Windows 10 3 finger touchpad swipe gestures don't work after wakeup

Question

After upgrading to Windows 10, after waking the computer from sleep, 3 finger swipe gestures (to minimize all windows or to go to task view), stop working. 3 finger click still brings up Cortana. I'm on a Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro using the Windows 10 19.0.9.5 touchpad drivers. Any help is appreciated!

Edit: This isn't a duplicate of the question linked by Ramhound. That question concerns a touchpad being completely disabled after sleep. In this case, only three finger swipe up doesn't work; everything else is totally fine. The solution is to restart "synaptics touch pad 64 bit enhancements". I don't have access to the laptop in question at the moment, but a simple "taskkill /IM SynTPEnh.exe" will end the process. The process will automatically restart. You might want to put this command in a batch script and schedule it to run on wake up, though I haven't been able to successfully use the Windows event system to do this, and just manually run the script on wake up.

Solution 1

until synaptics(the touchpad manufacturer) comes with a fix we had to manually restart the synaptics services after resuming from sleep

start the task manager
look for "synaptics touch pad 64 bit enhancements"
click on it
then click on the "end task" button

by now two finger scrolling shouldn't work don't worry
go to control panel
then hardware and sound then synaptics
it might ask you to unistall driver click NO
the synaptics options window appears
wait for 3 or for seconds and all gestures will start working

Solution 2

I've had this same issue, also on a Spectre X360 (Skylake). Once updating to Win10 1511, I would lose multi-finger gesture support on the Touchpad after the machine slept. (Scrolling worked, but 3/4 finger tapping and flicking did not).

Thanks to this post, I found that restarting the SynTPEnhService.exe usually fixed this. However, with the most recent Synaptics driver update, I have found that service is no longer installed or running. Instead, a normal userland process SynTPEnh.exe seems to be taking care of the same tasks. As @firstever notes in the provided script, killing and restarting this process fixes the issue. But that is a pain every time I wake my laptop! As a "permanent" fix, I have done the following.

First, I have created the following batch file: (The powershell script would probably be fine. I'm showing the grey in my beard here!)

taskkill /im SynTPEnh.exe /f 
Start "" "C:\Program Files\Synaptics\SynTP\SynTPEnh.exe"

Then, I used the Windows Task Scheduler to create a new task (not Basic task - all options won't be shown).

Under the Triggers tab, I added a trigger and selected "On Workstation Unlock"

Under the Actions tab, I added a "Start a Program" action and pointed it to the above batch file.

I also made sure to visit the Conditions tab and uncheck the "Start only on AC power" option.

Since doing this, I am never without my gestures for more than a few seconds after waking the machine from sleep. It's not a perfect solution (Synaptics! Fix this!) but the problem is essentially invisible for me now.

Solution 3

Solved (Tested on Yoga 900)

This is NOT mindless tinkering (killing services, etc), the OP looks like he knew what he was doing and this just worked for me straight off the bat. I'm running a Yoga 900 with stock win 10 64 bit.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insider/forum/insider_wintp-insider_search/three-finger-swipe-for-task-view-not-working/547d5c1b-7a84-423b-bdbc-3ffc7084526a?auth=1

I'm pasting the link content here for my own future reference and if the link goes down

I had this problem with my Synaptics touchpad on a Lenovo laptop running Windows 10. (Fortunately it only one of two user accounts was broken)

I used Regedit to fix the problem

1. Press Win and type Regedit
2. and Navigate
   • HKEY_CURRENT_USER
   • SOFTWARE
   • Synatics
   • SynTP
   • TouchpadPS2 (this has numbers as well)
   • 3FingerGestures
3. OK we are in the right place For the 3 Finger Swipes to work correctly edit the following ActionIDs to the following ActionID1 = 5c ActionID3 = 5f ActionID5 = 5d ActionID7 = 5e
4. Exit the Registry Editor and reset (reboot or signout and signin)

