Raspi Steam Link with Xbox One controller

[t3ckno93]

Hey,

I just setup my Raspi 3B+ with steam link in a systemd service. Running with the steam controller works flawlessly, but when I pair an xbox one controller over bluetooth I have some odd behavior. The menu before connecting to a server seems fluid, there are no spurious inputs that I can tell. But when I connect to my desktop the xbox one controller seems to flip between being recognized as a gamepad and being recognized as a mouse input. This causes the mouse to jump around the edges of the screen. The xbox one controller is brand new and I'm relatively sure that it isn't defective because I can game over a usb connection.

For the next steps, what logs are available for the raspi steam link? I couldn't seem to get any help passing `-h` to the steamlink invocation and the man page is pretty anemic.

[_I_]

ms changed something with the xbone controller update, it wont connect to the steam link or some other devices after that update

if it works fine before connecting to the host pc, it may be steams mappings for that controller

check with steam -> settings -> controller -> [bpm/chord/desktop]
and select that controller and set it to defaults

each controller can have different mappings for bpm/desktop/chord and each game

[t3ckno93]

The xbox one controller is able to connect to the bluetooth SoC on the raspberry pi just fine and controls the steamlink interface just fine.

I've deleted or reset all the configurations I could find in Steam itself, might have done that wrong. I also updated Windows and updated the firmware on the xbox one controller. I had thought the steam link was forwarding the control raw info from the controller to the desktop and that was not understanding the format or something. But the windows app for controlling an xbox one controller didn't recognize a controller connected and there was nothing in the Device Manager for a controller.

It's like steam itself is emulating the controller behind the scenes with a soft HID under the covers.

The only clue I've got is from the streaming log on the windows PC. It recorded when the session closed that there was an "XBoxOneControllerInput" and a "GamepadControllerInput" connected. Almost like it is registering two controllers for this one connected controller. But the logs on the actual connection seem to be only forwarding the HID packets for a single xbox one controller.

Guess I'll try to poke at it a bit more, but without some different logs I'm not sure what I can do.

[t3ckno93]

So continuing this along my ill fated attempt to divine what a piece of software is trying to do without the source code.

I borrowed my friend's xbox one controller and tried connecting it to the raspberry pi with a USB cable. This showed up as an "Xbox One Wireless Controller (Model 1708)" and worked just fine in game. I then paired it to the bluetooth and had the same issue; random mouse movements with the right stick. I did notice that the controller mapping loaded when it was wired was different than what was loaded when I connected over bluetooth.

I then tried my controller connected over USB. This showed up as an "XInput Controller" and would not function. I think the update to the firmware might have messed up the way the Linux driver is recognizing my controller. Maybe rolling back the controller's firmware would work.

[t3ckno93]

Sort of figured it out.

The Xbox controller was loading the joypad AND hidp kernel modules. I think this is due to the November update of the Xbox controller firmware. I believe they added the functionality to look like an HID controller for compatibility with android systems.

Anyway, installing the xpadneo kernel module overrides the other modules that are normally in the raspbian kernel. So on the steamlink it shows up as an "xinput" device, but steam recognizes it as a proper xbox one controller. The home button won't work, but I can play games.

[Jusduit]

@t3ckno93, thanks for putting your findings, much appreciated