Chromebook 516 GE: Trackpad has intermittent response to scrolling gesture

Greetings,

My Chromebook 516 GE is part number NX.KCWAA.001. I'm running Version 114.0.5735.143 (Official Build) (64-bit) in the Stable channel.

About a month ago, two-finger scrolling became unreliable. In about 10% of cases, I can't scroll the window (for example, Google Docs, Chrome, Files, Gmail app). I will try a dozen times, up, down, up, up, different areas of the pad, and the UI does not respond, so eventually I give up and use keyboard or the scrollbar.

Of course, trackpad scrolling should have the benefit of not needing to select the window to scroll it, but it doesn't seem to make a difference whether the window is selected or not, if the trackpad has decided to stop scrolling there.

And I think it is window-specific. The system will balk on a specific window. If I recall correctly. I will need to experiment more to describe that characteristic.

Any and all help will be appreciated; thanks!

Accepted answers

billsey

That is so weird… I can't think of any reason off hand why the reset procedure isn't working, and I don't have a CBG516-1H to test with. It works normally with my other Chromebooks.

Eleison23

Okay, you know what? I looked closer, thanks to billsey being stumped (does anyone ever stump billsey for long???)

So I experimented with the hard reset sequence and I was watching the amber/blue power/charge LED while I did it. And I did confirm that there is a different effect.

When I'm holding down Refresh, the blue LED blinks on, then off, then back on again and it powers up. If I'm not holding Refresh, the blue LED does not blink off but comes right on and stays that way.

So I am led to believe that I have now done a hard reset innumerable times and it was just escaping my notice.

What I have not determined is whether the scrolling bug persists, because frankly I'm nearly immune to it by now! So I'll be paying attention over the next week and report back if there's any noticeable change in behavior! Thanks!

Also thanks too, HenryMac, for a helpful PM. We didn't mean to chase you off the thread, but we just need to focus here, you know?

All comments

William_mk2

@Eleison23

First of all, we need to determine whether it is a hardware or software issue.

We need to do a power wash on your chrome book.Restart the chromebook.
On the login screen please don’t type the password.
Hold the Ctrl key + shift key + alt key on keyboard and then press the letter r once
It will show “Reset this pc”
Click on power wash and continue..
Please understand it will clear the local and user settings..
Please complete the final setup..
Connnect to wifi and type the wifi password
Login to chromebook with your regular password

Now try to use your trackpad and check.
It should work fine ..

You can also purchase a external usb wired mouse, connnect it and use it.

Eleison23

First of all, we need to determine whether it is a hardware or software issue.

Okay, how would you like to diagnose that?

William_mk2

@Eleison23

I am really sorry for the inconvenience.

I have given you the steps to do power wash. Kindly do the power wash and check. If you face the same problem even after doing the power wash then it might be a hardware issue.

You can try one more step..

Kindly follow the details from the link given below. It will show you how to perform a hard reset.

https://community.acer.com/en/kb/articles/496-reinstall-powerwash-the-chrome-os

Even after doing the power wash and hard reset if you still face the same issue then it might be a hardware issue.

If your laptop is in warranty you can contact the warranty dept. Go to the website support.acer.com - chose your country. On the new page - scroll down - click on "contact support". Scroll down. You can find the phone no to contact the warranty dept.

If it is out of warranty, please contact local store or please buy a external usb mouse and use it.

Eleison23

I'm not comfortable with a diagnostic process that destroys and rebuilds my system without first checking simple settings or logs, and ruling out high-level problems. Especially for a minor inconvenience.

You haven't explained why a power-wash would resolve the touchpad issue. That's simply generic advice that has nothing to do with my specific issue. Thanks.

Eleison23

A few more observations:

It doesn't care about which window; if I try scrolling another window during an outage, it probably won't work either.

It may resolve and start working again if I stop interacting, and just let it sit for a few seconds.

Pinch-to-zoom works, so it can sense that my two fingers are on there.

billsey

Yes, William just does a script dump rather than trying to dig down into the actual issue, which works in many more cases than not. You likely have some sort of background interaction with the system going on that stops some events from being seen in a timely manner. With ChromeOS though it's tough to dig down into the the underlying events. You need to know what apps are running and what add-ons are active to try and find what is capturing the scroll events instead of your current window. A powerwash will remove all those potential problems to get you 'fixed', until you add them back in at which point they will re-emerge.

Eleison23

I disabled all touchpad settings one-by-one, such as "tap to click" and acceleration, but even with all disabled, the issue recurs.

I just received a ChromeOS system update yesterday. I'll be in touch. (So to speak.)

HenryMac

I was encountering the same issue on my new Chromebook Vero 514. I seem to have stumbled upon a solution: In the chrome browser, under Settings/Performance, try disabling "Memory Saver". For me, this has almost entirely eliminated the intermittent 2-finger scrolling problems affecting some web pages. I think there must be some bugs in memory saver that can cause this issue.

Eleison23

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1218336#Comment_1218336

That's a good find, and I'm pleased that it works for you! I checked my Chrome Performance settings, and my Memory Saver option has been turned off. I turned it off the first time it appeared after an update.

The touchpad malfunction persists, unfortunately. Update today: Version 114.0.5735.239 (Official Build) (64-bit)

I appreciate your contribution.

