[SOLVED] wine: xbox controller buttons (LT/RB) stopped responding

quellen · 2026-02-14 10:20:57

Hi,
I've been having an issue with my Xbox controller lately. The L2 and R2 triggers have stopped working specifically when running games through Wine, even though they work perfectly fine on Linux natively.
I also tried testing it with a brand new WINEPREFIX, but it didn't solve the problem.
Any ideas on how to fix this?

Last edited by quellen (2026-02-18 09:32:05)

cryptearth · 2026-02-14 11:35:48

what controller is it EXACTLY?
manufacturer
model
wired/wireless - if wireless: how is the controller connected EXACTLY? own dongle? wifi? bluetooth?
what vid/pid shows lsusb (if any)?

point why i'm askin so specifically: i use an original official microsoft oem x360 for win oc (yes, its a mouthful but its a genuine micosoft product) - wired via usb 2.0
just used this morning and had no issues

if any maybe some very specific changes were made - or your controller is just about to die

quellen · 2026-02-14 11:49:32

cryptearth wrote:

what controller is it EXACTLY?
manufacturer
model
wired/wireless - if wireless: how is the controller connected EXACTLY? own dongle? wifi? bluetooth?
what vid/pid shows lsusb (if any)?

first xbox (2001) wired controller:

Bus 005 Device 002: ID 045e:0288 Microsoft Corp. Xbox Controller S Hub

(black and white buttons are not working)

cryptearth wrote:

if any maybe some very specific changes were made - or your controller is just about to die

I don't think the controller is damaged. It works perfectly on Linux natively

cryptearth · 2026-02-14 14:44:18

wow, didn't expected they live that long - but ok, given i have mine also for 10+ years now ...

quellen wrote:

I don't think the controller is damaged. It works perfectly on Linux natively

THAT is something to start with: can you narrow down if you recently updated wine/proton?
do you use managers like steam, lutris, heroic?
if able maybe check whether a previous version restores operation (i use fixed versions managed via protonup-qt - gonna recheck different over the weekend - maybe i can reproduce the issue)

// update

so I tried several different versions of wine, wine-staging and proton - and with several games, both supporting controller input and such which don't do so "official" but still work thanks to steam, I couldn't recreate any issues
that doesn't mean there aren't any - but only that i, also using an official microsoft device, could not recreate it

Last edited by cryptearth (2026-02-15 23:29:10)

quellen · 2026-02-17 12:37:07

cryptearth wrote:

THAT is something to start with: can you narrow down if you recently updated wine/proton?
do you use managers like steam, lutris, heroic?
if able maybe check whether a previous version restores operation (i use fixed versions managed via protonup-qt - gonna recheck different over the weekend - maybe i can reproduce the issue)
// update
so I tried several different versions of wine, wine-staging and proton - and with several games, both supporting controller input and such which don't do so "official" but still work thanks to steam, I couldn't recreate any issues
that doesn't mean there aren't any - but only that i, also using an official microsoft device, could not recreate it

Thanks for the tests!
I tried downgrading wine to a June 2025 version (wine-10.11-1), but it didn’t fix the issue. I don’t use Lutris/Heroic.
Anyway, the problem already occurs in wine configurations:

wine control

The white and black buttons (LT and RB) are simply not present:

Last edited by quellen (2026-02-17 12:51:45)

cryptearth · 2026-02-17 16:25:38

hm, looks fine to me
the two circles: the sticks
the two bars: the analog triggers
all the face buttons - and for what's the shoulder buttons on modern pads I see L and R which should map to the white and black button - don't what they were called - way too long i had a pad of the og xbox in my hands
so the UI at least knows the total count of the buttons
do they all work or are L and R don't come up when pressing white and black?

shame i can't test myself - but if a different/older version of fine shows the same it ciuld be some supporting lib or even the kernel
what kernel do you use? unless you tried lts already i would give it a shot
next wine requires several supporting libs - if i'm not wrong it could be SDL - check pacman log if you updated that lately
you could also try to use the archive and downgrade your entire system to some older state - but this could break other stuff

i don't know about the specifics from the physical button press all the way to running code inside wine - maybe someone can give more insight here

quellen · 2026-02-17 18:04:26

cryptearth wrote:

next wine requires several supporting libs - if i'm not wrong it could be SDL - check pacman log if you updated that lately

great! I downgraded sdl3 and now the LT and RB buttons are working! Thanks!

sudo pacman -U https://archive.archlinux.org/packages/s/sdl3/sdl3-3.2.20-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst

