Troubleshooting Fingerprint Reader Issues with IBM's Biometric Device Control Panel

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If you're experiencing difficulties with your fingerprint reader on an IBM Thinkpad W550S running Linux, this article may help guide you through resolving the problem. In my case, I encountered issues with both Fprint and Fingerprint GUI, leading me to dig deeper into potential solutions.

The first step involves attempting to disable and re-enable the biometric device using the Control Panel's Device Manager or equivalent tool specific to your distribution. This seemingly simple action can often resolve connectivity problems between the fingerprint reader hardware and the operating system.

In my case, after disabling and enabling the IBM Biometric Devices driver through the Control Panel's Hardware & Sound section (or System Settings > Pointing > Mouse for some distributions), I was able to successfully log in using both Fingerprint GUI and password manager. The issue seemed resolved until I rebooted my machine again.

However, upon subsequent restarts, neither application would function correctly anymore – even after re-enabling the device from within BIOS settings (if applicable). It wasn't until someone pointed out that you need to also open up 'Windows Installed Biometric Device' located under Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services (or equivalent depending on distro), stop & start service called 'IBM TSS Enroll/Manage' did things finally work as expected again!

So if anyone else is experiencing similar problems like myself here please give this trick a shot before resorting to more drastic measures such as full system reinstallations. Hopefully, these simple steps will save you hours of frustration trying different combinations of package updates/reinstalls etc...

Ibm fingerprint hardware