FFXIV and Controller/Gamepad Intermittent Loss of Control Issues (NOT RESOLVED)

[gn0s1s]

There is a thread in the "Resolved" section which mentions this issue, yet no resolution was actually ever found. http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/109625-Controller-becoming-unresponsive-periodically/page7

The problem is that in some Windows 7 machines (at least that's what I'm running) periodically the gamepad/controller will lose control in FFXIV, meaning movement will continue as if the analog stick is being held, or a button press will be repeated a billion times, etc. This happens because Windows 7 is refreshing its Device Manager, for some reason, be it a bad device, or something else.

Interestingly enough, NO OTHER GAME LOSES ACCESS TO THE GAMEPAD WHEN THIS IS HAPPENING. So this is a FFXIV issue, not a Device Manager issue. It is something that needs to be fixed BY SQUARE ENIX and not by Microsoft.

So far in troubleshooting this issue I have thrown over $150 away in buying new controllers/adapters, all to no avail. FFXIV continues to exhibit this bug over and over and no matter what settings I edit or what attempts I make to fix this issue, the game does not function as advertised (i.e. if they're going to claim this is a Windows 7 problem, then they cannot simultaneously claim compatibility with Windows 7).

I'm very close to just stepping away from the game entirely, as many others who have had this issue have done. SQE's negligence in this matter is a big F-U to people who spent their money to support their game. You try running TITAN EX with your character randomly autorunning every few minutes, and tell me how that goes.

[Raist]

The work around for many was disabling the low power options for all the USB ports and attached devices. Not sure if it was posted in that thread or not(typing from phone). But that has been what often cleared it up for people. In some cases there were bios options that needed to be tweaked too...things like quick charge ports or options to keep a port powered for charging purposes.

[Rufalus]

I thought it was only this game too and made a similar topic, until it eventually cropped up in a different game.

I too wasted some money buying a different controller and also a powered USB hub which I didn't really need and the problem persisted.

There's gonna be a free upgrade to Windows 10 this year. Hopefully this weird problem which seems to be a software problem will not persist in the new OS.

[Nutz]

This is sort of a dual Windows/ FFXIV problem. You can fix it by figuring out what is making the device manager refresh and fixing it (I personally have managed to do that on 1 of 2 PCs running the game, both of which were exhibiting the problem -- one still is). It really shouldn't be that way though and the problem can be amazingly tedious to diagnose properly.

As nexen observed in the topic you linked (final post), the problem seems to arise from FFXIV checking for a new controller whenever the device manager refreshes (most games don't do this apparently though I don't know the reasons either way). It will unload your controller and reload it with whatever settings were present when you started that session. Most likely the controller was already configured, but you'll notice that if you start the game with a bad configuration (as wireless controllers will do if you turn them on after starting the game), calibrate in the settings menu, and then play, the controller will revert to the 'bad' settings the first time the device manager refreshes.

Most of the information is unfortunately useless to players who are powerless to fix the problem and SE doesn't seem to be getting around to it anytime soon. Most likely something radical like reinstalling Windows would fix the issue, at least for a time, but that's a huge hassle and shouldn't be necessary. Best case scenario (probably) this problem is absent from the DX11 build set to be released alongside Heavensward, though I suppose it's possible that SE addresses it specifically even for DX9 users.

[Rufalus]

Best case scenario (probably) this problem is absent from the DX11 build set to be released alongside Heavensward, though I suppose it's possible that SE addresses it specifically even for DX9 users.

Yeah I was looking forward to that DX11 build in case it leaves any lingering issues behind lol, also the new version of Windows coming out. Hoping DX11 FF XIV on Win10 works perfectly.

[gn0s1s]

Steps I have already gone through in attempting to troubleshoot this:

1. Purchased new Dualshock 2 controller. Issue persisted.
2. Purchased new PS2->PC adapter (two different ones). Issue persisted.
3. Figured the issue might be with the kind of adapter in general since PS2 is pretty old, so decided to purchase a PC-compatible controller. Bought Razer Sabertooth. Love it, mostly, but issue persists.
4. Have disabled USB Power Management, first by unchecking all the the appropriate boxes in the Device Manager and then disabling it entirely in the Power Management settings. Issue persists.
5. Have continued playing with Device Manager open on second monitor, to try to catch which device is apparently causing it to refresh. No luck so far. Have removed all other USB devices including mouse and keyboard, issue persists.

If you have experienced this in any other game, please post which one.

For developers, if your eyes chance upon this post, Nutz mentions nexen from the other thread and describes what I also think is happening:

As nexen observed in the topic you linked (final post), the problem seems to arise from FFXIV checking for a new controller whenever the device manager refreshes (most games don't do this apparently though I don't know the reasons either way). It will unload your controller and reload it with whatever settings were present when you started that session. Most likely the controller was already configured, but you'll notice that if you start the game with a bad configuration (as wireless controllers will do if you turn them on after starting the game), calibrate in the settings menu, and then play, the controller will revert to the 'bad' settings the first time the device manager refreshes.

SQE please fix this, don't let a Device Manager refresh interfere with the game's connection to the controller or force the game to refresh its own controller settings. Other companies get around this, you can too!

[Raist]

Just to rule it out... did you go through your full device list? On my system, I had some devices listed separately that had to also have the power management shut off (like HID devices and such). If you haven't yet, might want to expand the categories to see if something is showing up in there that is flaking out from power management as well. Could be another device resetting and triggering the scan.

[gn0s1s]

Yup, I did.

[gn0s1s]

I'm happy to report that I think I finally found the culprit that was making the Device Manager refresh. The Crashplan backup service! Every time it scanned for things to back up it did a scan for new devices attached, disconnecting the gamepad in the process. I have set it to only back up from 6 AM to 12 PM, and tonight I was able to play without any gamepad disconnections for the first time in weeks. If you run Crashplan or something similar, try adjusting your settings to see if this problem goes away. I know it might be different for others, but if this does turn out to be the solution to my particular problem, I will be very happy indeed.