I just got an XPS and I ran into the issue where the touch screen stops working after resume. After doing a little digging, I was able to find out that this is fixed in the Linux kernel by a developer named Mika Westerberg. I got in touch with him and he was able to set me off on the right track for developing a proper work around that I could u…

xps-touchscreen-workaround.service

[Unit]
Description=Potentially dangerous fix touchscreen after resume on the XPS 13 9350
After=suspend.target

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/home/anthony/path/to/xps-touchscreen-workaround.sh

[Install]
WantedBy=suspend.target

xps-touchscreen-workaround.sh

#!/bin/bash

# Create a kill switch that will break this script when the installed kernel version breaks. There
# is already a patch for this in the linux kernel. No telling how something like this will interract
# with that. If your new kernel version still doesn't have the fix then update the WORKS_ON_KERNEL value
# with `uname -r` and the script will work again.
#
# Maililng list with patch: https://marc.info/?l=linux-gpio&m=147610677825233&w=2
# Commit on github: https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/c538b9436751a0be2e1246b48353bc23156bdbcc
WORKS_ON_KERNEL="4.4.0-47-generic"
if ! [ "$WORKS_ON_KERNEL" = "`uname -r`" ]; then
    echo "The kernel is no longer $WORKS_ON_KERNEL. This script has an 'if' that stops it from working when the kernel changes because the actual fix for this issue might be in your new kernel. If it isn't, then modify $0 to allow it to keep running."
    exit 1
fi

# On the XPS 13 9350, my pin is 103. Run the netire command without awk to see full output
PIN_NUMBER=`grep CPU_GP_1 /sys/kernel/debug/pinctrl/INT344B\:00/pins | awk '{print $2}'`

# This is the pin ranges. You need it to use the start of the ranges to properly address the right pin
STARTING_PIN=`cat /sys/kernel/debug/pinctrl/INT344B\:00/gpio-ranges | sed -n 's/.*GPIOS.*\[\(.*\) -.*PINS.*/\1/p'`

# This is the pin that we're actually going to request modifying
EFFECTIVE_PIN=$((STARTING_PIN + PIN_NUMBER))

echo "Determined $EFFECTIVE_PIN was the right pin because CPU_GP_1 was $PIN_NUMBER and the gpio range starts at $STARTING_PIN"

# First, we lock it
echo $EFFECTIVE_PIN > /sys/class/gpio/export

# Then, we set it to high (1). The entire issue was caused by it being set to low (0) by mistake during suspend
echo high > "/sys/class/gpio/gpio$EFFECTIVE_PIN/direction"

# Then we release the lock
echo $EFFECTIVE_PIN > /sys/class/gpio/unexport

You can do something like this to install the systemd init script.

# copy the .service file into the systemd directory
sudo cp /path/to/file/xps-touchscreen-workaround.service /etc/systemd/system/xps-touchscreen-workaround.service

# restart systemd
sudo systemctl daemon-reload

# enable the service
sudo systemctl enable xps-touchscreen-workaround.service

Thank you very much for this!!!

Of course.

I should also say that the script is hard coded to work on kernel version 4.4.0-47-generic because that is what Ubuntu 16.04 LTS is currently (what I'm running). There isn't anything magical about that. If you're on a different kernel then just run uname -r and use that instead. It is just a safety precaution to make sure that this script stops working when the real fix rolls out.

Thank you very much for this!
Fixed the issue on my XPS 9360 running Ubuntu 16.06 on kernel 4.4.0-47-generic

Thanks! Works on xubuntu 16.04 on 4.4.0-47-generic.

Works for me! Thank you very much. I did notice that the kernel developer's patch seems to be in a 4.9 kernel. Any chance Canonical/Dell backports it to the 4.4?

I'm on Elementary OS (a distro based on Ubuntu 16.04) and XPS 9350 Touchscreen works perfectly for me with 4.4.0-57-generic kernel. You can check it out if it'll work for you as well.

Very nice, works for me on XPS 13 9350 and Ubuntu 16.10 (4.8.0-22-generic).

Thank you very much for providing this fix!

@naddeoa How did you find out what GPIO is responsible for enabling the Display? I have a Thinkpad X1 Yoga Gen 3 with the same issue. The touchscreen does not work after resume. It also does not show up in lsusb. Do you think that a similar solution could work for my machine too?