ThinkPad P50 Hardware Buttons Stopped Working

Today, when I brought my Lenovo ThinkPad P50 back from a sleeping state, the hardware mouse-buttons weren't working. I was still able to tap the touchpad to click on things, but the mechanical buttons above and below the touchpad were completely unresponsive.

To fix the problem, I downloaded the latest Synaptics driver for the P50 from the Lenovo Support site. The version of my existing Synaptics driver (19.3.4.219) matched the most recent version listed on the website, but the website showed a more recent release date ("12 Dec 2018") than the driver date listed in Device Manager ("10/31/2018"). I ran the downloaded installer. It told me that nothing was installed, because the existing driver was already up-to-date... but my hardware buttons started working again anyway!

What did the installer do to fix the problem? I don't know. But I'm publishing this in the hope that it will help another ThinkPad user.

Given that the driver linked to above is also listed as working on the ThinkPad P70, I'm guessing it could fix the same issue on P70 laptops, too.

How Can I Tell Which Version of the Synaptics Driver I Have Installed?
Two ways:
  1. Control Panel -> Search for "mouse settings" and choose "Change mouse settings"
    1. Click the "ThinkPad" tab
    2. Click "Settings" button
    3. Click "Advanced" tab
    4. Click the nested "About" tab
    5. Driver version appears in the "TouchPad Information" box
  2. Control Panel -> Search for "device manager" and choose "Device Manager"
    1. Expand the "Mice and other pointing devices" item
    2. Open the "Synaptics Pointing Device" properties dialog
    3. Click the "Driver" tab

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