# Trouble with the touchpad



## lucasmarin (Aug 4, 2010)

Hello everyone. I would really appreciate some help here.
The touchpad doesn't scroll in Lightroom. It happened with lightroom 2 and now again with 3. It works with every other app. It only scrolls when i place the pointer over the scroll bar on the side, but it doesnt do it when the pointer is over the pictures, though the pointer changes to the scrolling icon always. In my girlfriends computer, it does work. She has a sony vaio and i have a compaq.
Please? Any help?
There is nothing in internet. I have been looking for solutions, but i couldnt find any, that is why i turn to you.
Thank you very much in advance

Lucas


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## clee01l (Aug 4, 2010)

Lucas, there are many HW versions of a touch pad. Some are built into a Laptop keyboard, others built into the screen. Still others like my Wacom Bamboo are separate. Some are multi touch, others not. Each may have different scroll methods. My Bamboo requires two fingers. My wife's laptop only activates along a strip on the right edge. If you haven't already, I would suggest that you pull up the touch pad help instructions and see what it says about emulating the Mouse wheel. If that does not give you a definitive answer, Help us out by giving some more details about what kind of touchpad you have to work with and perhaps you'll get a better answer. 

BTW, Welcome to the forum. I'm glad you found us.


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## lucasmarin (Aug 4, 2010)

Hello Clee'1. Thank you very much for your reply and the welcome. I am glad i found you too.
To be more specific, my laptop is a Compaq CQ-6' 22'us, it has a built in Synaptic touchpad, and the scrolling is done by touching the strip on the right edge.
It works wonderful everywhere else, but in Lightroom. Here, it only scrolls if the pointer is on top of the scrolling bar on the sides. But it doesnt scroll over the pictures in grid view, or over the folders or collections panels.
Any ideas? This is really frustrating.
Thank you again

Lucas


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## Halfje-Bruin (Aug 5, 2010)

Have you checked for updated drivers for your scrollpad? That fixed it for my HP laptop I used a while back.


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## lucasmarin (Aug 5, 2010)

Hello Halfje-Bruin. Thank you for your reply. Yes, i have tried updating the drivers. I've downloaded the latest drivers from Compaq, and the problem persists. I don't think is related to the drivers or the computer though. I would say it has something to do with Lightroom itself.
Does anyone have any ideas?
Thank you again

Lucas


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## clee01l (Aug 5, 2010)

Considering that the Mouse Wheel function works on my Bamboo and on my Laptop Touch Pad, I'm not inclined to believe that LR has anything to do with it. I am of the opinion that having eliminated drivers being an issue, either your touchpad setup for emulating a mouse wheel is at fault or your technique for using the touchpad needs some refining. Can you plug in a real mouse with a mouse wheel to verify that the mouse wheel does indeed scroll the grid window as expected? Having done that successfully, perform the same operation using the mouse wheel emulation of the touch pad. 

Using my HP Convertible tablet PC, I need to do the following to get the mouse wheel emulation to work properly on my Synaptics touch pad: [list type=decimal]
 [li]Place the cursor in the grid.[/li]
 [li]Press and hold the Scrolling strip on the right of the touch pad[/li]
 [li]The Cursor changes to a 'Scrollbar' Icon[/li]
 [li]Without lifting a finger off the scrolling strip, slide the finger up or down. [/li]
[/list] Also make the following setup check for synaptics: [list type=decimal]
 [li]In the Control Panel, Select the Mouse applet.[/li]
 [li]From the Device Settings tab choose your device and press the settings button[/li]
 [li]In the settings dialog choose Virtual Scrolling&gt;Scrolling Selection[/li]
 [li]Verify that the Radio Button "Scroll Item Under Pointer" is Selected[/li]
[/list] If it is not, then this is most likely your problem.


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## lucasmarin (Aug 6, 2010)

Hello clee'1l. Thank you once again for your reply.
I have tried all that before, with no success.
I have activated the "scroll item under pointer" option.
I can use the scroll with my touchpad in every other application.
Even in LR, when i put the mouse pointer on top of the scrolling bars of LR, it does srcoll. However, when the mouse pointer is over the grid, or the folder panels, it doesnt, even though the cursor does change to a scrollbar icon. It always changes within LR, just it doesnt scroll when is over the photos.
That is why i believe is a LR problem, it is working just fine everywhere else.
When i use a real mouse with wheel, it works just fine, scrolling everywhere.
Any thoughts?
Thanks!

