No left click on my laptop

[Billy's Little Trip]

All of a sudden, on my IBM Thinkpad, neither the left click buttons nor my touchpad tap, respond. I can move the cursor around as normal with the touchpad, and I can click the right buttons just fine.
I've gone into to the bios, it's set to auto for the touchpad, the ultrnav has the buttons and touchpad enabled. I'd just say the palm set is bad, but why does the track point left click not work? It's got to be something software related in my mind.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

[jast]

Have you tried if it works with an external mouse? If so, at least it's not a really weird problem, just a weird one.

[Billy's Little Trip]

It works fine with Linux knoppix, so it isn't a hardware issue. So I reinstalled XP, but I still have the problem of no left click. WTF?

[Märk]

So just use Knoppix then. Duh.

[jast]

I suggested trying an external mouse partly to see if it's an issue with the touchpad driver or a general OS issue. The former would be a bit less weird (are there updated drivers avaiable on the vendor's website?).

[Billy's Little Trip]

Oh yeah, Jast, I forgot to say that a plug in mouse works fine. It's just the palm rest or touchpad or what ever they call it.
I did try to update drivers from the Lenovo community, but it didn't fix it.

Mark, the Linux disc I have runs off the rom drive, so I can't use it permanently. Plus I need windows as far as I know because of my other windows based programs.

So to update:
1. touchpad lost it's left click ability and the left click buttons do nothing.
2. They work fine running Linux Knoppix as my OS.
3. An external mouse works fine.

So Jast, does that sound like a driver conflict?

[pegor]

if you unplug everything, printer, external drives, interweb, etc; then powercycle the biatch and let it boot up without any thing attached; does it work then?

Its probably an irq conflict so unplug any cards you've added too pcmcia or what they're called nowadaze.

[Billy's Little Trip]

It's a laptop with nothing attached. I haven't even reinstalled the wireless card drives yet. Actually, the wireless card is plugged in. Let me take it out and turn it off and power back up.

edit: No, that didn't work, dang.

[jast]

So Jast, does that sound like a driver conflict?

No, it sounds more like the folks who wrote the driver are idiots. Anyway, sometimes you can configure the weirdest things in touchpad drivers, e.g. make a left click order a pizza rather than clickety-click. Perhaps you (or some other program) accidentally messed with that. See if you can get into the touchpad control panel thingy (if any... check the tray icons) and play with the settings. Good luck, you'll need it.

[Spud]

Wow. I am impressed. You really can set the left mouse button click to order a pizza. I tried it, just for fun. Want some?

[Billy's Little Trip]

Dude! that's why Domino's have been delivering pizzas here for the last 2 weeks. I've been yelling at the kids next door.

.....annnnd, lame jokes off. :/

By the way, I am starting to think it's an IBM Thinkpad/Windows XP thing. I asked the Lenovo site and another guy with a T30 has the same issue that occurred at about the same time.

[Spud]

No, seriously, did you find the control panel that jast was mentioning? I never knew about it, and sure enough, it is possible to set your left click to do any number of different things, including firing up a particular program whenever you click it, which could, indeed, be a script that ordered a pizza.

[Billy's Little Trip]

Oh, ok. Well, I can go to a section that is specifically for the IBM Thinkpad. It's called Ultranav. It's for their touchpad to do things like, scrolling on the pad, which I was using, sensitivity, which is active, etc etc. Should I be looking for something else?

[Spud]

Yeah, you are looking for something like this:

I found it under Control Panel -> Mouse -> Device Settings -> Settings -> Buttons -> Left Button Action.
Yeah it was a bitch to find, and yours will undoubtedly be different.

SPUD

[Billy's Little Trip]

I can't find that window. I've seen it before, but it's not there now. I reinstalled XP, so I'm updating right now.