PS5 "Wireless Controller" showing up on Windows 10 devices, but not in Steam's Controllers

[ShoalCrestide]

OS: Windows 10
Steam: Beta Update

I've been trying to follow all of the guides I can find, but I can't get my PS5 controller to even show up in the Steam controllers setting panel.

I have it connected to my Windows 10 PC, and it's showing appropriately both under "Bluetooth" devices as well as the "Sound, video and game controllers" as "Wireless Controller"

Unfortunately, when I open the controller settings to set it up there, it isn't listed in the controllers. I'm using Steam Beta, I restarted my computer after it downloaded the Beta and installed it, I've checked both the PlayStation configuration support as well as Generic Gamepad.

From what I've seen from Steam guides, this setup should work. Did things break recently? Or is there something else I can do?

[austinp_valve]

Have you installed DS4Windows or any other remapper programs? So far that's been the #1 culprit for devices not showing up in Steam.

DS4Windows is packaged with a kernel driver called HIDGuardian which is used to hide USB devices from anything not integrated with the driver. Once installed the HIDGuardian driver will always be attached to your devices. It's a tool that requires very careful use because it's easy to leave the devices in a state where other programs are permanently blocked from reading them. The creator of HIDGuardian archived the project and asked other programs to stop using because many of these programs were borking user's controllers. Can you try completely uninstalling DS4Windows then following these steps for manual removal of HIDGuardian?
https://github.com/ViGEm/HidGuardian/blob/master/sys/README.md

[ShoalCrestide]

Originally posted by austinp_valve:

Have you installed DS4Windows or any other remapper programs? So far that's been the #1 culprit for devices not showing up in Steam.

DS4Windows is packaged with a kernel driver called HIDGuardian which is used to hide USB devices from anything not integrated with the driver. Once installed the HIDGuardian driver will always be attached to your devices. It's a tool that requires very careful use because it's easy to leave the devices in a state where other programs are permanently blocked from reading them. The creator of HIDGuardian archived the project and asked other programs to stop using because many of these programs were borking user's controllers. Can you try completely uninstalling DS4Windows then following these steps for manual removal of HIDGuardian?
https://github.com/ViGEm/HidGuardian/blob/master/sys/README.md

First of all, thank you for your help and response!
I had vJoy on my computer a while back, but I uninstalled it, but I don't think I ever used DS4Windows. I looked at my applications, but I don't see any of them left, though

I ran the

devcon.exe classfilter HIDClass upper !HidGuardian
devcon.exe classfilter XnaComposite upper !HidGuardian
devcon.exe classfilter XboxComposite upper !HidGuardian
devcon.exe remove Root\HidGuardian

But I ended up with the first three saying

devcon.exe failed

and the last one saying

no devices were removed.

In case for some reason this would make a difference: my Steam controllers connect to Steam just fine, it's only the PS5 one that has any issue, and I just got that controller a few days back.

I went ahead and did a factory reset on the PS5 controller too while I was at it, just in case, but no changes there

[austinp_valve]

OK, I will take a look at your logs and see if I can figure out some more troubleshooting steps to try

[austinp_valve]

Do you own a Steam Controller? In your logs it looks like we're trying to open a Steam Controller dongle but repeatedly failing to open the device. The USB path string is also very different than what I normally see in logs. Can you post the version of your windows 10 install and also check if you've installed any other programs that might affect USB devices at a system level?

[ShoalCrestide]

Originally posted by austinp_valve:

Do you own a Steam Controller? In your logs it looks like we're trying to open a Steam Controller dongle but repeatedly failing to open the device. The USB path string is also very different than what I normally see in logs. Can you post the version of your windows 10 install and also check if you've installed any other programs that might affect USB devices at a system level?

I have 4 Steam controllers, each with their own dongles of which I keep plugged into my computer.

The Windows 10 OS Build information is:
Edition Windows 10 Home
Version 20H2
OS build 19042.804

I'm not finding anything program wise or have intentionally installed anything that effects usb devices like that, but I'm going keep looking on that and see if it's something I wouldn't expect

The steam controller dongles are plugged into a usb splitter, if that would impact the paths you're seeing for those. My Steam controllers are connecting fine, however. I just checked again now, and they're connecting fine. It's just the PS5 one that has issues

[austinp_valve]

It looks like the logs possibly got pulled from a 2nd machine or something because that doesn't quite match what I was seeing. I know what the issue is now though - the Steam Controller dongle reserves 4 controller slots - one for each of the controllers that can connect to it so plugging in 4 dongles takes up all 16 controller slots. If you double up the paired controllers and go to 2 dongles there will be plenty of slots available for other gamepads.

[ShoalCrestide]

Thank you SO much, that definitely solved the problem!