How to remove phantom controllers

[Mad Water]

A while ago, I had an issue with a USB cable that I was using to charge a PS4 controller on my PC. Ever since, I've had this random "2 axis 8 button gamepad"[i.imgur.com] appearing in my controller list. It doesn't take input from anywhere when I try to alter its settings. I wouldn't be bothered by it normally, but whenever I play Final Fantasy XIV with the controller, this device shows up (3 times?) in the detected gamepad devices[i.imgur.com], so whenever my actual controller disconnects, it switches to one of these fake controllers and I have to manually change it. It would be really nice if I could get this phantom controller to disappear from my computer. Thanks in advance for your help!

[Crashed]

Is there a "phantom" entry in Device Manager you can delete? Make sure to show hidden devices (and if running an older version of Windows run devmgmt.msc from an Administrator command line with environment variable DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES set to 1).

[Mad Water]

I have a LOT of entries under Human Interface Devices[i.imgur.com], but I'm hesitant to start removing devices at random just to see if they go away. I guess I can at least start with the 2 HID-compliant game controllers.

[Crashed]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Mad Water:

I have a LOT of entries under Human Interface Devices[i.imgur.com], but I'm hesitant to start removing devices at random just to see if they go away. I guess I can at least start with the 2 HID-compliant game controllers.

You can always remove the devices that aren't connected, and Windows will just automatically reinstall the drivers if the devices get reconnected.

[ReBoot]

Ursprungligen skrivet av dotValkyrie:

Did you fix this by chance? I am getting x3 copies of the same Controller and they seem to be phantom copies not doing anything and not taking input from anywhere but confuse alot of my games into thinking they are player 2 controller.

Remove them.

[Crashed]

Windows 10 users try killing sihost.exe as it or its children appear to fail to release handles for controllers that get disconnected.

[Zigerus]

Crashed's answer worked for me. Thank you. I have been looking for an answer for this for years.

[Crashed]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Zigerus:

Crashed's answer worked for me. Thank you. I have been looking for an answer for this for years.

Unfortunately it seems to have stopped working too well for me; running the Windows 11 Insider Preview and phantom controllers continue to persist.

Does anyone know of any utilities to determine what processes have handles open to controllers?