Today I spent a while to fix a problem with my DualSense controller that really annoyed me for a while now, but I never found the time to fix. (disclaimer: summary was created by AI)
After restarting my openSUSE system, my DualSense controller would connect via Bluetooth but wasn’t recognized as a gamepad. It only worked after unplugging and replugging the Bluetooth dongle (ASUS USB-BT500).
Cause:
The Bluetooth dongle wasn’t initializing correctly after a reboot. While the controller could establish a Bluetooth connection, it wasn’t registering as an input device (/dev/input/by-id/). Only after manually resetting the dongle (by unplugging and replugging it) would the connection stabilize.
Solution: I created a udev rule to automatically reset the dongle after every reboot, ensuring proper initialization. This fixed the issue, and the controller is now reliably detected.
The udev rule:
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0b05", ATTRS{idProduct}=="190e", RUN+="/usr/bin/hciconfig hci1 reset"
(Replace 0b05:190e with your dongle’s ID from lsusb.)
After creating the rule with sudo nano /etc/udev/rules.d/99-bt-dongle-reset.rules and reloading udev (sudo udevadm control --reload-rules && sudo udevadm trigger), the controller now works immediately after boot.
Maybe this is helpful for somebody facing a similar issue. Or you can tell me, why this solution is a bad idea and why I should not listen to AI.
You might want to try updating your controller firmware (via Windows) and installing the steam-devices package if its not already installed.
Dualsense controllers should work out of the box like this.
I do not have a windows install anymore. Is there a way to update it via Linux? So far I only updated the firmware of the controller when my PlayStation showed an update. So I think it should be up to date. Or is there a special firmware for Windows?
Also the controller is working perfectly. Only problem was that I needed to unplug and plug in the Bluetooth dongle everytime I restarted the PC, for the controller to connect correctly.
I installed them through a Windows VM, not sure if they have different firmware for PS5 and PC.
I had a similar issue to yours where the controller would not connect or connect and not register as input. It worked fine for me after the update.
Do you have problems with other Bluetooth devices until you re-plug your adapter?
Not sure on if there’s a way to update it purely on linux, but you can pretty easily get a windows VM going and passthru USB to the VM. I’ve done this with a razer mouse since the (unofficial) software for razer on linux was lacking in my use case