# Synaptics Touchpad + Firefox = Angst **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 29, 2005, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/synaptics-touchpad-firefox-angst/287268 "2005-01-29T10:00:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Eleusis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Eleusis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleusis)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2005, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/synaptics-touchpad-firefox-angst/287268/1 "2005-01-29T10:00:42Z")
In Firefox, when I use my laptop’s touchpad to (attempt) to do the auto scrolling mousewheel emulation (by sliding my finger down the right side of the pad), it tends to stick and not work at all, and if it does, all of a sudden BAM it’s at the bottom of the page. It worked at first, but has gotten consistently worse. I’ve just updated to the most recent touchpad driver, which now shows a mini scroll bar when you attempt to scroll, and the animated tray icon still lights up blue, correctly, but still nothing happens. Making sure my pointer is hovering over, or even clicking the background of the page I’m trying to scroll doesn’t work either. I’ve also tried at least one extension that was supposed to smooth it out, but that didn’t help at all. I’ve now removed it and rebooted to no avail. IE still works perfectly in this respect, and I’m almost tempted to go back, though I perish the thought. It’s the ONLY thing I still like better about IE, but it’s very important to me. Anybody experienced this or have a solution? 😕 :mad: Windows XP Pro SR2, Firefox 1.0, Synaptics Touchpad v5.9 with the 7.12.7 driver ---
**Author:** ![Chimpy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@Chimpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimpy)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2005, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/synaptics-touchpad-firefox-angst/287268/2 "2005-01-29T11:16:13Z")
Go to Tools/Options/Advanced and check that under “Browsing” “Use Smoothscroll” is ticked. I don’t know if this will help you, but it’s worth a try. ---
**Author:** ![Eleusis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Eleusis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleusis)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2005, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/synaptics-touchpad-firefox-angst/287268/3 "2005-01-29T11:24:49Z")
Thanks, but no dice. Auto-scrolling and Smooth-scrolling were both checked. I unchecked them and restarted firefox, no joy. I rechecked them and restarted firefox, no joy. Furthermore, since I started this thread (same time that I updated the driver), the problem is no longer sporadic. Now, it’s completely broken. ---
**Author:** ![Garfield226](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Garfield226](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garfield226)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2005, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/synaptics-touchpad-firefox-angst/287268/4 "2005-01-29T17:58:08Z")
Hmm…mine works ok, but it’s VERY sensitive, and the horizontal scrolling doesn’t work at all. Perhaps try going to the touchpad settings and disabling the Long Distance Scrolling options. ---
**Author:** ![Garfield226](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Garfield226](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garfield226)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2005, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/synaptics-touchpad-firefox-angst/287268/5 "2005-01-29T18:09:43Z")
Alternatively, as I’ve just discovered, you could go into the touchpad settings, turn “Tap Zones” on and set one of them to “middle click.” Then when you tap that corner (or at least when I tap that corner), you can scroll. ---
**Author:** ![Eleusis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Eleusis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleusis)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2005, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/synaptics-touchpad-firefox-angst/287268/6 "2005-01-29T23:03:09Z")
A bump for the evening crowd… ---
**Author:** ![Eleusis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Eleusis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleusis)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2005, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/synaptics-touchpad-firefox-angst/287268/7 "2005-01-30T00:05:27Z")
Well, I finally got it working. Completely uninstalling the synaptics utility worked a little bit, and then installing this older driver got the advanced features working again. Thanks