Random clicking and draging and ghost touching is happening on my Acer Spin 5

Question

I purchased the Acer Spin 5 laptop yesterday and put Ubuntu 16.04 on it. I am hitting a very annoying bug which causes apparently random clicks and dragging.

I believe the problem is with the touchscreen and not the touchpad or any other pointing device

Depending on what applications I have open, I may be able to work for a few minutes without interruption, or it might get so bad that I would have to restart the computer since I am not able to interact with anything.

⎡ Virtual core pointer                      id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Logitech Optical USB Mouse                id=9    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Raydium Corporation Raydium Touch System  id=10   [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)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                              id=8    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ HD WebCam                                 id=11   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Intel Virtual Button driver               id=12   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard              id=13   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Acer WMI hotkeys                          id=14   [slave  keyboard (3)]

Looking closer at Raydium Touch System:

xinput list-props 10
Device 'Raydium Corporation Raydium Touch System':
    Device Enabled (139):   1
    Coordinate Transformation Matrix (141): 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000
    Device Accel Profile (262): 0
    Device Accel Constant Deceleration (263):   1.000000
    Device Accel Adaptive Deceleration (264):   1.000000
    Device Accel Velocity Scaling (265):    10.000000
    Device Product ID (257):    9094, 12561
    Device Node (258):  "/dev/input/event13"
    Evdev Axis Inversion (266): 0, 0
    Evdev Axis Calibration (267):   <no items>
    Evdev Axes Swap (268):  0
    Axis Labels (269):  "Abs MT Position X" (286), "Abs MT Position Y" (287), "None" (0), "None" (0)
    Button Labels (270):    "Button Unknown" (260), "Button Unknown" (260), "Button Unknown" (260), "Button Wheel Up" (145), "Button Wheel Down" (146)
    Evdev Scrolling Distance (271): 0, 0, 0
    Evdev Middle Button Emulation (272):    0
    Evdev Middle Button Timeout (273):  50
    Evdev Third Button Emulation (274): 0
    Evdev Third Button Emulation Timeout (275): 1000
    Evdev Third Button Emulation Button (276):  3
    Evdev Third Button Emulation Threshold (277):   20
    Evdev Wheel Emulation (278):    0
    Evdev Wheel Emulation Axes (279):   0, 0, 4, 5
    Evdev Wheel Emulation Inertia (280):    10
    Evdev Wheel Emulation Timeout (281):    200
    Evdev Wheel Emulation Button (282): 4
    Evdev Drag Lock Buttons (283):  0

I reported a bug for this issue, but I was hoping someone here could help me find a workaround. This is a relatively new laptop and I have not heard of Raydium touch before. I am guessing sooner or later others will run into this issue. Does anyone know a solution or workaround to this problem? It is basically rendering the laptop useless.

Edit: I know for sure now that the touchscreen is the culprit:

↳ Raydium Corporation Raydium Touch System  id=10   [slave  pointer  (2)]

If I disable this device using the command xinput disable 10 the behavior stops immediately. I will not be able to use the touchscreen anymore, however, the touchpad and mouse work fine. Any ideas how I could debug this further?

Answer 1

You can fiddle around with finger width dimensions in the touchpad configuration file to prevent your palms being interpreted as finger commands. An easier way is software to disable the touchpad whilst typing to avoid unintended actions executed by your palms:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:atareao/atareao
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install touchpad-indicator

The screen shots and write-up below come from Ubuntu 14.04 installation (tipsonubuntu.com - Install touchpad indicator Ubuntu) but not much has changed.

Touchpad indicator is an applet icon on Unity panel that allows you to enable/disable touchpad via its drop-down menu or a shortcut key. Besides that basic function, the simple app supports:

• Disable touchpad when mouse plugged.
• Disable touchpad on typing.
• Natural scrolling.
• Circular scrolling.
• Two fingers vertical/horizontal scrolling.