Vive controller touch pad button doesn't register sometimes

[Husk Henriksson]

One of my vive controller touch pad sometimes doesn't register when I try to turn in game or just walking forward. Is there anyway to fix this issue?

[Bob Loblaw]

If the touch function isn't working, I don't know. If it's not responding to actual presses, that was a common issue in the early vive days when most games were push to walk and a lot of controllers were getting a lot of pushing. The least invasive fix for that was to squeeze the sides of the wand inward towards the center of the touchpad. Failing that, there's plenty of youtube vids showing a teardown to fix this touchpad problem.

[Stedios]

I had this problem ages ago, the track pad button sits on a nubbin and becomes dislodged, what worked for me was to give it a sharp tap on the opposite side of the handle!

[Damsteri]

Some wands have broken buttons, but there is also a possibility to "user error". I have done research and SW development using Vive and Vive wands. I have tested dozens of persons, mostly VR newcomers for Vive. I made a discovery about the Vive wand's buttons when many of my test subjects reported that touchpad is not working (usually same users multiple times), while the same controller was working every time for me and other persons that were using Vive more often. I asked them to do it again and watched closely what they were doing, and... they were pressing the touchpad from the very edge of it.

The thing is that Vive Wand's touch pad has only a single mechanical button under the touchpad and it is used to register all presses to different directions. It can't do it alone, it's just a simple on/off switch. So, it needs to know the user's thumb's location to calculate which direction the user pressed the touchpad. It was not designed to be used as DPAD or a substitute for a joystick. It was designed to be pressed (just simple on/off) and register the location of the thumb.

It is possible to press the touchpad on a side of it in a way that it clicks (makes the sound), but not having your thumb on the pad. Some people make that kind of press easily without realizing what they are doing. Wand doesn't know which direction that press was in that case and it doesn't register the press.

So, the fix for that kind of "user error" is to make sure you keep your thumb firmly on the pad while you press it. Surprisingly many non-gamers made that error as they were not used to any kind of gaming controllers and they didn't keep their thumb close to the center of the touchpad.