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.

In the end, I made a new retropie image and then made sure to properly configure the controller at startup. The other issue was related to faulty card reader.

@mitu thank you . I will search to see any ideas that help

@CyrodiilWarrior You need to start the controller in pairing mode when you're trying to add it via Bluetooth to RetroPie, starting it via the PS button is not enough.

While pressing and holding the SHARE button, press and hold the PS button until the light bar flashes.

While the light bar flashes, do the Bluetooth scan & pair from RetroPie.

@w-ekapak I also have delay and even disconnecting issues with ds4 at times. I solved it by using an 8bitdo bluetooth adapter.

@mitu
I did as told, emulationstation auto config was disabled. I enabled it and also removed xboxdrv.
And it finally works! I could configure both controller, the configuration is kept in the game and even when rebooting I don't need to re-configure it again.

Thanks a lot, the auto config settings were an eye-opener!

@niwi said in First boot rasperry pi 400 with Sony PS4 controller:

Should the PS4 controller be discovered at first start?

Yes. Check the cable - it may be faulty or allows only charging (and no data communcation). If you have a PC available, check if the cable+controller are detected there.

@depawlur said in Ubuntu 20.04 EmulationStation crash after turning off DS4/PS4 controller:

How do I properly install it?
also what package is that?
libSDL or libSDL-dev?
also is it libSDL or libsdl2?

The package in the Ubuntu version you're using does not have the bug fixed. I see that Ubuntu 21.04 (the upcoming version) will have a newer version with the fix I was mentioning before.
You can install it from source, but if it's not something you've done before, I'd say wait for the new Ubuntu version. libsdl2 uses the traditional ./configure; make; make install installation process, common for many open source projects.

You should look into why your controller disconnects - maybe there's an issue with it or the connection to your system.

I followed instructions here, tried to install from ubuntu repo as well as compiled it, but same effect for me.

We don't have instructions for building SDL, if you're referring to the RetroPie install instructions, then I don't think it's any difference how you make the installatio - on a PC the RetroPie packages are always installed from source.

@mitu Thanks that worked perfectly!

@HwHyInI Please some more info about your system, as detailed in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first.

@mitu Yes, that solved everything. Thank you kindly for your time and help. I appreciate it a lot.

@JuanZt

Just stopped by to thank you. I've used your steps and was able to get my PS4 controller (not original) to work.

@Julchak did you get any further with this? I have the exact same problem at the moment

There isn't one - basically if you pair it to a device, it will stay paired to that particular device. If you want to move it/connect it to a different device (PC/Pi/PS4), you'll have to do the pairing again.

Ok, so I just figured it out. For some reason my controller was player 2 so I switched it back to player one using https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/RetroPie/comments/6003hk/switch_controller_player_number/ and it was a big help

ok cool appreciate your help.