PS Move controllers won't pair

[CytoDave]

I've freshly installed Ubuntu just to play JS Joust and so am a bit of a Linux newbie. When trying to pair Move controllers within the game it asks me to authenticate but when I put in my password it fails and says 'root privileges required to pair PS Move controllers'. From what i've read, not much should require root access so is something going wrong. Is there an easy way round this issue?

[CytoDave]

Could be that. I did leave them to charge for about 30 minutes before trying them so there should have been enough charge in them. But will fully charge them tonight and try tomorrow. Should they just activate autonomously or is there a button to press at the 'Connect more controllers to play' screen?

[Techno]

After disconnecting from usb you just have to press the round PS button on top once to connect to bluetooth. After that any other button will do to assign that controller a slot in game.

[sekhethsis]

Regarding the bluez versioning issue, maybe you ship two binaries, one for bluez 4.x and one for bluez 5.x and put a choice in the launcher as to which one to launch?

[CytoDave]

Success!! :D Controllers were fully charged and I tried re-pairing them in-game but no joy at all. Not sure why. In-game pairing said it was successful and the bluetooth connection was live according to the Ubuntu bluetooth settings but the controllers remained completely unresponsive in the game. But...with the update sorting out the libudev issue pairing them using the pair64 program from the terminal worked :) Thanks so much for all your help with this issue. Was thinking I was going to have to pick up a PS3 just to play it (would have been worth it, the game's awesome!) Can't thank you enough for your efforts. Cheers

[Juner]

Hey! I've been having a similar problem to schoozzzmmii but it's not resolved yet. I'm running 32 bit Ubuntu 13.10 (3.11.0-12-generic #19-Ubuntu SMP Wed Oct 9 16:12:00 UTC 2013 i686), and can successfully connect the playstation move controllers inside Sportsfriends or using pair32, but they won't respond in-game.

I've noticed that in the bluetooth manager, the controllers are listed as connected when I press the home button, but not paired .[i.imgur.com]

Here's the output when I run pair32:

Sportsfriends PSMove Command Line Pairing Utility

PSMove udev rules already installed
[PSMOVE WARNING] Could not get device count from 127.0.0.1 (errno=11)
[PSMOVE WARNING] Magnetometer in 04:76:6e:b6:50:fa not yet calibrated.
[PSMOVE WARNING] Magnetometer in 04:76:6e:b6:50:fa not yet calibrated.
Found 1 PSMove controller connected via USB
[PSMOVE WARNING] Magnetometer in 04:76:6e:b6:50:fa not yet calibrated.
Pairing controller 1 SUCCESS
Paired 1 of 1 controllers

Not sure where to go from here, any ideas?

[Jonathan]

It sounds like your machine knows about the controllers, but perhaps the controllers don't know about the machine..

What happens to the light on the controller when you press the home button. Fast flashing? slow flashing? Duration?

You might want to try a different USB cable, I've had mixed success with some USB cables that seem to be fine for many not-pairing-move-controller applications. It sounds like I'm not the only person to have observed this.

[Juner]

Thanks a lot for the help! The problem has resolved itself now and I'm not sure what the exact fix was, but I restarted the system, paired them with a different USB cable and they seem to work fine now.

If it helps anyone else figure their problems out, before my problem was fixed, when I pressed the home button, the controller lights would flash fast for a few seconds and then remain lit. I took this to mean they were connected, but they still weren't detected in game.

[afriendcalledben]

Hi all. I'm struggling with the same issue that Juner was having except I've never got a solid light to appear.

* Running Ubuntu 14.10
* Move controller fully charged
* Tried 4 diifferent cables
* Set the kernel and headers to the version suggested
* Running Sportsfriends version released 23/12/2014

The controller says that it is successfully paired both within the application and using pair64. However, when I unplug the controller and press the home button, the light starts flashing fast and does not go to a solid on state. In Bluetooth preferences, the Motion Controller is present but it says it is not Paired and won't connect.

Is it worth finding another bluetooth adapter, yet another cable or waiting for a later update? Let me know if there are any logs I can pass over. Thanks for any help you might have be able to give.

[Jonathan]

@afriendcalledben It does sound like your controller is not picking up the bluetooth address of your computer somehow, because as you've described it the computer side of the pairing is successful.

Have you tried more than one controller?
It might be worth trying another bluetooth adapter, or yet another cable :-(
Most of my testing has been on 14.04, it's not completely inconceivable that their is something different about your machine that is revealing the problem, but, again, it sounds more like an issue *external* to your computer.

If you send a copy of a game log following failed in-game pairing to [e-mail] referencing this discussion I'll have a look over it. Not very optimistic about this revealing the problem though.

Linux game log location:
~/.local/share/sportsfriends/log.txt

[afriendcalledben]

Hi Jon, thanks for the reply.

After investigating, it looks most likely that there isn't a decent enough driver Ubuntu 14.04 for the wifi/bluetooth module in my laptop. There's reports that the Realtek RTL8723BE (It's a Lenovo Flex 2 15) needs a lot of coaxing to get wifi stable and bluetooth is a bust. It reports as working but won't pair or discover devices.

I've got a IOGear CBU321 long range BT adaptor coming now so I'm hoping that'll play nicer with Ubuntu.

Are there any Class 1 BT modules that you know will work best for Joust play on Linux, if any?

Cheers again.

[Jonathan]

The best bluetooth dongle we've tested so far is the Linksys USBBT100.

We've tried 15 or so, and I don't think a single one of those outright failed to work on Linux, so I suspect compatibility isn't *generally* a big deal. It sucks that your built-in bluetooth is problematic.

The pricier, "Class 1", "long range" dongles from reputable hardware companies are generally the best, but it seems to be a real lottery whether any particular dongle model is amazing, or mediocre, or terrible when playing outside/in large spaces.

[gbryant]

I made a video here explaining how to set up PS Move controllers using Ubuntu. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkSmZ0gb_Ic

[muppet head]

Guess what, we are having pairing problems as well. the pairing all seams to go well, in game and on the terminal. But after that when the ps button is pressed I get a flashing led on the controler that then goes solid and the system shows that it is conected but no pairing. Also if I then press the ps button on a second controler that just flashes then times out after 1min or so.

Any ideas of a way forwards as I am looking forward to introducing this to our youth group.

[Techno]

Which Distribution? Bluez version?

Have you tried the suggested things like different usb cables?

[muppet head]

Sorry, how stupid do I feel. I am on another forum for some open souce software and am always asking this question.

I am running Ubuntu 14.10 and Bluez version 4.101.

I have tried using about six diferent cables and in diferent usb ports, incase that helped ;-)

I have looked at all the Bluetooth files and all the controlers are mentioned in there, but I don't know what to try next.

Thanks