HenryMac

Sorry to hear that! Now I'm expecting the problem to recur on my Chromebook too. Even before my "fix", it was happening only intermittently - it was funtioning perfectly most of the time. So maybe I've just been lucky to be in a remission phase for awhile.😕

HenryMac

Latest update: I've set uBlock Origin so that now it blocks large graphics and javascript by default. I override the blocking only on particular sites, when necessary. This seems to have improved my trackpad behavior quite noticeably. However I'll keep an eye on this, and will post again if problems start recurring.

Eleison23

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1220050#Comment_1220050

That is interesting. What is your theory on why large graphics and Javascript would be interfering with touchpad functionality?

I have run an adblocker for a long time, since before I purchased the Chromebook. This adblocker works by DNS query, rather than a browser extension. It's actually not practical for me to disable it.

In fact, it's interesting: on this very site, the Acer Forums, I receive a "Javascript required" error page when I attempt to "Like" someone's post. Why, though? Is that an adblocker error, because I do not disable Javascript.

I've noticed the touchpad malfunction both on my personal accounts, as well as my work account. My work account uses the same adblocker in the same way, and of course, it's impractical to disable Javascript, since it is mandatory for web apps such as Docs and Sheets, etc.

I suppose I could pay attention to touchpad behavior, and see whether the presence of large graphics or Javascript adversely affects it. Thank you for the continual stream of ideas, HenryMac.

HenryMac

I don't have a coherent explanation of why I tried blocking large graphics and Javascript. I only had a suspicion that some of my open browser tabs (and their associated processes/threads) were busying the cpu to such an extent that it couldn't do a good job responding to trackpad gestures. I figured the blocker could reduce the cpu load that might be caused by such a rogue tab.

Sorry, I'm really not an expert in this area so it was sort of a stab in the dark

Eleison23

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1220054#Comment_1220054

You could measure CPU usage by using the Task Manager (Search+ESC).

HenryMac

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1220055#Comment_1220055

Right, but I never seem to observe near-100% cpu usage, even when the trackpad is glitching.

I decided to try a new tack with uBlock Origin. Rather than block all large graphics and Javascript by default, I tried what they call "medium mode" blocking, described here: https://github.com/gorhill/ublock/wiki/Blocking-mode%3A-medium-mode

Compared to the default "easy mode" of uBlock Origin, the medium mode additionally blocks third-party frames and third-party scripts (but not all scripts). Occasionally this breaks a web site, in which case I can manually override it for that site. However most of the random web pages that I've been loading are readable even with medium-mode blocking set up.

In this mode, I tried opening about 15 tabs from a variety of news sources. After a minute, I started to see the touchpad unresponsiveness issue again. The Task Manager did not show high cpu usage. Oddly, even when I closed almost all of my browser tabs, the remaining tabs still showed the touchpad problem which had not occured prior to opening the larger number of tabs. I restarted my chromebook and reloaded the same pages, which are now working fine.

Like you, I've also observed that the problem may clear up if I just let the chromebook sit idle for awhile. So I feel pretty clueless about the true source of the problem or how to avoid it, but I suspect there is a software bug in chrome itself. I'm running "Version 115.0.5790.160 (Official Build) (64-bit)".

I'll go back to blocking all javascript (except for manually unblocking on some sites that require it), and see if the problem reproduces again.

billsey

My guess is the large graphics portion might be related to data chunks and either slow internet transfer speed or high latency. The browser requests an image download, which is provided in chunks by the web host. Each chunk takes some to download, and perhaps the trackpad events are held in abeyance until the data transfer is complete for that chunk. That would potentially give you a hesitation that stutters when images are updated. Javascript might be doing data transfer in the background for inactive tabs as well…

Eleison23

No, this is not a description of the issue as I experience it. I don't know about HenryMac, but it's important to note that HenryMac's hardware is different, and we have no way of knowing whether our touchpads are the same hardware and driver.

The issue as I experience it is that touchpad scrolling events are completely lost. There does not need to be any web page loading activity, and certainly not images. There is no network activity at all, most of the time I am trying to scroll. It is a fully loaded web page. The scroll events are not "held in abeyance", they are ignored completely. I can try again and again and again to scroll, but the system may ignore them for an indefinite period of time.

Now if it were an issue of delayed response, this may be understandable, and we may also perhaps trace that to network/web activity. Certainly, when a web page is rendering, there is a CPU spike and a delay of processing certain inputs.

This is not a delayed response!!! This is a total loss of input.

If there is a way for me and HenryMac to determine our installed touchpad hardware and driver, I'm open to suggestions.

HenryMac

Here's a different approach to resolving this issue. If you're currently running the default 'stable' ChromeOS software, try switching to the Beta channel (see: https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/1086915?hl=en )

I did this yesterday, and I haven't seen touchpad scrolling problems since then (so far), even with Memory Saver enabled. I'm now running "Version 116.0.5845.59 (Official Build) beta (64-bit)". If we're lucky, maybe the scrolling issue is fixed in the new software version??

HenryMac

Well it's not perfect. The scrolling on this page (Acer community discussion) is actually a little "sticky". So maybe the same problem still lurks in the beta release. 😕

HenryMac

OK, sorry for the randomness of my observations. I know I'm just trying things, and not being very scientific about it. However - I disabled Memory Saver (on the Beta ChromeOS version). This combination of Beta plus disabled Memory Saver seems to have touchpad scrolling behaving pretty well so far.

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