The 3 Finger Swipes should now work as intended. HOWEVER. Some people prefer the 3 finger swipe to control the forward and back button in browsers set ActionID3 = 1c ActionID7 = 1c

okay, after making the laptop sleep when the swipe gesture was working made it stick across sleep-wake cycles. I've made the laptop sleep several times and swipe's still working :)

Solution 4

Adding to @amir the following powershell script helps me:

Stop-Process -processname SynTPEnh; & "C:\Program Files\Synaptics\SynTP\SynTPEnh.exe"

Solution 5

Messing around and the registry, I found the problem. The problem has to do with the registry using windows 8 defaults for 3 finger gestures. You need to change the Windows 10 3 finger gestures in HKEY_Current_User, software, Synaptics, syntp, Touchpad to the Windows 10 3 finger gestures under HEY_Local_Machine, software, Synaptics, syntp, win10, 3 finger gestures. You'll notice the HKEY current users settings are different than the windows 10 default settings under HKEY Local Machine.

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Comments

[Ramhound]

Possible duplicate of Since upgrading to Windows 10 my touchpad rapidly switches from enabled to disabled

[Slithy Toves]

It's not a duplicate. Check my edit for details. I've also provided a more detailed solution.

[Dheeraj Bhaskar]

The answer specific to Lenovo Yoga 900 has been posted below with title "Solved"

[Slithy Toves]

Looks like for me, simply ending the process causes it to restart and gestures to work again. Thanks!

[Slithy Toves]

This sort of worked, but unfortunately I don't think that driver works too well with Windows 10 (3 finger swipe up for task view doesn't work). Thanks anyway!

[Insane]

Could you add a bit more detail as so this can be more worthy of a standalone answer?

[firstever]

The powershell script attempts to end the Synaptic task that controls the multi-touch gestures. And it restarts that task usually located in the program files. Restarting the exe fixes the sleep and hibernate issues.

[Slithy Toves]

It matches for me, but that's probably because the gestures work. Just requires a restart of the SynTP process every time it wakes up. I think it's possible when you hit "Reset to default" in the GUI settings manager, it restores the Windows 8 settings and screws up the 3 finger gestures entirely. I've just avoided that button ever since. Is there a place where all these registry settings are documented? Because I'm trying to fix yet another touchpad problem by tweaking the registry, but it's kind of hard when I'm just taking shots in the dark.

[Slithy Toves]

I tried leaving SynTPEnh Caller Service disabled for a couple days, and while it seemed to work when I tested a few sleeps and restarts, leaving it asleep for longer and coming back resulted in the gesture not working again. I had to kill SynTPEnh and reenable the service for the gesture to start working again. It's just ridiculous that Synaptic hasn't fixed this issue after so long.

[Slithy Toves]

It turns out, despite the difference in version numbering, it installs the same driver as the one I got from Lenovo's website.

[tk01]

@SlithyToves Yep, ending the process for me also just works. Lenovo T460s

[Dheeraj Bhaskar]

This fixes the wrong association of actions to the swipes but it still gets disabled after sleep-wakeup; still looking for a solution

[Dheeraj Bhaskar]

okay, after making the laptop sleep when the swipe gesture was working made it stick across sleep-wake cycles. I've made the laptop sleep several times and swipe's still working :)

[user534498]

Hi, is there any new update recently? My laptop has similar problems for years. And it is not 3-finger but 2 finger scroll gesture (other 3-finger 4-finger gestures all work without problem). Only 2-finger scroll failed to work after wakeup. I often use windows Insider fast track to quickly get a new Windows 10 to solve it, but this depends on luck. On some versions of Windows, it is ok, but for some versions of Windows, the 2-finger scroll broke. Thanks for your script this solved my 2-finter problem but I wonder whether there's update or not.

[Toyas]

Do you know how to flip the direction of swipe for backward and forward? I have set ActionID3 and ActionID7 to 1c, when I do three finger scroll from right to left it goes back and when I do three finger scroll from left to right it goes forward. I want it other around. Thanks in advance.