I could no longer move the mouse pointer on an eMachines netbook system running Ubuntu 12.04. I could use Alt-Tab to move between open windows, but could not move the mouse pointer using the touchpad. Using the instructions at Restarting your touchpad/mouse in Ubuntu in simple steps, I used the Alt-F2 key combination to obtain a "run a command" field. I tried
gksudo modprobe -r psmouse then hit Alt-F2 again and
entered gksudo modprobe psmouse but found no difference. I already
had a terminal window open, so I switched to it with Alt-Tab, though
you can open one by hitting Alt-F2 and entering gnome-terminal
. I entered the command sudo modprobe -r psmouse there
and provided my password when prompted. The screen then went black for a
moment and I appeared to have been logged off. I provided the login password
for my account, hit Alt-F2, typed gnome-terminal,
then typed sudo modprobe psmouse. That restored mouse movement
using the touchpad, though I did see the message "System program problem
detected Do you want to report the problem now?" I chose to
report the problem. That led to another window opening with the message
"Sorry, Ubuntu 12.04 has experienced an internal error. If you notice
further problems, try restarting the computer." When I chose to look at
details, I saw the following:
Executable Path
/usr/bin/Xorg
Package
xserver-xorg-core 2:1:.11.4-0ubuntu10.13
Problem Type
Xorg crashed with SIGABRT in raise()
.tmp.uity.support.test.0
A crash report for the incident was placed in /var/crash.
At that point after submitting the report, I decided to reboot.
