GNU bug report logs - #78918
30.1; mouse clicks not registering when using laptop touchpad on MS-Windows

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Vince Salvino <salvino <at> coderedcorp.com>
To: "bug-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org" <bug-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org>
Subject: 30.1; mouse clicks not registering when using laptop touchpad on
 MS-Windows
Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2025 07:01:20 +0000

For example, when using dired mode, clicking a directory normally opens it in a new buffer. However with this bug, clicking has no effect, almost as if the mouse button is not registered at all. Similarly, trying to click to set the cursor position or select a region does not work. Using a normal USB mouse works fine, just not with the touchpad. Scroll works fine on the touchpad.

For reference, I am using a Dell XPS laptop with Windows 11. I know this is going to be a very difficult (or near impossible) thing to debug, however I am only reporting the issue because it works on Emacs 29.4, but not on 30.1. I tested using builds from the emacs FTP site, and ran with -Q option to ensure a clean state.

I would be happy to debug this myself, if someone could point me in the right direction in the codebase. Surely something must have changed between 29.4 and 30.1 related to mouse / HID handling. I have compiled a build from the master branch as of a few hours ago, and the bug is still present.

Any ideas?

---

In GNU Emacs 30.1 (build 2, x86_64-w64-mingw32) of 2025-02-23 built on
 AVALON
Windowing system distributor 'Microsoft Corp.', version 10.0.26100
System Description: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro (v10.0.2009.26100.4484)

Configured using:
 'configure --with-modules --without-dbus --with-native-compilation=aot
 --without-compress-install --with-tree-sitter CFLAGS=-O2
 prefix=/g/rel/install/emacs-30.1'

Configured features:
ACL GIF GMP GNUTLS HARFBUZZ JPEG LCMS2 LIBXML2 MODULES NATIVE_COMP
NOTIFY W32NOTIFY PDUMPER PNG RSVG SOUND SQLITE3 THREADS TIFF
TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS TREE_SITTER WEBP XPM ZLIB

(NATIVE_COMP present but libgccjit not available)

Important settings:
  value of $LANG: ENU
  locale-coding-system: cp1252

Major mode: Lisp Interaction

Minor modes in effect:
  tooltip-mode: t
  global-eldoc-mode: t
  eldoc-mode: t
  show-paren-mode: t
  electric-indent-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  tool-bar-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  minibuffer-regexp-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  indent-tabs-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t

Load-path shadows:
None found.

Features:
(shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug message mailcap yank-media puny dired
dired-loaddefs rfc822 mml mml-sec password-cache epa derived epg rfc6068
epg-config gnus-util text-property-search time-date subr-x mm-decode
mm-bodies mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader
cl-loaddefs cl-lib sendmail rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mm-util
mail-prsvr mail-utils rmc iso-transl tooltip cconv eldoc paren electric
uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type elisp-mode mwheel
touch-screen dos-w32 ls-lisp disp-table term/w32-win w32-win w32-vars
term/common-win tool-bar dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe
tabulated-list replace newcomment text-mode lisp-mode prog-mode register
page tab-bar menu-bar rfn-eshadow isearch easymenu timer select
scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax font-core term/tty-colors
frame minibuffer nadvice seq simple cl-generic indonesian philippine
cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao
korean japanese eucjp-ms cp51932 hebrew greek romanian slovak czech
european ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese composite emoji-zwj charscript
charprop case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help abbrev obarray oclosure
cl-preloaded button loaddefs theme-loaddefs faces cus-face macroexp
files window text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env
code-pages mule custom widget keymap hashtable-print-readable backquote
threads w32notify w32 lcms2 multi-tty move-toolbar make-network-process
native-compile emacs)

Memory information:
((conses 16 40993 18845) (symbols 48 5410 0) (strings 32 14078 1794)
 (string-bytes 1 326087) (vectors 16 9323)
 (vector-slots 8 112662 11886) (floats 8 23 19) (intervals 56 252 3)
 (buffers 992 10))

