Controllers not working on my Mac

[Snapper]

Hi, I'm playing ETS 2 on a Mac running OSX 10.15 and can't get any controllers to work. I've tried my Thrustmaster T16000M stick and Logitec Driving Force GT and both appear listed in the setup wizard but neither are configurable or function in the game.

They both work in X-Plane though and appear to work in the "Joystick Doctor" utility that I purchased recently to test them. Anyone have any ideas for a workaround?

Thanks!

[taz.in.bc]

You are not alone. I've been fighting this problem for almost three days now (well not all day long, but every spare moment). The received wisdom from googling many discussion fora is:

Uncheck all boxes in Steam Big Picture Mode: Controller Setup.
Set Controller Mode options (menus below check boxes) to Forced Off.
You can even try (with ETS2) -no_steam_subsys as a launch flag.
Disable Steam Overlay.

I did all the above, and nothing worked. My USB controllers (whether joystick or whatever) are seen and named by the game, and by Steam, but no input from them ever reaches the game. I use JoystickShow, not Joystick Doctor, but it does confirm correct operation of USB game controllers of all kinds. Ain't nothing wrong with my controller which have been working perfectly for years.

I've been asking about this problem on SCS forum, have filed a bug report with Steam, etc. Not much joy yet, despite hours of googling and many many relaunches of both Steam and the games.

The only new clue I have -- as of today -- may not be very helpful to you. I have a dual-boot Hackintosh (Catalina/Win10) so I spent some tedious time installing ETS2 on the WinDoze side, more time farting around with drivers for my AMD card (sigh), and then finally was able to fire up ETS2 under Windows with all the abovementioned stuff turned off. Presto: ETS2 can see my joystick!

Therefore it's my belief as of this moment that the problem is a bug in either Steam's MacOS release or SCS MacOS release (affects both ETS2 and ATS btw, starting at version 1.35 of ETS2 afaik). The nature of the bug is "MacOS users are unable to defeat or disable Steam controller configuration overlay" or something like that. It appears that the advice I found online works for Windows users only.

I'm guessing you bought X-Plane directly and not through Steam? Because users of Steam's XPlane distro have reported the same problem (joystick and pedals disappearing).

I'm seriously annoyed about this because I have 3 years into development on a custom game controller that turns ETS2 into a huge virtual road cycling experience for my trainer bike. To have my custom controller (which pretends to be a 3 axis joystick) frozen out of the SCS games was absolutely stomach-wrenching. That's many hundreds of hours of coding, fabrication and debug that someone just tried to waste for me.

I have a workaround now (I can move all my devel effort over to Win10, and do my coding and riding with the Win10 copy of the games). I'm not happy about that because I don't love Win10 as a devel environment (no JoystickShow, for a start). But if you have no Win10 machine, you do not have that workaround available; and I think it is really nasty of either Steam or SCS or both to simply disable joysticks for all Mac users.

As I'm sure you know there are relatively few MacOS gamers so perhaps neither company really cares. It's kinda sloppy though and indicates that someone didn't take cross platform testing seriously. For people who've invested a lot (like me, like people who built whole custom cockpit setups for their Steam XPlane), it's infuriating.

Please try the fixes I mention above and let me know whether they worked for your MacOS copy of ETS2? If they do, then the problem is more specific than just MacOS and might be something about my particular config.

I have screenshots if you need some help finding the right places to disable stuff. Can put on Flickr and send you link, let me know.

[Tree]

for ps4 controllers there is an app and xbox controlellers need a direct input source

[Snapper]

Thanks for such a comprehensive reply! I agree, the conventional fixes don't seem to work. However the Thrustmaster joystick works the ETS2 on my MacBook Pro, I've not tried the wheel yet. Unfortunately I cracked the laptop's screen recently and so am having to run dual monitors and the game won't play on the second screen so it's all a bit academic at the moment!

Fundamentally I think you're right though - the only way for any of this work work long-term is either to buy a PC and run dual-boot. I've heard good things about the latest release of Parallels, although I don't have a copy of Windows so the cost starts to rise. It turns ETS2 into a £200 game ;)

[taz.in.bc]

Parallels is great, I have used it and it is remarkable -- transparent, instant access to both OS, with device sharing. But you can't play any demanding video game with it (I tried). That's how I ended up going dual-boot. So now I don't have both OS running at the same time and can't switch back and forth just by switching desktops, as with Parallels -- but I can run demanding, high power games such as Assassins Creed (Discovery Tour). Parallels was hopeless for gaming.

Win10 shouldn't be super expensive any more... I remember the Win10 license as significantly cheaper than the Parallels fee which is yearly.

[Dillinger6394]

Git-Hub Catalinas plugins for Mac only https://github.com/360Controller/360Controller/tree/master/360Controller

[andwho_]

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