Scrolling in GTK+ apps with synaptics driver - Reverse Engineer

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Scrolling in GTK+ apps with synaptics driver

Posted by alex on Jul 30th, 2010

When using a Windows laptop, you might be stuck with a synaptic touchpad.

Those crappy drivers with their so-called virtual scrolling create a fake window below the cursor to display their custom scrolling icon.

That window interfere with the signal sent to the application under, and GTK for some reason can't detect that (most likely the devs don't care about us).

The result is being unable to scroll in popular GTK apps like Wireshark or Pidgin.

After playing with Spy++ and Procmon for some time, I found an interesting registry key that solved my problem.

This setting will disable the custom cursor when you scroll, effectively fixing the scrolling problem in GTK apps.

First you have to open regedit. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Synaptics\SynTPEnh and create a new DWORD called UseScrollCursor with a value of 0.

Restart SynTPEh (or reboot).

Scrolling should work in GTK apps now, but you won't see the scrolling cursor anymore.

Update: If that does not work, you can try to run

taskkill /im SynTPEnh.exe

Source: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=1524405
Thanks to pieter for that link!

Happy scrolling!

30 comments

Comments

2011-05-15 at 16:07

Eugene

Thanks man! It really works!

2011-07-19 at 13:17

pieter

This didn't fix the problem for me on Synaptics driver version 15.3.6.0.
After some searching though, I found http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=1524405
Which works wonderfully :)
Greetings!

2011-07-19 at 14:20

alex
Administrateur

Thank you for your feedback, I'll update my post!

2012-11-08 at 07:40

Andy

Excellent!

Just started using Geany after a recommendation and my only bugbear was the loss of scrolling on my touchpad. Now it's back!

very very happy day!

2012-12-02 at 15:52

Jonathan

Thank you a lot, friend! Finally solved my problem!

2012-12-10 at 05:45

marti

Thanks a million, I used the taskill command, Geany now scrolls flawlessly!!

2013-01-07 at 18:06

Dan

This worked for me on a Toshiba L505. I had tried different drivers, but this worked with the original drivers. Thanks for this.

2013-01-14 at 23:35

Tim

Wow, I don't even know what to say but a really big thanks! I have been looking for the answer to this for awhile, and it works perfect! No more stupid mini scroll bar and all my programs scroll with 2 finger. BTW I did this on and HP Envy 14.5(Second Gen).

2013-01-29 at 06:35

Josh

Seriously cant thank you enough for this. been trying to figure out how to scroll in zune software for months on my dell studio 1555. ran the command and works like a charm. Pure awesome.

2013-02-18 at 05:30

Tomson Rider

Thank you SO MUCH!

2013-07-22 at 10:09

Efraim

HUGS AND KISSES AND THANK YOU.

2013-07-24 at 07:44

Jonathan

This really works.

Thanks!

2013-09-05 at 15:41

Cbruiser

This solution made my day...have had this problem causing me irrational irritation in Steam...thanks a million!!

2014-01-04 at 06:59

Ariel

I thought this was a firefox related problem until I realized that evince was also having the same issue, it took me a while to add up that it was a gtk thing.

Thanks.

2014-03-01 at 03:17

murak

Thank you so much! Finally I can zoom in Rhino (cad software) and scroll in Steam!

2014-03-07 at 15:34

Austin

This method works for scrolling with Steam, but I'm having a problem when clicking on windows on the Community Hub, specifically Videos. I click on one, exit out, then click on another window, then the entire page freezes. I'd have to hit the back button several times or refresh the page. Anybody else having this issue?

2014-06-12 at 21:56

Invité

Worked like a charm, thank you for taking the time out to write that up. +1UP mushroom for you!

2014-06-21 at 11:31

Invité

3 years of using laptop and didn't thought to find way to fix it. My life will become so much easier.

2014-06-29 at 22:29

Invité

I put up with that not working for years, and it's finally fixed! Thank you :)

2014-07-22 at 13:29

Invité

Thanks so much!!!!!

2014-08-08 at 19:14

Lewis

Works perfectly thank you! The scroll bar not showing up is a bonus it was annoying as hell!

2014-10-22 at 09:32

Invité

Thanks a lot :)

2014-11-01 at 18:51

Invité

thank you from a previously irritated Steam user.

2015-02-23 at 22:44

Invité

Thanks, worked perfectly :)

2015-04-17 at 09:33

Alex

Thank you so much! Easy to follow and worked right away.

2015-04-28 at 14:14

Roberto

Perfect! Thank you so much!

2015-08-02 at 22:26

Steve

I made it all the way to the DWORD step. I got lost from that point on. Please explain in simpleton form. I am computer and electronically challenged. Thanks.

2015-08-04 at 22:05

Steve

OK, I found out how to add the DWORD thing. The DWORD is for 32 bit systems. The fix didn't work for me. My system is a 64 bit. I had the option of using a DWORD or a QWORD, which is for 64 bit systems. Should I try the QWORD and use the same instructions? Thanks.

2016-09-01 at 06:29

Invité

thank you so much for this, but how do I autorun the taskkill thing?

2018-08-12 at 21:23

Melanie T

I am on a Desktop neither in Regedit nor under Devices and Printers - Optical mouse do I have anything named Synaptic so how do i fix something that is not there? I cannot scroll in Steam and it has only just started happening, I am using windows 7 ,64bit