I have the same issue on Arch Linux. It only started happening lately (probably after an update a week ago). It seems to be related to the “idle” mode, when the laptop is about to lock the screen and go to sleep; once it happened after waking up too (though, I can’t be sure whether it happened after the wake up, or right before going to sleep).
I was able to click on the touchpad, but not move the cursor, and no multitouch gestures worked, so it it safe to assume that the whole touch area was disabled while the physical buttons kept working.
I found these two entries in the dmesg
kernel journal, however I’m not sure if they are actually related:
[150269.114380] usb 1-4.1: reset full-speed USB device number 8 using xhci_hcd
[150269.304349] usb 1-4.1: reset full-speed USB device number 8 using xhci_hcd
and my lsusb --tree
looks like this (only expansion cards are connected):
❯ sudo lsusb --tree
/: Bus 001.Port 001: Dev 001, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/5p, 480M
|__ Port 002: Dev 003, If 0, Class=Hub, Driver=hub/4p, 480M
|__ Port 001: Dev 010, If 0, Class=Billboard, Driver=[none], 12M
|__ Port 001: Dev 010, If 1, Class=Human Interface Device, Driver=usbhid, 12M
|__ Port 003: Dev 004, If 0, Class=Hub, Driver=hub/3p, 480M
|__ Port 002: Dev 006, If 0, Class=Human Interface Device, Driver=usbhid, 12M
|__ Port 002: Dev 006, If 1, Class=Human Interface Device, Driver=usbhid, 12M
|__ Port 002: Dev 006, If 2, Class=Human Interface Device, Driver=usbhid, 12M
|__ Port 002: Dev 006, If 3, Class=Human Interface Device, Driver=usbhid, 12M
|__ Port 004: Dev 005, If 0, Class=Hub, Driver=hub/4p, 480M
|__ Port 001: Dev 008, If 0, Class=Vendor Specific Class, Driver=[none], 12M
|__ Port 002: Dev 009, If 0, Class=Human Interface Device, Driver=usbhid, 12M
|__ Port 002: Dev 009, If 1, Class=Human Interface Device, Driver=usbhid, 12M
|__ Port 002: Dev 009, If 2, Class=Human Interface Device, Driver=usbhid, 12M
|__ Port 002: Dev 009, If 3, Class=Human Interface Device, Driver=usbhid, 12M
|__ Port 005: Dev 007, If 0, Class=Wireless, Driver=btusb, 480M
|__ Port 005: Dev 007, If 1, Class=Wireless, Driver=btusb, 480M
|__ Port 005: Dev 007, If 2, Class=Wireless, Driver=btusb, 480M
/: Bus 002.Port 001: Dev 001, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/2p, 10000M
|__ Port 002: Dev 002, If 0, Class=Hub, Driver=hub/3p, 10000M
/: Bus 003.Port 001: Dev 001, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/1p, 480M
/: Bus 004.Port 001: Dev 001, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/1p, 10000M
/: Bus 005.Port 001: Dev 001, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/1p, 480M
|__ Port 001: Dev 002, If 0, Class=Billboard, Driver=[none], 12M
|__ Port 001: Dev 002, If 1, Class=Human Interface Device, Driver=usbhid, 12M
/: Bus 006.Port 001: Dev 001, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/1p, 10000M
/: Bus 007.Port 001: Dev 001, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/1p, 480M
/: Bus 008.Port 001: Dev 001, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/1p, 10000M
I’m pretty sure I did not setup touchpad on/off shortcut, and everything went back to normal after reconnecting the touchpad input module anyway.