DS4 Controller disconnecting only in Retroarch

[gamesfan]

Hello Everyone,
I have been searching hi and low and am need of some expert help. The issue I am having is once I pair my Dual Shock 4 controller over bluetooth it works until I go to a game.

Now, interestingly enough it will work in the game (If I turn off and re-pair the controller). It seems to behave like this in WIRED configuration too. So it is no isolated to bluetooth. Here is what I have been able to gather.

1. The controller works fine in Emulation station
2. Once I go to a game (retroarch specifc emulator) the emulator start up, sees the controller (there is a message at the bottom auto load config) and it stops working until I re-pair.. It will continue to work fine until I do one of the following. A) Exit the game. B) Go to the retroarch menu… It actually works fine in the menu but stops working when I resume the game. Then I have to turn it off and re-pair it again.
3. Interesting enough, once re-paired and I exit the game via the hot key, the controller works just fine in emulation station and in emulators that are not retroarch.

I have a RP2 , and tried using 3.3 and 3.4 versions of Wheezy. I have not found the strength to start all over with Jessie yet.

I hope someone else has seen this before and can point me in the right direction.

Other important notes.
1. I followed the guide here to get it working: https://www.petrockblock.com/forums/topic/tutorial-retropie-with-dualshock-4-and-bluetooth/
2. I had issues getting controller configs to work properly and added the configs to the contollers to the retroarch.cfg manually.

Thank you all for your time and a big thanks to all involved in this wonderful project.

Brian

[io2red]

I’m having the exact same problem with my four DS4 controllers. I managed to get the first two working by setting up the hotkeys manually in RetroArch, but for some reason controllers 3 & 4 never seem to work in RetroArch emulated games.

Just like you, all four of my DS4 controllers work perfectly fine in EmulationStation. Then you load up a PSX game, it says the Sony Computer Entertainment Wireless Controller is Configured to Port #X” where X is 0 to 4 respectively for each controller. However I cannot for the life of me seem to get the 3rd and 4th controllers to respond in RetroArch emulated games.

When configuring controllers through RetroArch, make sure you go to, “Settings” > “Configuration” > “Save Configuration On Exit” – Otherwise none of your changes will be saved when you close RetroArch.

I have tried to configure the 3rd and 4th controllers this way, and the buttons react like I am configuring them, but they still don’t work in-game. It’s extremely frustrating and I have exhausted every option I can think of.

Seriously if anyone has ANY idea what to do, please help us.

[gamesfan]

io2red,
Do they work if you turn them off (while in game) by holding down the PS button for 10 seconds, then turn it back on while holding the share button?

This is the only way I am able to get my controllers to work in game.

[dankcushions]

[quote=115321]
Just like you, all four of my DS4 controllers work perfectly fine in EmulationStation. Then you load up a PSX game, it says the Sony Computer Entertainment Wireless Controller is Configured to Port #X” where X is 0 to 4 respectively for each controller. However I cannot for the life of me seem to get the 3rd and 4th controllers to respond in RetroArch emulated games.
[/quote]

this isn’t libretro/retroarch issue. pcsx-rearmed (the playstation emulator) does not support 3/4 player controllers: https://github.com/notaz/pcsx_rearmed/issues/43

your controllers should work fine in libretro mame cores. consoles like the snes need a special configuration to support 3/4 players (it’s in the wiki/forums)

[gamesfan]

Darkcushions,
Thank you for taking the time to reply, my issues are specifc to players 1 and 2 across all systems that use retroarch.

My issues are different than io2red, he does not appear to have the issues where you need to disconnect\reconnect controllers to get them to work. He is having issues with controllers 3 and 4. He makes no mention of the issue I have. Although he has not yet responded to my question of “do they work if you disconnect\reconnect while in game” he does mention in a diffrent thread that he was able to get controllers 3 and 4 working in Retropie 3.3 in PSX. So, unless he is using a diffrent core in the new 3.4 version perhaps something has changed, or the issue is mistaken.

It seems our issues are in common by the fact we use the same controller and have followed the same guide to set them up.

[io2red]

[quote=115345]this isn’t libretro/retroarch issue. pcsx-rearmed (the playstation emulator) does not support 3/4 player controllers: https://github.com/notaz/pcsx_rearmed/issues/43

your controllers should work fine in libretro mame cores. consoles like the snes need a special configuration to support 3/4 players (it’s in the wiki/forums)[/quote]

Ahhh, okay that makes sense. I spent so much time trying to configure it to get it to work, and it wasn’t even possible, haha. Thank you very much for spending the time to reply and let me know.

@gamesfan

When you try to run:
sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends joystick checkinstall bluez-utils bluez-compat bluez-hcidump libusb-dev libbluetooth-dev

Does it give you an error with bluez-utils? (Removing it from the command will cause it to tell you bluez-compat doesn’t work either)
Try this instead, and then follow the guide like normal:

sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends joystick checkinstall bluez bluez-hcidump libusb-dev libbluetooth-dev

[gamesfan]

io2red,
I tried to run the command suggested but it told me all my packages werre already up to date.

[gamesfan]

I wanted to update everyone this issue is resolved. I took the time and did a clean install to 3.4. Its all good now.. must have been some legacy configs screwing things up.

[Author]

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