SHANWAN / PS3 CONTROLLER Pi3 RETROPIE 3.6 BLUETOOTH SETUP

BuZz

@pablo https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first - Please format your posts - eg using code blocks for easier reading etc

pablo

@BuZz Apologies

luetzel

Hi @pablo,

the logs you have posted look promising to me, however, I am a bit confused why you're still trying to use 'sixad' to pair your controller? Sixad takes over bluez/ bluetoothd service so that other bluetooth devices, such as keyboards or mice can’t connect while sixad is active.

If this is what you want to achieve, you should stick to the patched bluez, which can handle PS3 controller clones AND
keyboard/mice at the same time, whereas sixad can handle ONLY PS3 controllers.

Again, just for clarification: sixad and bluez should not run at the same time. However, if you decided to use the patched bluez, sixpair is still necessary to trust/pair the PS3 controller, since bluetoothctl otherwise asks for a passkey, which cannot be entered with the controller.

Krayzie8

@luetzel please correct me if I'm wrong, I'm really still learning a lot and I have from you guys. So even with the new retropie 3.8, every time you install ps3 configs from retropie setup it breaks the onboard bluetooth yes? so to install ps3 clone controller I will need to follow your guide to install the patched bluez and sixpair to pair and trust the controller? does the 3.8 update fix the bluetooth and I can only install sixpair to make everything work?

Krayzie8

@luetzel do you have a little more detailed guide to installing sixad? I'm not very good at working the terminal but I can if I had the detailed instructions. Or could I just ssh and copy the folder (QtSixA) I downloaded to my pc into the pi then run a command from terminal? would that be possible?

luetzel

Hi @Krayzie8

@Krayzie8 said in SHANWAN / PS3 CONTROLLER Pi3 RETROPIE 3.6 BLUETOOTH SETUP:

@luetzel please correct me if I'm wrong, I'm really still learning a lot and I have from you guys. So even with the new retropie 3.8, every time you install ps3 configs from retropie setup it breaks the onboard bluetooth yes?

AFAIK the "Install/Pair PS3 controller" menu option of the retopie-setup.sh installs and configures the sixad daemon.
Sixad takes over the function of "regular" blutetoothd (bluez). You cannot run bluez AND sixad at the same time!

The RetroPie PS3 setup doesn't "break" the onboard bluetooth, it just prevents start of the bluez/bluetoothd service, so that pairing of other BT devices than your PS3 controller does not work anymore. So you're in trouble if you don't have a wired mouse or keyboard.

so to install ps3 clone controller I will need to follow your guide to install the patched bluez and sixpair to pair and trust the controller?

In case that you have a Gasia/Shanwan clone, pairing should be possible using the Gasia/Shanwan menu option of the retopie-setup.sh. AFAIK it is possible to pair "genuine" Sony controllers using bluez with the sixaxis plugin. If you own this kind of controller, RetroPie is supposed to work out-of-the-box. Check the output of 'dmesg' while connecting your controller via USB to figure out which type of controller you have.

If you want to use other BT devices AND your controller clones at the same time, you should skip installation through retopie-setup.sh script and use the patched bluez version instead. These patches enable bluez to pair Gasia/Shanwan controller clones using the bluez sixaxis plugin.

does the 3.8 update fix the bluetooth and I can only install sixpair to make everything work?

If you run retopie-setup.sh on Raspbian it will do an apt-get update && apt-get upgrade in order to update all packages on your system. This will probably fix the problems that have been recently reported with the build-in bluetooth hardware on a Pi3. There are a couple of threads in this forum dealing with the broken build-in BT on Pi3.

Depending whether you want to use other BT devices you have to install either sixad/sixpair or patched bluez/sixpair.

luetzel

@luetzel do you have a little more detailed guide to installing sixad? I'm not very good at working the terminal but I can if I had the detailed instructions. Or could I just ssh and copy the folder (QtSixA) I downloaded to my pc into the pi then run a command from terminal? would that be possible?

@Krayzie8
Detailled installation instructions can be found within the INSTALL file of the qtsixa-1.4.96.tar.gz archive found at https://sourceforge.net/projects/qtsixa/

Krayzie8

@luetzel Thanks very much! Really appreciate it. My PS3 controller is not genuine. Not sure if it's Shanwan or Gasia but it shows as SZMY-Power Playstation Controller. I will attempting to install the patched bluez since I want my controller and other devices to use bluetooth. I'm looking at the instructions now within the install file of the qtsixa and will google some more on how to install the sixpair. Haven't done a "build" before but I will try my best. Wish me luck. Thanks

Wolfman100

@luetzel Your invalueable input seems to be helping a lot of people out so must be commended.: )

I am doing yet another install and this time when configuring Bluez I am getting the following error:

configure: error: readline header files are required

Any idea what this could be?