Unfortunately, I'll lose these changes with the next update :-| I wonder what's causing the issue... maybe I should report it, but to whom?

cryptearth · 2026-02-17 19:22:50

now that we identified a recent sdl3 update we can continue with bisection - but unfortunately I'm not the one to help with this - but some very advanced users here can help you
but before we start I'd like to check whether you can fix it in a different way:
checking for SDL here's what I get:

pacman -Qs sdl
local/lib32-sdl2-compat 2.32.64-1
    An SDL2 compatibility layer that uses SDL3 behind the scenes - 32-bit
local/lib32-sdl3 3.4.0-1
    A library for portable low-level access to a video framebuffer, audio output, mouse, and keyboard (Version 3) - 32-bit
local/qemu-audio-sdl 10.2.0-2
    QEMU SDL audio driver
local/qemu-ui-sdl 10.2.0-2
    QEMU SDL UI driver
local/sdl2-compat 2.32.64-1
    An SDL2 compatibility layer that uses SDL3 behind the scenes
local/sdl2_image 2.8.8-1
    A simple library to load images of various formats as SDL surfaces (Version 2)
local/sdl3 3.4.0-4
    A library for portable low-level access to a video framebuffer, audio output, mouse, and keyboard (Version 3)

check whether you have sdl2-compat installed - if not: give it a try if it may help
otherwise we have to bisect sdl3

quellen · 2026-02-17 19:39:43

$ pacman -Qs sdl
local/gamepad-tool-bin 1.2-1
    Simple GUI tool to create/modify gamepad mappings for SDL2 Game Controller
    API
local/lib32-sdl2-compat 2.32.64-1
    An SDL2 compatibility layer that uses SDL3 behind the scenes - 32-bit
local/lib32-sdl3 3.4.0-1
    A library for portable low-level access to a video framebuffer, audio
    output, mouse, and keyboard (Version 3) - 32-bit
local/sdl12-compat 1.2.68-2
    SDL 1.2 runtime compatibility library using SDL 2.0
local/sdl2-compat 2.32.64-1
    An SDL2 compatibility layer that uses SDL3 behind the scenes
local/sdl3 3.2.20-1
    A library for portable low-level access to a video framebuffer, audio
    output, mouse, and keyboard (Version 3)
local/sdl_net 1.2.8-6
    A small sample cross-platform networking library
local/sdl_sound 1.0.3-13
    A library to decode several popular sound file formats, such as .WAV and
    .MP3
local/yape 0.80.1-1
    Multiplatform Commodore 64 and 264 family emulator written in C++ using SDL2

quellen · 2026-02-18 08:21:16

I SOLVED by adding this environment variable to my .bashrc:

export SDL_GAMECONTROLLERCONFIG="030000005e0400008902000021010000,Xbox Controller 2001,a:b0,b:b1,x:b3,y:b4,back:b6,start:b7,leftstick:b8,rightstick:b9,leftshoulder:b5,rightshoulder:b2,dpup:h0.1,dpdown:h0.4,dpleft:h0.8,dpright:h0.2,lefttrigger:a2,righttrigger:a5,leftx:a0,lefty:a1,rightx:a3,righty:a4,platform:Linux,"

(It also works with the latest version of SDL3)

Last edited by quellen (2026-02-18 09:32:16)

Arch Linux

#1 2026-02-14 10:20:57

[SOLVED] wine: xbox controller buttons (LT/RB) stopped responding

#2 2026-02-14 11:35:48

Re: [SOLVED] wine: xbox controller buttons (LT/RB) stopped responding

#3 2026-02-14 11:49:32

Re: [SOLVED] wine: xbox controller buttons (LT/RB) stopped responding

#4 2026-02-14 14:44:18

Re: [SOLVED] wine: xbox controller buttons (LT/RB) stopped responding

#5 2026-02-17 12:37:07

Re: [SOLVED] wine: xbox controller buttons (LT/RB) stopped responding

#6 2026-02-17 16:25:38

Re: [SOLVED] wine: xbox controller buttons (LT/RB) stopped responding

#7 2026-02-17 18:04:26

Re: [SOLVED] wine: xbox controller buttons (LT/RB) stopped responding

#8 2026-02-17 19:22:50

Re: [SOLVED] wine: xbox controller buttons (LT/RB) stopped responding

#9 2026-02-17 19:39:43

Re: [SOLVED] wine: xbox controller buttons (LT/RB) stopped responding

#10 2026-02-18 08:21:16

Re: [SOLVED] wine: xbox controller buttons (LT/RB) stopped responding

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