Lucas


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## edgelore (Aug 28, 2010)

I am having the exact same issue on my HP Pavilion dv7 series laptop and it's driving me nuts. My problem is worse though - my touchpad won't scroll in any of the panels (even when I'm hovering over the scroll bar). I lived with this issue on my older laptop (also an HP, Win XP, LR 2) but at least it scrolled when hovering over the bar. Now with a new laptop, Win 7 64-bit and LR 3 it isn't scrolling at all. Details:
1. touchpad scroll wheel functions work in all other programs (horizontal and vertical) except LR
2. scrolling icon shows in LR while scrolling, but panels and scroll bars don't move
3. Synaptics Touchpad v15.'.17.4 in HP Pavilion dv7 laptop (will check again for later version)
4. tried various combinations of touchpad settings
5. Plugging in a regular scroll wheel mouse WORKS correctly

This tells me there is some kind of conflict between LR and Synaptics - they must both share some of the fault since the touchpad scrolls fine in all other programs and yet a regular mouse wheel scrolls fine in LR. 

Anyone have any additional insight here? Many thanks!


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## ukbrown (Aug 28, 2010)

LR knows nothing about your touchpad. Not many apps do as they all talk to a driver emulating a mouse. 

Here is a very quick test that no one seems to have mentioned, take a working mouse connect it to your laptop and use the scroll function. Based on what happens draw your own conclusions.

If it works OK, i think this implies your touchpad software is out of kilter
If it doesn't work then it still implies your tochpad is out of kilter (lot's of people have mice that work really well with light room).

Bit Hobsons Choice but until you connect the mouse it could be Schroedinger's cat.


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## clee01l (Aug 28, 2010)

> Bit Hobsons Choice but until you connect the mouse it could be Schroedinger's cat.


Is this some colloqual saying? And I thought I understood British English.


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## sizzlingbadger (Aug 29, 2010)

Even us English don't understand English  Its a fairly common English saying...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobson's_choice


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## clee01l (Aug 29, 2010)

[quote author=sizzlingbadger link=topic=1'616.msg73136#msg73136 date=1283'382'7]
Even us English don't understand English  Its a fairly common English saying...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobson's_choice
[/quote]Which leads us curiously back to Terry Pratchett and "Going Postal"... but we digress.


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## edgelore (Aug 29, 2010)

[quote author=ukbrown link=topic=1'616.msg73133#msg73133 date=1283'26869]
Here is a very quick test that no one seems to have mentioned, take a working mouse connect it to your laptop and use the scroll function. Based on what happens draw your own conclusions.
[/quote]

I appreciate your thoughts, but you didn't read the thread. Both Lucas and I *did* try exactly what you said and both of us had the same results and mentioned them here. The scroll wheel on a regular mouse works fine. But don't be so quick to blame the touchpad driver only. If it was the driver then why does it work perfectly in every other program? Why is LR interfacing with the driver differently than every other program? It is receiving the scroll instructions (as evidenced by the cursor changing to the scroll icon when scrolling) but it is failing to translate them into scroll instructions like every other program. Bizarre. What is LR doing differently? What other layer does it put on IO?


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## lucasmarin (Aug 29, 2010)

That is exactly what I think edgelore. It has to be Lightroom, since everywhere else works just fine.
Lightroom receives scroll instructions, but it does not do anything with them, except changing the mouse pointer.
And there is even more. If the mouse pointer is OVER the scroll bars, the scrolling DOES work, but if the mouse pointer is over lets say the pictures in grid mode, it DOESN'T.
That has to be something to do with Lightroom. Can any one provide a clue?
Thanks


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## clee01l (Aug 29, 2010)

[quote author=lucasmarin link=topic=1'616.msg73146#msg73146 date=1283'585'4]
That is exactly what I think edgelore. It has to be Lightroom, since everywhere else works just fine....[/quote]But this does not explain why it works with my HP laptop and Synaptics touch pad. It also works with my Desktop and Bamboo touch. I'm no fan of laptop touch pads, preferring a real mouse over that form of navigation. Yet I am still able to drag out my nearly abandoned laptop and put it through the the routine I described earlier not even being familiar with 'mousewheeling" with a touchpad.. 
And I'll be the first in line to list LRs shortcomings. I have no horse in this race, but if I did, my money would be on LR. For I believe it is either obsolete orf buggy touchpad drivers or improper user setup.


