Steam Controller disconnecting/re-connecting when starting games

[Swifty Magee]

The issue is that my Steam controller will often disconnect during the first few minutes in nearly every game I have been playing for about a week now. The controller will disconnect and become un-usable in-game, then after a second or two, reconnect. I will then be able to use the controller normally, and it does not disconnect for the rest of the play session.

What is weird is that this has only been happening for about a week now. Previously, my Steam controller has worked fine. I am connecting the controller to my PC via wire, by the way.

As for troubleshooting steps, I have tried leaving and re-entering the Steam client beta, but that did not help. I have deleted Steam's download cache, but the problem persists. I then went into Settings->Controller->General Controller Settings and set my controller to never turn off, but that didn't help either. I have both restarted and did a hard shut down of my computer, and that didn't fix it.

And I just want to reiterate that the Steam controller only seems to disconnect/re-connect just once and only during the first five or so minutes into a game. And the problem doesn't happen all the time; sometimes I start a game and the controller is fine until I close the game and start playing again later.

Is anyone else having this issue? Or any advice whatsoever on what could be causing this problem and how to fix it?

Honestly, at this point it may not be a beta client problem, but I cannot think of any system change I've made on my PC in the last week that would cause my controller to stop working briefly when starting a Steam game. And I remember one of the issues I had when downloading a beta client version around a week ago was controller related, so I thought maybe the actual Steam client was the culprit. But as I said earlier, I'm getting this disconnect issue in the latest stable Steam version as well as the beta.

I really hope it's not some early sign of my Steam controller breaking down...it's one of the coolest controllers I've ever used, and as Valve has discontinued it I can't really replace it. I'd even rather it be a USB port issue on my computer than the controller having internal problems!

Well, any sort of help or advice, or even a comment from someone saying that they are currently experiencing the same issue would be appreciated. It would be fantastic if I knew this problem wasn't just happening to me.

Thanks for reading this long post, and thanks in advance for any assistance anyone can offer!

[Cerebrum123]

Try moving the receiver to another USB slot, and/or make sure the USB slot the receiver is in isn't set to power saving mode. You might also try and eliminate any interference.

It is possible it's the receiver no longer working quite right. If so you can change it to using Bluetooth with a special firmware update option since the receivers aren't as easy to replace now.

It doesn't seem like something internal going wrong with the controller based on what you describe. Those are usually mechanical problems like bumper buttons breaking, joystick drift etc. It's still possible, but it's not like any of the ones I have encountered.

[Swifty Magee]

Originally posted by Cerebrum123:

Try moving the receiver to another USB slot, and/or make sure the USB slot the receiver is in isn't set to power saving mode. You might also try and eliminate any interference.

It is possible it's the receiver no longer working quite right. If so you can change it to using Bluetooth with a special firmware update option since the receivers aren't as easy to replace now.

It doesn't seem like something internal going wrong with the controller based on what you describe. Those are usually mechanical problems like bumper buttons breaking, joystick drift etc. It's still possible, but it's not like any of the ones I have encountered.

Thanks for the reply but I'm not using my Steam controller wirelessly, so it's definitely not a problem with any bluetooth dongles. I'm connecting directly with a USB cable to my PC.

The USB port I've always connected it to has worked fine so far. I've tried using different ports but for some reason none of the rest of my ports recognize the Steam Controller as a controller...they recognize it as a mouse and keyboard.

My next steps are to uninstall/re-install Steam and to clean my system registry. If I eventually find a solution to the problem, I'll post back, if only so anyone who experiences an issue like this may get a solution.

[Swifty Magee]

Well, I tried a bunch of troubleshooting steps to try to fix this problem without doing any major system changes, but nothing worked. So eventually, I just did a clean re-install of Windows 10. Downloaded Windows Media Creation Tool, installed a clean copy of Windows 10 on a USB stick, and re-installed Win 10. And that fixed my issue. My Steam Controller no longer disconnects after playing a few minutes into a game.

I'm thinking that it was something to do with drivers. Earlier I had issues with my Steam controller, Steam controller drivers, and mouse & keyboard drivers. I think at some point, several drivers got corrupted and while I did steps earlier this year to uninstall/re-install Steam Controller drivers and other drivers on my PC, the drivers never fully got fixed.

So no, my issue didn't seem like it was related to any updates to the Steam beta client, so this was the wrong forum to post on. But to anyone having issues with either Steam Controller recognition or with constant disconnects and stumbles upon this thread, the cure-all solution is to reformat your main drive and install a fresh Windows 10 on your computer.

Which I guess is the cure-all to virtually any non-hardware-related PC issue, but still...


EDIT: Just in case anyone stumbles upon this thread, have similar issues, and a Windows 10 clean re-install didn't fix the problem, the true culprit to my issues seemed to be my PC's USB ports. I eventually did two things, and at least one of them fixed the problem.

1. In Device Manager, go under Human Interface Devices, and for every entry that had controller devices, go into it's Properties and uncheck the box that says "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power".

2. Go to Control Panel->System and Security->Power Options->Edit Plan Settings, and under "USB Settings", make sure "USB selective suspend settings" is set to Disabled. This is to make sure that whatever happens, my system will never shut down power to the USB ports.

One of those two steps fixed my disconnect issue.

Eventually my ultimate solution will be to just build another computer (what I have now is a refurbished 2014-era PC that I've been trying to keep alive with updated RAM and a 1050 ti GPU). But until I can get the funds to do that, changing the settings to my USB ports seems to have resolved the issue.

[Synonym Bun]

same issue, didnt help me.

[Swifty Magee]

Originally posted by Nothing Personnel:

same issue, didnt help me.

I guess the only advice I can give is to check to see if a driver you have on your PC is messing with your controller, which I believe was the ultimate issue with my Steam controller. Try to see if anything like a mouse, keyboard, or third-party controller driver is installed on your system. Uninstall or disable them one by one and see if your controller keeps disconnecting. Also, make sure to see if the controller works on a completely different system. If it works right in a different computer setup, then it is a good bet the problem is driver-related.

If all else fails and you can't figure out what driver or system setting needs to be changed on your computer, you could always reformat your hard drive and re-install your OS. I've found out from personal experience that reformatting and re-installing Windows is the ultimate fix for most computer problems that don't stem from failed hardware. Just be prepared to spend most of an afternoon going through the process.