DualShock 4 Controller Disconnects After a Few Seconds (Bluetooth)

[An tAthair Ted]

Hi, I've been trying to set up my controller to work with Steam. At one point I was able to get Steam to read its input even when connected wirelessly, however the controller never gets past the flashing stage (it never starts glowing a certain color like it does when it's paired with a PS4 console) so I'm wondering what I'm doing wrong. Bought an Asus BT-400 dongle which is reported to work flawlessly and I have no issues pairing the device with my laptop. I'm running Windows 10 by the way.

[beepbooper]

I'm going to piggy back on this as I have the same or similar issue.

My Dualshock works flawlessly while connected via USB. I really wanted to use it with wirelessly with bluetooth.

I pair it with Windows 10. If I winkey+r "JOY.CPL", the controller works perfectly there. There is no connectivity issues. If then I load steam, I can see the controller in BPM and click the appropriate configs; then after about 15 seconds it starts to lag tremendously followed by just losing connection completely. Now every time after this, if I boot up steam, it auto recognizes my device but it's unusable as it just constantly lags and disconnects. It's almost as if windows is fighting steam for control of the controller because JOY.CPL shows my controller unresponsive once steam hijacks it. Once I close out steam and turn on controller, it works fine.

I updated all my bluetooth drivers, attempted to update the HID driver, reset the controller and rebooted many times. I went to "...steam\userdata\_USERID_\241100" and deleted everything here. (I was told this was the correct place for controller config. Please back up your stuff.) I also deleted "...steam\userdata\_USERID_\config\controller_configs" and deleted everything there. I also deleted localconfig.vdf but I'm not sure if that matters.

Then I started fresh and paired my controller to windows; Load up steam and head to controller config in BPM. I turn on the controller and it gets recognized. I then choose Generic Gamepad Configuration Support and voilà, the controller works great! No lag, no connection loss. I can play some games like Dead Cells that must have good universal controller support.

Then I try to play Nier: Automata (and others) and the controller won't work as a Generic Gamepad and says I need to enable PS4 controller configuration support. So I enable and it works for 10 seconds and then lags out, disconnects and is now unusable again. Now steam will only see it as the DS4 with that configuration and I need to delete the config files for it to be semi-usable. One issue is even after I delete the files, steam remembers the device. Even after I reset the controller and delete all files and reboot; Steam remembers the name. Is there a way to completely reset everything steam knows about my gamepad? If I start 100% fresh, maybe all these games would support it correctly as a generic gamepad.

Other things to note:

• I really wanted to avoid using DS4windows and tried it as a last resort after a ton of troubleshooting but I had no luck. I actually had latency issues followed by a disconnect with that as well. It behaved similarly to Steam in that regard.
  
• The bluetooth is on my motherboard which is a X570 I AORUS PRO WIFI equipped with Bluetooth 5.0.
  
• I tried with some other PS4 controllers but they unfortunately had been connected to steam at one point via cable. They reacted the same way.

TLDR; Wireless Dualshock 4 works when steam recognizes it as a generic gamepad but I can't figure out how to get the client to actually forget it's a PS4 pad and games force me to enable PS4 config, thus destroying my connection.

[An tAthair Ted]

Yeah my laptop is pretty old so maybe the firmware/hardware is simply outdated. The Bluetooth dongle pairs with both my headset and phone on the other hand.

[Dionysus 🐭]

Windows 10 loves to automatically disconnect bluetooth for no reason. I would try a better USB adapter or just use wired.

[beepbooper]

Ah, I'm glad you figured it out. I assumed my board would be good since it's a new build but maybe I'll try a dongle. Thanks guys.

[Pixel_Box]

i had this issue once i connected my ps4 controller to my pc over wire prior to this bluetooth worked flawlessly so going to attempt to remove all trace of teh playstation controller from my system see if that works

[Frank ツ]

Originally posted by Pixel_Box:

i had this issue once i connected my ps4 controller to my pc over wire prior to this bluetooth worked flawlessly so going to attempt to remove all trace of teh playstation controller from my system see if that works

Nice necro

[FreedomFas*ist]

It's steam!! Conflicting with something. Just exit steam.
Then connect via bluetooth and restart DS4.
Then start Steam.
Works like a charm.

[NV]

Thanks!!!, bunch of googling, i was about to give up and just use cable, i knew it had to be something on my pc, never had to close steam before, but who cares, controller is working now, and steam can stay shut off.
I know its 2 years late, but thanks, you post helped me aton today

(For reference, if anyone else read this)
I was using ps4 dualshock 4 controller to play other games on diff launchers
I was connecting via wireless bluetooth, and it had worked fine in the past.
My issue was that for some reason it stopped, and the specific issue I had was that, the controller would connect and work for 5 seconds, then stay connected but none of the inputs would get through.
DS4windows would fix it, but it wouldnt work the same as games with native ds4 support.
I tried every variety of re-pairing, driver updated, device removal ect.. But in the end for some reason it would on work via usb.

Originally posted by FreedomFas*ist:

It's steam!! Conflicting with something. Just exit steam.
Then connect via bluetooth and restart DS4.
Then start Steam.
Works like a charm.

[Ирвин]

Maybe it helps.
Also, there is DS4 Windows software in the autorun. Disable it from autorun tab in the task manager. After disabling it, my bluetooth start work properly. If I working something not from steam I close steam and run DS4 Windows.