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## ukbrown (Aug 29, 2010)

http://www.lightroomqueen.com/community/index.php?topic=497'.'

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/329587 

Get the latest touchpad drivers for you device, is the best advice I can offer.


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## Jim Wilde (Aug 29, 2010)

FWIW, my laptop is a Thinkpad (T61p) which has the UltraNav device on the keyboard (a three button trackpoint and a trackpad, both components can be individually configured). Normally I have the trackpad disabled, as I don't like them, and when the laptop is on the dock station I use a wireless mouse with scroll wheel (which as others have reported, works as expected in Lightroom). When not on the dock, I obviously use just the trackpoint.

Since this thread started, and more out of curiosity rather than a need, I have been trying to get scrolling working in Lightroom using either the trackpoint or the trackpad and have failed utterly. With both devices I can scroll quite happily in other apps, but just not in Lightroom. Now I'm always willing to believe that this is a "user error" on my part, but if so I just can't figure out what!

Oh yes, the driver for this device is, of course, Synaptics, and it is also up to date. Oddly, I wonder is this is a part be part of the problem as the only people who seem to have the scrolling function working have reported that it is on 'old laptops'....though not sure how old that actually is, as my Thinkpad is getting a little venerable now.

Cletus, what driver version is loaded on that HP laptop of yours....mine is 15.'.24.'.


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## edgelore (Aug 30, 2010)

Ok! So after some good unscientific application of the scientific method I have some new observations. I think I know for sure why this is happening and am more convinced than ever that while not necessarily Adobe's "fault" they are the only one who can fix it... so I guess it is their fault. Hear me out.

I started with the latest Synaptics vendor-specific (HP) driver v15.'.17.4 for my touchpad. No scrolling working no matter where I placed the cursor (over the thumbnails or over the scroll bar for instance in grid view). Lightroom is the only application where scrolling doesn't work.

I installed the latest Synaptics vender-generic driver v14.'.3c to see what would happen. I lost the ability to turn my touchpad on/off, but now scrolling worked (ONLY when hovering in the actual scrollbar area and NOT anywhere else). Noticing that the scroll bar slider control lights up a little whenever the cursor enters the scroll bar area, I had a thought. 

It hit me: the scrollbars are all independent controls from every window or panel that they control. It looks like either the content panel has focus OR the scrollbar has focus. This is not typical as most programs are written with standard Windows UI calls to controls that contain both the content and the scrollbar in the same single control. This explains why it only seems to be an issue in Windows (as far as I can tell from other threads). It also explains why it only affects touchpads (and why regular scroll wheel mice work fine). The touchpad configurations usually have a setting to scroll either the selected content (with focus) or the content currently under the mouse. 

This explains why the scrolling only works (in most Synaptics touchpad cases) when the cursor is in the scrollbar area - the content windows / panels are not by themselves scrollable and are separate controls than their associated scroll bars. So, to the driver it doesn't look like the mouse is over a scrollable region. But when it goes into the scroll bar area then it can scroll.

Scroll wheel mice must send some sort of different signal that the content control recognizes and can activate the scroll bar. It seems like the fix to me is that Adobe needs to modify the content controls / panels to recognize the scroll instructions being sent from the touchpads since the custom UI in Lightroom separates the panels from their scroll bars somehow (although obviously they communicate). Something in that communication - scroll events received by the content controls / panels - is not being passed to the scroll bar.

Still doesn't explain why my more recent, vendor-specific driver won't scroll no matter how I try it in LR. I'd be willing to write that off as shoddy driver programming on HP's part except that it works perfectly in every other application. There must be a standard for those scroll instructions. But it seems like there's maybe 2 standards: one for mice with the wheel and another for touchpads. Some touchpads probably emulate the standard for the wheel (which is probably why they work fine). But IMO Adobe needs to account for this other standard too that seems common among Synaptics-based touchpads. 

I don't know if this gets anywhere or helps anyone, but there it is. Thanks for the links and everyone else pitching in thoughts / ideas.


