Four-finger left-swipe not working on fresh Pop!_OS install with version 2.0.15

[XV-02]

The Issue

After a clean install with Pop!_OS 22.04 Intel iso 21, and subsequently completing a full upgrade of packages, four-finger left-swipe no longer functions.

Background in case other users think they might have this problem

In Pop!_OS multitouch trackpad gestures are supported. In Cosmic for Gnome, Pop!_OS utilizes three finger gestures for quickly moving window focus as part of it's less directly mouse-driven design (swiping fingers is faster than moving a cursor discretely and clicking). The general direction of the sweep is used to allow focus to be thrown quickly through windows.

Along side three-finger gestures, Pop!_OS uses four-finger interactions to access some of the shell features including switching between workspaces, and deploying the Workspace and Application Views.

Pop!_OS' inclination to making individual UX elements more mono-functional means that the Applications View and Workspaces View are separated. By default, a four-finger right-swipe will bring up the Applications View and a subsequent left- or right- swipe will dismiss the view. For Workspaces View, the left-swipe is used. Up and Down switch between logically adjacent workspaces.

Is this my problem?

If four-finger left-swipes, which bring up the Workspaces View, don't work for you this may be your issue. You can run touchegg --debug in a terminal and check if your output matches below.

Logs

When attempting a four-finger left-swipe, touchegg --debug yields the following:

Gesture begin detected
               Gesture information:
                              Fingers: 4
                              Type: SWIPE
                              Direction: LEFT
               Gesture performed on app: Gjs
               Action configured for this gesture
               Ignoring this gesture. This could mean no action is configured, the configured action is not 
               supported or that it was performed in a system window (panel, dock, desktop, etc)

Doing the same to the right provides constant output indicating Gesture update detected ({some number}%)

Other notes:

On a much older Pop!_OS install (updated from 21.10, and regularly since), updating did not break the four-finger left-swipe gesture. Restarting Touchegg did not remedy the issue either. The problem didn't present until after rebooting following the update (as far as I could tell).

[n3m0-22]

A little over a year ago I had a one off I was never able to replicate where installing touche broke 4 finger swipe. It was fixed by finding the broken swipe in touche (workspaces view in this case) and setting the option in the dropdown to Execute a command. I remember this as I just checked to see if it would happen when testing #10 the other day. I was not able to reproduce it then either, but it may be a helpful place to start investigating.

[XV-02]

This issue was cropping up on at least 3 fresh installs. Each one was installed from the recent general release ISO (21), and then fully updated.

The part that gets me is that older installs seemed fine. I would expect that to apply to our ISO as well, seeing as https://github.com/pop-os/touchegg/pull/10 isn't baked into the most recent general release. And, the swipe works on a fresh install prior to bringing everything up to date, or when touchegg is held.

So far, it's been seen on a Lemp9, a Lemp6, and a DevOne.

I did note that the same debug text which appeared for four-finger left-swipe also appeared for up- and down-, even though those inputs work.

[thomas-zimmerman]

In working with HP they have started seeing user reports that some of the gestures are not working. Looking requested logs, I'm seeing this:

Jan 25 14:31:39 hpdevone gnome-shell[466732]: ../../../gobject/gsignal.c:2765: instance '0x55bc1ee256d0' has no handler with id '1'
Jan 25 14:31:39 hpdevone gnome-shell[466732]: ../../../gobject/gsignal.c:2765: instance '0x55bc1ee256d0' has no handler with id '2'
Jan 25 14:31:39 hpdevone gnome-shell[466732]: Source ID 3511065 was not found when attempting to remove it
Jan 25 14:31:39 hpdevone gnome-shell[466732]: Source ID 3518006 was not found when attempting to remove it
Jan 25 14:31:39 hpdevone gnome-shell[466732]: Source ID 3510680 was not found when attempting to remove it
Jan 25 14:31:39 hpdevone gnome-shell[466732]: [popx11gestures@system76.com] Extension disabled
Jan 25 14:31:39 hpdevone gnome-shell[466732]: [popx11gestures@system76.com] Building entry point for GNOME Shell 42.3.1
Jan 25 14:31:39 hpdevone gnome-shell[466732]: [popx11gestures@system76.com] No tracker, skipping
Jan 25 14:31:39 hpdevone gnome-shell[466732]: [VERTICAL-OVERVIEW] resetting overrides
Jan 25 14:31:39 hpdevone gnome-shell[466732]: [VERTICAL-OVERVIEW] disabled
Jan 25 14:31:39 hpdevone gnome-shell[466732]: [popx11gestures@system76.com] Connection with Touchégg daemon lost: null
Jan 25 14:31:39 hpdevone gnome-shell[466732]: [popx11gestures@system76.com] Connection manually closed, not reconnecting to the daemon

The direct report that this error message is from has these gestures not working:

• Application library
• Pinch to zoom
• Workspace overview
• Switching Windows

[jacobgkau]

@thomas-zimmerman I tested #12 on a Dev One and was only able to recreate left four-finger swipe breaking without the fix (it works with the fix.) Right four-finger swipe continued working even without the fix.

The issue you're describing may be something different, so let us know if it still occurs once version 2e20838 is released and people have that installed.

[thomas-zimmerman]

Sounds like the 4 finger swipe is fixed but at least one HP customer is still seeing other gestures that are not working.