I bought a $30 “new” DualShock3 controller from eBay… it’s fake.
As a result when I plug it into my computer it gets recognised as an Xbox controller and… doesn’t send any inputs (jump to the next section if you just want to know how I fixed it)
The four lights continually flash when I plug it in and it eventually goes to sleep.
The dmesg output is… weird to say the least
[ +4.573524] usb 1-3.3: new full-speed USB device number 43 using xhci_hcd
[ +0.100387] usb 1-3.3: not running at top speed; connect to a high speed hub
[ +0.000799] usb 1-3.3: New USB device found, idVendor=054c, idProduct=0268, bcdDevice= 1.00
[ +0.000002] usb 1-3.3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[ +0.000000] usb 1-3.3: Product: PS3 Controller
[ +0.000001] usb 1-3.3: Manufacturer: Sony
[ +0.007953] input: Sony PS3 Controller Motion Sensors as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb1/1-3/1-3.3/1-3.3:1.0/0003:054C:0268.0018/input/input84
[ +0.058882] input: Sony PS3 Controller as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb1/1-3/1-3.3/1-3.3:1.0/0003:054C:0268.0018/input/input83
[ +0.000336] sony 0003:054C:0268.0018: input,hiddev0,hidraw6: USB HID v81.11 Joystick [Sony PS3 Controller] on usb-0000:00:14.0-3.3/input0
[ +1.144159] usb 1-3.3: USB disconnect, device number 43
[ +1.503464] usb 1-3.3: new full-speed USB device number 44 using xhci_hcd
[ +0.101397] usb 1-3.3: New USB device found, idVendor=045e, idProduct=028e, bcdDevice= 1.10
[ +0.000001] usb 1-3.3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[ +0.000001] usb 1-3.3: Product: Controller
[ +0.000001] usb 1-3.3: Manufacturer: Sony
[ +0.005481] input: Microsoft X-Box 360 pad as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb1/1-3/1-3.3/1-3.3:1.0/input/input85
So it connects, disconnects and reconnects with a different vendor and product id (I think I’m reading this correctly – I’ve tried to stay away from scary system logs in the past).
Anyway after wasting a lot of time trying to connect the controller like it was an actual sony controller I accepted it almost certainly… wasn’t. A check on Windows (where it does actually work OOTB) confirms this, as the device is simply called ‘Controller’.
I tried the patches suggested in this issue but didn’t have any luck. I don’t know how they are ID'ing their fakes to a particular brand either, I can’t work out where mine came from.
Eventually I found this gist, which suprising works! Just run it as root :^). So the next step was to get it running automatically with udev I guess, I’ve pretty much accepted I’m not getting wireless working at this point…
I don’t know much about udev either, but I’ll leave the rule & patched script I wrote to get the controller automatically connected here in case someone wants it.
I haven’t actually done much testing with the controller yet – the jstest-gtk window shows a concerning lack of movement in the horizontal for the right analog stick (steam’s controller window gives full movement however). If I have more problems actually getting the thing to work I’ll maybe amend it here :)