controller works in menu of the game but not when you try to play a game inside the game. fyi possible fix

[DoomsDay]

ok, so I was having this weird issue on my windows pc in this game with steam. Steam recognizes that I have 2 controllers. my wireless controller and my flight stick. Now here is the issue, I havent had that flight stick connected for probably a year or longer. Yet only in 2k25 nba do I have this issue of the controller working in the games menus but if I start a game in mycareer or just a quick game, nope, I stand there motionless.


So here is my fix. I went into windows settings/bluetooth and devices, scrolled down till I found my flight controller, hit the three dots to the right and said remove device. Once that was done, no rebooting or anything, it now works with my controller. Just fyi, in steam my wireless controller was set as the first input. I have a few hundred steam games, this is the only one that refused to work with my 8bitdo controller.

[Zeokage]

Those sound similar to these instructions, at least the intent of them... Would you agree?

Open Device Manager and then in Human Interface devices, disable any "HID-compliant game controller" that isn't the one you are using. If you go into "Play Now" when you select a side, you'll see your controller is not "1". when you disable it, 1 will disappear. now restart your game and your controller will be 1.

[DoomsDay]

Originally posted by Zeokage:

Those sound similar to these instructions, at least the intent of them... Would you agree?

Open Device Manager and then in Human Interface devices, disable any "HID-compliant game controller" that isn't the one you are using. If you go into "Play Now" when you select a side, you'll see your controller is not "1". when you disable it, 1 will disappear. now restart your game and your controller will be 1.

Yes it is, but when I did a google search that never came up. most things says reboot, turn steam input off and on and make sure your controller is the only one connected.

Mine was the only controller connected but it forced me to have to delete a controller that I shouldnt have had to delete. again, 100+ steam games, never have had to do that. and as a person that has supported a few versions of windows in my life, you shouldnt have to do that unless something in the registry gets corrupted but then you would see this issue in other games as well. I do want to point out, my setup worked in nba2k24, everything worked in 2k25 topspin and everything worked in 2k23 pga golf. So this should have been a non issue but it was a very huge issue.