PS4 DS4 Controllers Don't Resync After Reboot

Libretro Lakka
#1

I just installed Lakka on an Dell i5 2500k that I had, and it seems to work very well so far. This is exactly the type of appliance set up that I needed to play with emulation. Thanks for making Lakka!

For controllers, I synced two bluetooth DS4 compatible controllers (sold as Oubang, YU33 and other names on Amazon and eBay… they appear to all be the same controller). I liked the Xbox-like layout and controls of these. They sync perfectly and play well. However, once I reboot the machine, they do not resync automatically. In fact, I need to manually sync them every time via SSH (which is a real PITA). However, the sync remains fine if I simply restart RetroArch.

I’ve already tried the hint that I found elsewhere here, and that hint is to force a “pair” command after connecting. However, that pair command replies with “Failed to pair: org.bluez.Error.AlreadyExists”, so I assume that whatever magic this command was recommend to do, that magic has already been done earlier.

Finally, it may be useful to note that I tested these controllers with Kodi on CoreElec on an Amlogic box. I used the exact same USB bluetooth dongle in case that makes a difference. The controllers do resync after a reboot there. I assume that the software stack on Kodi/CoreElec would be somewhat similar, and the bluetooth hardware is identical. So, this test seems to give hope that the controllers should be able to resync happily with the proper incantation.

Anyhow, my questions are these:

  1. Does anyone have any tips or debugging steps that I can try, logs that would be useful, etc? Obviously, getting these to sync automatically would be ideal.

  2. If resyncing automatically is not possible, is the current “correct” backup plan to use a script in autostart.sh as I see mentioned in some posts on the forum here from a year or two ago? (I saw a reference in another post that autostart.sh might not be the right place to do this sort of thing anymore. If that is true, where is the right place?)

Thanks in advance for your help resolving this and thanks also for Lakka and RetroArch!

Thanks, Sammy

#2

Same problem here. I have to resync after every reboot via SSH. I also have a PS4 DS4 Controller.

#3

Thanks for the reply and commiseration. Surely someone has some debugging advice for this. As I mentioned in my original post, in my case these same controllers sync and auto-resync fine on a CoreELEC Amlogic box running KODI. I used the exact same Bluetooth dongle on both environments as well, so it seems clear that the hardware is not fundamentally flawed.

Can anyone offer us some debugging clues please?

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