Wolfman100

or anyone else?

Wolfman100

I'm not sure why this issue has arisen as it has not happened on previous installs.The variables that have changed are the build is on a single OS system (Just OSMC,not a Raspian/OSMC dual boot) and a lter version of RetroPie 4.0.I can't imagine that either of these have contributed to the issue however?

luetzel

@Wolfman100
Hi Wolfman,
sorry for my delayed answer, but I do not receive email notifications from the forum. You are missing (again) some packages, which are required for compilation of the source code. In general: if you receive a message such as 'missing header(file).h' from ./configure or gcc compiler, simply do a 'sudo aptitude search <name>'. In case of 'readline', aptitude reveals a package named 'readline-dev'. Just install it and you are good to go.

Wolfman100

Hi @luetzel AKA The Master Of the Shanwan!

No problem.Thanks for getting back to me.I'm kind of intigued as to why this time around that particular package is missing.

I already went to:

https://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/php/chet/readline/rltop.html

And attempted to install that package but that then returned more errors so I stopped as I didn't have to install any of this before....

Wolfman100

Surely in my previous installions which were dual boot,there was no way that it would be seeing installed packages on another OS and using those is there?

Wolfman100

I have also tried:

sudo apt-get install readline-dev

and it is unable to locate package

Wolfman100

I managed to install the correct package which solved the issue with:

sudo apt-get install libreadline-gplv2-dev

Wolfman100

For some reason though the 'make' fails:

osmc@osmc:~/qtsixa-1.4.96/utils$ ls
bins hcid hidraw-dump.c Makefile sixad-jack.c sixpair.c sixpair_kbd.c
osmc@osmc:~/qtsixa-1.4.96/utils$ nano Makefile
osmc@osmc:~/qtsixa-1.4.96/utils$ make
gcc -Wall -O2 hidraw-dump.c -o bins/hidraw-dump
gcc -Wall -O2 sixad-jack.c -o bins/sixad-jack -ljack -lm
sixad-jack.c:25:23: fatal error: jack/jack.h: No such file or directory
#include <jack/jack.h>
^
compilation terminated.
Makefile:8: recipe for target 'tools' failed
make: *** [tools] Error 1

Wolfman100

I'm really really baffled why all these errors are appearing and why so many packages seem to not be installed as I had none of these issues on previous builds...

Wolfman100

Managed to get all the missing packages installed and make QtoSixA,but now the Pi sees the controller,but only as a keyboard for some reason....

[03-C6-9E-66-63-25]# info 03:C6:9E:66:63:25
Device 03:C6:9E:66:63:25
Alias: 03-C6-9E-66-63-25
Class: 0x000540
Icon: input-keyboard
Paired: no
Trusted: no
Blocked: no
Connected: yes
LegacyPairing: no
[CHG] Device 03:C6:9E:66:63:25 Connected: no
[DEL] Device 03:C6:9E:66:63:25 03-C6-9E-66-63-25
[bluetooth]#

dagosand

Hello!
This is my first post, and my english is not so good.
After 4 days and 4 nights of hard work spent to pair my ps3 controller shanwan clone and my raspberry pi 3 using the internal Bluetooth I filally say that I have win!!!!
I have installed a microsd card with retropie 3.8.1 and updated and upgraded to last commits of 2016-06-19.
I have followed the instructions provided by @luetzel (In this guide) with one more step to add after the Step3 and before the Step4.
In this new step it is necessary to execute this command that creates a symbolic link called "/etc/firmware":

sudo ln -s /lib/firmware/ /etc/firmware

This command is necessary because in a bluez sources there is a file called:
hciattach_bcm43xx.c
located in the src/tools folder there is a reference to a path called "/etc/firmware", but this path does not exist in retropie distros.

Before the creation of the symbolic link, after the execution of the Step4 of the guide, when I execute this command:
sudo ./sixpair
I have the same result obtained by user @pablo in this post and user @buddhastevend in this post:
pi@retropie:~/QtSixA-1.5.1/utils/bins $ sudo ./sixpair
Current Bluetooth master: aa:aa:aa:aa:aa:aa
Setting master bd_addr to aa:aa:aa:aa:aa:aa

After the creation of the symbolic link the pairing process works perfectly!
pi@retropie:~/QtSixA-1.5.1/utils/bins $ sudo ./sixpair
Current Bluetooth master: b8:27:eb:e5:2f:e1
Setting master bd_addr to b8:27:eb:e5:2f:e1

I hope this great news for me can be useful to other retropie and raspberry users.

I had the idea to create the symbolic link reading this thread.

Good night.