The trackpoint and associated mouse buttons recently stopped working on my Lenovo P50 laptop. The recent automatic updates (Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS, October 2021) played havoc with the trackpad, but that was fixed by re-installing libinput and synapics. Unfortunately, this did not fix the trackpoint and its associated mouse buttons.
I've searched stack exchange, and existing knowledge of this is pretty old (relating to bugs from a few years ago), or relating to different problems (intermittent trackpoint failure or issues with the trackpad, not trackpoint).
Would anyone happen to know if there is a standard way to fix this? Perhaps I missed something.
Edit:
To add to the weirdness, the trackpoint works again after resuming from suspend. However, it will randomly stop working some minutes later.
Edit 2:
Ultimately, this was never resolved. The motherboard of the Lenovo P50 eventually failed, rendering the question irrelevant. That said, here is what I know.
I replaced the P50 with a P51. This is the next iteration, but is parts-compatible with P50 in terms of keyboard, trackpad, trackpoint, and the arrangement of RAM and SSD/HDD slots.
The new machine had the following configuration
Bios version is N1UET80W (1.54)
Bios Date is 2020-11-05
Embedded controller version N1UHT27W (1.10)
ME Firware Version 11.8.80.3746
Machine Type model 20HJS4T300
Sysunit serial PF0Y1SJT
Sysboard serial L1HF83L00D5
The trackpad and trackpoint work with a fresh install of Ubuntu Mate 22.04 LTS.
This points weakly to one of the following scenarios:
- Sporadic trackpad/trackpoint failures are symptomatic of a pre-fail state for the system mainbord.
- There is a driver issue with the chipsets used in the Lenovo P50, which does not affect those used by the P51. This is somewhat unlikely as the trackpoint uses the same parts, but perhaps some part of the main-board chipset is relevant.
- There is an issue with the BIOS that might be fixed by updating.
- There was a driver issue that has since been resolved as of Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.
