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Peter Hutterer edited this page Nov 26, 2023 · 17 revisions

Follow the steps below if your tablet works but does not show up in the GNOME Control Center.

My tablet doesn't work

This is not a libwacom issue. libwacom is a glorified database for static information that the kernel device does not provide (e.g. whether it is integrated into the screen or not). libwacom has no effect on whether the device works or not. It can only inform other components. For example libinput uses libwacom to decide whether to expose a left-handed setting.

Your issue is either in the kernel or in the xf86-input-wacom driver. If you are running under Wayland, the issue may be in libinput or your desktop environment, typically it's compositor (e.g. GNOME's mutter or gnome-shell)

A good attempt at debugging is the libinput debug-events tool. If that shows events and those events look correct, the kernel works fine and the issue is in the upper layers of the stack.

Error handling

A .tablet file already exists, but my device isn't found

If the your-model-name.tablet file already exists but libwacom-list-local-devices does not show your device it is most likely missing the DeviceMatch for your device. Identify your match string (using evtest or evemu-record) and add the string to the semicolon-separated list.

Duplicate matches

The command may complain about duplicate matches, e.g.

 (libwacom-list-local-devices:2595): libwacom-CRITICAL **: Duplicate match of 'usb:056a:00d0' on device 'Wacom Bamboo Touch (2FG)'.

If you get this error you need to find the duplicate match in the /usr/share/libwacom data directory. grep for the match string (e.g. usb:056a:00d0) and identify which files include the string. Run ls -l to determine which file is newest and delete any older versions.

In most cases, duplicate matches happen when you install libwacom from source over an old version that was provided by your distribution. If two files provided by libwacom include the same string, however, please file an issue. If you edited a new file for your local tablet with the same match string, please consider adding your device match to existing file. If you installed libwacom from source and the duplicate is in a distribution-provided file, you may need to remove it in favor of the libwacom version (but keep a backup copy until you know removing the file has not caused problems).

Special Cases

The third generation Wacom Intuos received a firmware update to enable Android support. This support was added using the generic HID driver in Android (Android doesn't usually ship with the Wacom driver). This update sees the firmware now "detecting" if it is connected to an Android system. If the tablet thinks it is connected to an Android system, it will show the system a 2d1f Vendor ID (VID), and thus libwacom (and the Control Center) will not recognize the tablet. Unfortunately this detection mechanism will in some cases identify a Linux system as an Android one. To manually put the tablet back into its original mode (056a VID), hold down buttons 1 & 4 for N number of seconds.

A list of devices affected by the 2d1f VID problem:

Name Model Name VID:PID
Wacom Intuos M CTL-6100 056a:0375
Wacom Intuos BT M CTL-6100WL 056a:0378
Wacom Intuos S CTL-4100 056a:0374
Wacom Intuos BT S CTL-4100WL 056a:0376

This detection occurs due to a signal sent by the fwupd package. If you are sure that you have no other packages or hardware that depends on it, you can disable it using the following commands:

sudo systemctl stop fwupd.service
sudo systemctl disable fwupd.service
sudo systemctl mask fwupd.service