Okay I seem to have automagically fixed the problem somehow? This morning it still wasn't working so I left the gamepads to charge and left for an hour to take care of some chores. Came back, still nothing, so I removed them (again) and re-paired them (again).

Been working ever since. Tried several reboots, a hard power off, they now re-pair upon pushing the PS button like magic. Maybe they just didn't have enough juice in them yesterday? I really don't know what else, I only left them for 5-10 mins on the charger to test things out. Either that or it was some freaky glitch.

The system and all the packages have been updated to their latest versions last night.

Anyway, I guess that settles it. At least for now. Hopefully it doesn't start acting up again.

@mitu I wasn't able to get the debugging to work, I don't think I know how to do that correctly. Ultimately I installed and configured this and it seems to be working.
https://github.com/eberhab/bluetooth-repair

@Plantor07 been literally dealing with this for days with 8bitdo and Stadia. Tried this and it worked for me.

https://github.com/atar-axis/xpadneo#installation

Hm, seems like the the hid_nintendo driver has some issues with the 8Bitdo pretending to be a Switch Pro Controller. Thanks for the investigatio and write-up.

Generally, users use the XInput mode for 8Bitdo Pro(s) and use the hid_xpadneo driver, probably that's why there haven't been so many reports similar to yours.

@mitu thanks for suggestions and help

@Diego said in Bluetooth controllers order:

I think I fall a bit short to answer your question but I think I can provide some more information that you may find useful. [...]

Unfortunately the alias you added is not used for re-ordering of the controllers in emulators. I'm not sure if you can force a re-connection based on the MAC (which I assume is how the alias is associated with the controller), but that may be worth investigating - forcing a re-connect of the controller(s) just to influence the detection order and simulate an 'orderly' pairing.

@mitu

FYI, solved with help from the moonlight team.

https://github.com/moonlight-stream/moonlight-qt/issues/1563#issuecomment-2774382989

@andrewjrpi123 said in Can't sucesfully pair PS4 Dualshock controller with retropie.:

@mitu Incidentally, running/closing retroarch doesn't seem to create a runcommand.log

It's created only when you start a game, not when you start RetroArch from the RetroPie system. Start a game first, with verbose logging as explained in the docs, get the 'unconfigured message', then exit the game (press Esc on the keyboard) and you can then find the /dev/shm/runcommand.log file.

RetroPie's BT pairing is geared mainly to input devices (gamepads/keyboards) and may not work properly on Audio devices. Try to pair manually using bluetoothctl - https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Bluetooth.

You may also want to replace pulseaudio with pipewire-pulse, since Pipewire has replaced Pulseaudio in the latest RaspiOS (and other Linux distributions).

If you don't succeed, try installing the RaspiOS desktop image, which has the Bluetooth pairing utilities on the desktop and installs the necessary audio packages. Once you make it work, you can disable the graphical desktop and boot to console to start EmulationStation.

Did you try to ask the vendor if they have Linux support ? Is the controller you have the Brawler64 BT NSO Edition - the one that's created for the Switch ?

Please also add the info requested in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first.

Aha!
The USB charger cube I was using (true Apple 12W) REFUSES to charge/power the Sony Controller! When I used a cheap no name USB cube it now connects and stays connected. Yay!

Thanks for your all suggestions

@mitu Like my 8bitdo gamepads (on pi3 or pi4), my DS4 never reconnect after a system reboot. They stay connected only on EmulationStation reboot.

No particular error shows up in the logs, the 360 is detected but not initialized as a gamepad though. Nothing comes to mind on what's going on.
You may want to post in the Steamlink forums (https://steamcommunity.com/app/353380/discussions/0/) and post the link to your log there also. If any of the controller works by itself, then it's not a config issue and usually in situation like this I'd check if there's enough power for both the WiFi and USB at the time, but since they already work (simultaneously) outside Steamlink that can't be it.

@vorvy
Do you have any update on this? I am currently trying to make the same controller work, but I am not having much luck.

@mitu

No luck. Bought two cables. Same thing : /

p.s. I think the full update broke something because now I can't play a game with the controller wired haha. It says xbox controller not configured, a message in the lower left screen. But I can use it in the emulator carousel GUI. Everywhere except a game.

As much as I want to play wireless, it's more my curiosity and desire to want to fix a bug and understand why the pi zero is fussy about this and not the pi 4.

@mitu thanks

@abj Will look thru these again, thank you

A standard keyboard is ok