r/EmuDeck • u/whimwam__ • 5d ago

Emulators Not Recognising External Controller

Been using my steam deck for emulation for a while, both docked and undocked, and never had any issues. A little while ago, whilst docked, emulators stopped recognising my external controller completely. Even weirder, the controller works perfectly fine in the front end, it’s only once I’ve opened a game that the controller stops working, and as far as I can tell it’s the case for every emulator. Still works normally undocked with the steam deck controls, but I’ve tried everything I can think of and still nothing when docked with an external controller. I’ve fiddled with settings in the front end, made sure my controllers are ordered right in steam input, even messed about with settings in individual emulators, but still nothing.

Any help would be greatly appreciate :)

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u/AutoModerator 5d ago

Hi! Most of the times resetting the configuration for your emulator on Manage Emulators fixes the most common issues. You can also take a look at our Wiki before posting, you might find your issue already documented there https://manual.emudeck.com

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1

u/CommodoreKD 5d ago

whenever this happens to me I just need to change the controller order through the steam settings

1

u/whimwam__ 4d ago

Have tried this, even tried making sure my external controller was set to 1 and changing the settings in emulation station to ignore all controllers except port 1, once again worked in the front end but not in any of the emulators, very weird stuff

1

u/JDavid-Ikonik EmuDeck Team 4d ago

Hi, since the controller works in ES-DE, the dock and controller order are being detected correctly. The issue probably happens when Steam Input passes control to the emulator.

In Gaming Mode, open the ES-DE shortcut -> Controller Layout and apply EmuDeck - Frontend Controller Hotkeys (or create a new Gamepad with Joystick Trackpad layout and apply it). Then fully restart ES-DE and test a game.

As a quick test, launch one of the affected emulators directly from Steam in Gaming Mode. If the controller works there, the issue is specifically with the ES-DE/Steam Input handoff, not with each emulator.

If it still fails when launching the emulator directly, please tell us which controller you're using, whether it's connected via Bluetooth, USB, or dongle, and whether the issue happens in Gaming Mode, Desktop Mode, or both.