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## clee01l (Aug 30, 2010)

My Synaptics Driver version (via Device Manager Properties) is v 11.'.7.' The Device that I am running (from Control Panel&gt;Mouse) is Synaptics Touchpad V 6.3 on PS/2 port. As I pointed out in an earlier post, I have enabled virtual scrolling in the Device settings tab of the 'mouse' properties.


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## lucasmarin (Aug 30, 2010)

Hello clee'1l.
I'm glad it works with your HP laptop. But we are not trying to find an explanation of why it works on yours. We are trying or looking for an explanation of why it doesnt in ours. While it does work with everything else. Plus, as edgelore pointed, Lightroom seems to be getting scrolling instructions, but does nothing with them.
I'm not fan of laptop touchpads either, but when I have no other choice than using it, it is pretty annoying that the scrolling doesnt work as it should, only on Lightroom.
Ideas anyone?
Thank you very much!


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## edgelore (Aug 30, 2010)

[quote author=clee'1l link=topic=1'616.msg732'1#msg732'1 date=128314'439]
My Synaptics Driver version (via Device Manager Properties) is v 11.'.7.' The Device that I am running (from Control Panel&gt;Mouse) is Synaptics Touchpad V 6.3 on PS/2 port. As I pointed out in an earlier post, I have enabled virtual scrolling in the Device settings tab of the 'mouse' properties.
[/quote]
Maybe they just don't make drivers like they used to.  Thanks for the #s. These are several major version numbers behind the ones I have (v15 for the driver and v7.4 for the Synaptics control panel). And it's not called "virtual scrolling" anymore, but still has the option to choose between scrolling selected content or "Scroll Item under Mouse" (which I have checked). Maybe we should all roll back our drivers, heh heh... very seriously considering it actually! (if I can find an installer for them... I'm sure they're out there somewhere.)


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## clee01l (Aug 30, 2010)

[quote author=lucasmarin link=topic=1'616.msg732'4#msg732'4 date=1283143538]
Hello clee'1l.
I'm glad it works with your HP laptop. But we are not trying to find an explanation of why it works on yours. ..[/quote]You don't need to be rude. I was responding to Jim Wilde's (TNG) question. 

I would really like to help you. As long as you maintain your insistance that the fault lies some where besides you or your equipment, I think all of us are pounding our heads against a brick wall. 

I've spent enough time on this issue.


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## ukbrown (Aug 30, 2010)

> In my girlfriends computer, it does work. She has a sony vaio and i have a compaq.



Using the same version of lightroom, different h/w and it works. Explain how it can be LR - please - I can't see how it can be, but I am not really tuned into it's LR fault.


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## Victoria Bampton (Aug 30, 2010)

[quote author=edgelore link=topic=1'616.msg732'5#msg732'5 date=1283144191]Maybe we should all roll back our drivers, heh heh... very seriously considering it actually! (if I can find an installer for them... I'm sure they're out there somewhere.)
[/quote]

Actually, you could be onto something there. For example, Wacom have broken LR things in their most recent drivers. Adobe hadn't changed their tablet support in ages, and older drivers are still working fine. So that could well be worth a try.


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## lucasmarin (Aug 31, 2010)

[quote author=clee'1l link=topic=1'616.msg73217#msg73217 date=1283174481]
You don't need to be rude.
[/quote]

Sorry clee'1. It sure sounded rude, but it was not my intention at all. I appreciate your help, I really do, and I realise it is a tough one. I was just trying to bring back the attention to the part of "not working". I could probably have used a different way to say it. I apologize again. If I can say something for myself, it is that English is not my native language, and probably in my head sounded better.


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## lucasmarin (Aug 4, 2010)

Hello everyone. I would really appreciate some help here.
The touchpad doesn't scroll in Lightroom. It happened with lightroom 2 and now again with 3. It works with every other app. It only scrolls when i place the pointer over the scroll bar on the side, but it doesnt do it when the pointer is over the pictures, though the pointer changes to the scrolling icon always. In my girlfriends computer, it does work. She has a sony vaio and i have a compaq.
Please? Any help?
There is nothing in internet. I have been looking for solutions, but i couldnt find any, that is why i turn to you.
Thank you very much in advance

Lucas


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## Victoria Bampton (Aug 31, 2010)

You know, this is what I love about this place. Even when there are misunderstandings, everyone's still friends.


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