controller not responding

[DyFam]

I come back to the game every few months and its been fine for years. Just tried today and my controller is dead. Options and pause menu work fine but anything else is dead. Anybody know how to fix?

[Sighman]

Sounds like the keybinds reverted to a preset, as the game (or windows) didn't recognise the controller.

Don't change any binding settings or you'll lose your previous custom keybinds. Just exit the game and try plugging the controller in a different USB port, then re-run.

[funkynutz]

Originally posted by Sighman:

Sounds like the keybinds reverted to a preset, as the game (or windows) didn't recognise the controller.

Don't change any binding settings or you'll lose your previous custom keybinds. Just exit the game and try plugging the controller in a different USB port, then re-run.

Might even be able to just select the custom option from the presets drop down menu.

[DyFam]

Originally posted by Sighman:

Sounds like the keybinds reverted to a preset, as the game (or windows) didn't recognise the controller.

Don't change any binding settings or you'll lose your previous custom keybinds. Just exit the game and try plugging the controller in a different USB port, then re-run.

I've done everything you've said unfortunately. Connected with PC every way i can but i get the same result unfortunately. Id happily lose my bindings if I could play

[funkynutz]

Originally posted by DyFam:

I've done everything you've said unfortunately. Connected with PC every way i can but i get the same result unfortunately. Id happily lose my bindings if I could play

Is it detecting your controller at all? If not, it's probably Steam input interfering with it. Right click the game in Steam, select properties. Find the controller input bit, and DISABLE it.

[Manwith Noname]

I have just run in to this as I use a XBox 360 pad and it appears Frontier have changed the way they identify XInput devices. Previously the "Device" was stored as "Gamepad" which meant any XInput device could be plugged in and would take that bind. Now it looks like they are generating a hardware ID from the unit which presumably means you can have two 360 joypads plugged in with their own binds, as an example.

Bit of a pain but can easily be solved with find and replace in a text editor. Rebind something and look it up in the binds file for the ID number then find...

Device="Gamepad"

and replace it with

Device="yourHID"

Where "yourHID" will be hex code probably about 8 characters long.

[Sighman]

Could this be related to steam input being active/inactive?

[Manwith Noname]

No.

Edit: Well, what ID it generates from Steam input could be a problem or not but I don't use Steam Input for my 360 pad, never have, only my Steam controller.

I also don't know when they changed the launcher but the Detect XInput setting there seemed to have no effect.

[funkynutz]

Originally posted by Manwith Noname:

I also don't know when they changed the launcher but the Detect XInput setting there seemed to have no effect.

Because it gets hijacked by the Steam controller software... It's been like this ever since Steam introduced it.

Don't get me wrong the Steam controller software is good when it's used in games that don't already have good input device support... Elite isn't one of those though, and the Steam controller software doesn't pass the inputs through to it.

Disable the Steam controller input through the games properties in Steam, and xinput devices will be detected by the game again. It also won't be disabled for your Steam controller (it's always required for that device).

[Marcinshorty]

Today I started the game. Elite lost controller settings after update. And now, the worst thing. After almost 3 hours I set the controller, but there is a problem with the landing gear. And it doesn't matter if it's a joystick or a keyboard. Every time I deploy landing gear a ship loses control. I can not start from the station, I can not land in the station. After landing gear deployed the ship lost control.
I don't know what to do. the setting in the game doesn't change anything.When deploying landing gear the ship pushes the throttle forward full speed and loses control. When retracting landing gear then the ship behaves normal.My joystick is THRUSTMASTER A320 AIRBUSIt was alway working perfectly. today is disaster

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

Originally posted by Marcinshorty:

After landing gear deployed the ship lost control.

When the landing gear is deployed, alternative flight controls are being used if bound, instead of regular ones. It helps with landing when you might need different forwards/backwards/up/ down throttle bindings.

Make sure that you don't have those bound to something that you don't use.

[Manwith Noname]

Originally posted by funkynutz:

Because it gets hijacked by the Steam controller software... It's been like this ever since Steam introduced it.

I know what you are talking about but this is slightly different. What seems to have changed at some point is how the game handles multiple detections of XInput devices.

I have used pretty much the same bind file copied from GitHub that was made prior to the game being on Steam. The bind file always used the term "GamePad" as the device name for the controller. Even post Steam when running the game through Steam or directly from the exe so Steam wasn't involved, this has always worked for me.

I do not have Steam input enabled for my XBox controller because I have a Steam controller. I am aware of the issues it has caused people in the past. The issue has appeared because multiple XInput devices are detected and the game now allows you to distinguish between them but you will need to rebind so it uses the hardware ID, or you get lucky and the device you want to use had the priority detection and is still allowed to use the device ID "GamePad".

I even wrote this 2 years ago because I was goofing about testing some things.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/359320/discussions/0/5401527630807049747/#c5401527630820114186

That no longer applies.

I have just tested this with two 360 controllers connected to the game and run directly from the launch exe without Steam. The game only allows one device to respond to the "Gamepad" device name. The other needs to use the hardware ID. I am 99.99% sure previously they would both generate the same inputs and basically mirror each other.

TL:DR Yes, disabling Steam Input may resolve the "issue" if Steam input is getting the XInput priority but there seems to have been a change in the way the game handles multiple XInput device detections that is triggering this. I would guess this may have occurred in April this year looking at the patch notes.

[funkynutz]

Was that when they upped the button limit on xinput devices from 32 to 128? That's something to do with the xinput handler they're using rather than the game itself if it's that one... Haven't actually had any problems with that one myself (yet), but most of my devices are dinput anyway.

[Manwith Noname]

It's a change in the game code and what they call in the API.

Edit: Oh my god it gets worse. I had a suspicion the device ID was not the actual hardware ID. I think it might be the XInput device ID, which basically means "device 1" or "device 2" and that means depending on connection order or detection your ID moves about devices.

Brilliant.

[Marcinshorty]

Originally posted by Dolphin Bottlenose:

Originally posted by Marcinshorty:

After landing gear deployed the ship lost control.

When the landing gear is deployed, alternative flight controls are being used if bound, instead of regular ones. It helps with landing when you might need different forwards/backwards/up/ down throttle bindings.

Make sure that you don't have those bound to something that you don't use.

Thank you for your help. Seems is working good now. I thought maybe controler but I use this joystick airbus a320 thrustmaster and it is not cheap plastic, but high quality
Thank you. Everything is good