Debugging USB events - Lenovo wacom active pen

Question

I am using an active pen (one that has a battery) on my Touchpad and it has stopped working. I am trying to find out whether the problem is in the hardware or software. The touchscreen is working fine, so it is only the pen/stylus version that is not working.

What I have so far:

1. The devices are recognized fine,

   xcorat@mobilextrem:~xinput --list
   ...
   ⎜   ↳ Wacom Co.,Ltd. Pen and multitouch sensor Finger touch     id=10   [slave  pointer  (2)]
   ⎜   ↳ Wacom Co.,Ltd. Pen and multitouch sensor Pen stylus       id=11   [slave  pointer  (2)]
   ⎜   ↳ Wacom Co.,Ltd. Pen and multitouch sensor Pen eraser       id=17   [slave  pointer  (2)]
   

   ...

2. evemu-record shows events on the touch, but not the pen/stylus. The same thing with probing cat /dev/input/event9 vs cat /dev/input/event8 which are the pen and touch.

At this point I feel like it might be the pen itself (i changed the battery :/). Is there any other layer that might be software that I am missing?

OS: OpenSUSE Leap 42.3 -- Kernel 4.4.87-25 Device: Touchpad Yoga 14

Answer 1

There is still usbmon below the kernel input layer, so you could check if you receive USB packets that are malformed and not translated to input events.

However, I can't imagine any way the pen would malfunction that would cause this, so my money is on "pen, or pen communication, broken somehow".