are several methods. Following methods consider that only the keyboard is working:

  • Via “Run a Command” dialog
    1. To open the “Run a Command” dialog, press alt + f2(fn) (the fn is the function key that might be necessary on some laptops)
    2. Press r and enter
    3. Wait a little
  • Via terminal:
    1. Open a terminal: Press ctrl + alt + t
    2. Execute: gnome-shell --replace & disown
      Other commands to try: sudo systemctl restart gdm or sudo systemctl restart systemd-logind which will restart the desktop environment as a consequence

Disable/Enable the Touchpad⌗

First find out the input device id of your touchpad:

xinput list
⎡ Virtual core pointer                    	id=2	[master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer              	id=4	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ DLL096D:01 06CB:CDE6 Mouse              	id=11	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ DLL096D:01 06CB:CDE6 Touchpad           	id=12	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                   	id=3	[master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard             	id=5	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                               	id=6	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                            	id=7	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                            	id=8	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Integrated_Webcam_HD: Integrate         	id=9	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Integrated_Webcam_HD: Integrate         	id=10	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Intel HID 5 button array                	id=13	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Intel HID events                        	id=14	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Dell WMI hotkeys                        	id=15	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard            	id=16	[slave  keyboard (3)]

In this case it is 12

Then disable and enable:

  • xinput --disable 12
  • xinput --enable 12

Remove and Reattach psmouse Module⌗

This suggestion sounded a bit strange to me. Is the psmouse module responsible for the touchpad? Well, in any case this was suggested:

  • sudo rmmod psmouse or sudo modprobe -r psmouse
  • sudo modprobe psmouse