Message #8 received at 78918 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
To: Vince Salvino <salvino <at> coderedcorp.com>
Cc: 78918 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#78918: 30.1;
 mouse clicks not registering when using laptop touchpad on MS-Windows
Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2025 10:58:53 +0300

> From: Vince Salvino <salvino <at> coderedcorp.com>
> Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2025 07:01:20 +0000
> 
> For example, when using dired mode, clicking a directory normally opens it in a new buffer. However with this bug, clicking has no effect, almost as if the mouse button is not registered at all. Similarly, trying to click to set the cursor position or select a region does not work. Using a normal USB mouse works fine, just not with the touchpad. Scroll works fine on the touchpad.

I cannot reproduce this.  I downloaded what seems to be the same build
as what you have:

> In GNU Emacs 30.1 (build 2, x86_64-w64-mingw32) of 2025-02-23 built on
>  AVALON
> Windowing system distributor 'Microsoft Corp.', version 10.0.26100
> System Description: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro (v10.0.2009.26100.4484)

with the minor difference that System Description shows an older
build:

  System Description: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro (v10.0.2009.26100.4351)

and all the touchpad clicks produce the expected effects.  This is a
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen-12 laptop, FTR.

> For reference, I am using a Dell XPS laptop with Windows 11. I know this is going to be a very difficult (or near impossible) thing to debug, however I am only reporting the issue because it works on Emacs 29.4, but not on 30.1. I tested using builds from the emacs FTP site, and ran with -Q option to ensure a clean state.
> 
> I would be happy to debug this myself, if someone could point me in the right direction in the codebase. Surely something must have changed between 29.4 and 30.1 related to mouse / HID handling. I have compiled a build from the master branch as of a few hours ago, and the bug is still present.
> 
> Any ideas?

Maybe review the software installed on the laptop (by Dell or by you)
that could affect the touchpad behavior: perhaps some options or
add-on software causes this?  If you find some settings which affects
this, we could then take it from there.

Message #11 received at 78918 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Vince Salvino <salvino <at> coderedcorp.com>
To: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
Cc: "78918 <at> debbugs.gnu.org" <78918 <at> debbugs.gnu.org>
Subject: RE: bug#78918: 30.1; mouse clicks not registering when using laptop
 touchpad on MS-Windows
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2025 18:38:06 +0000

Thanks for checking, Eli. Sorry to have wasted your time - this bug was caused by my own stupidity.

Hitting a wall, I ended up reinstalling Windows, and of course it fixed the problem. In hindsight, I have so many developer tools installed on my machine that something on the PATH was likely causing a conflict with one of the DLLs or EXEs bundled with Emacs. I frequently have this problem, and should have caught it much earlier. A common culprit is libwinpthread-1.dll which tons of other software also bundles.

I guess the lesson learned is to have Emacs users check for PATH additions, and test without those first, when getting weird bugs.

Vince Salvino

Message #16 received at 78918-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
To: Vince Salvino <salvino <at> coderedcorp.com>
Cc: 78918-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#78918: 30.1; mouse clicks not registering when using laptop
 touchpad on MS-Windows
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2025 15:15:41 +0300

> From: Vince Salvino <salvino <at> coderedcorp.com>
> CC: "78918 <at> debbugs.gnu.org" <78918 <at> debbugs.gnu.org>
> Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2025 18:38:06 +0000
> 
> Thanks for checking, Eli. Sorry to have wasted your time - this bug was caused by my own stupidity.
> 
> Hitting a wall, I ended up reinstalling Windows, and of course it fixed the problem. In hindsight, I have so many developer tools installed on my machine that something on the PATH was likely causing a conflict with one of the DLLs or EXEs bundled with Emacs. I frequently have this problem, and should have caught it much earlier. A common culprit is libwinpthread-1.dll which tons of other software also bundles.
> 
> I guess the lesson learned is to have Emacs users check for PATH additions, and test without those first, when getting weird bugs.

No sweat, I'm therefore closing this bug.

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