Big Box moving on its own -- UltraStik 360 joysticks

[dragonkoh]

Hi all ~

I've done some research and already know this is a bug due to having the option "Use all controllers" enabled. But... I would like to have that option enabled so Big Box can be navigated with any of my cabinet's joysticks... so what's the actual solution to this problem other than disabling that? Is this a confirmed Big Box bug? Does anyone know why this happens? If it is a bug, do we expect it to ever be fixed? Does anyone know any workarounds other than disabling that option? Just looking for some additional insight or suggestions.

The issue is that Big Box seems to randomly and inconsistently trigger anything that the joystick controls are configured to do.

For reference I'm using Big Box (LaunchBox version 13.12) on a custom cabinet running Windows 10 with four UltrStik 360 joysticks plugged in via USB. Also have a Mayflash GameCube adapter and occasionally some bluetooth Xbox controllers enabled. I'm using devreorder to force each device to load in a specified order so everything works nicely with RetroArch. Steam is installed but not running. Attract mode is disabled. All joysticks are aligned and in a dead zone. The problem occurs only in Big Box and only when Options > Controller > "Use all Controllers" is enabled.

Edited December 4 by dragonkoh

[AstroBob]

Hi @dragonkoh 

We haven’t encountered other instances of Big Box forcing unwanted inputs, so this isn’t a known bug on our end. However, we’ll do our best to investigate and uncover the cause.

Based on your description, several variables could potentially be causing an input to be registered in Big Box. To start narrowing down the issue, could you please test the following for us?

1. Update LaunchBox:
To rule out anything specific to the version of LaunchBox you’re using, please try updating to the latest version. Version 13.12 is quite old, and we’d like to determine if the issue persists in version 13.17. If updating resolves the issue, it may have been addressed in a newer version.

If you’re unable to update your existing build, you can install a fresh build of the latest version (13.17) separately to test and confirm if the same issue occurs there.

 

2. Check the Theme:
What theme are you using in Big Box? Does the issue occur if you switch to the default theme? This step will help rule out anything specific to your current theme.

 

3. Clarify the Behavior:
Can you provide more details about what exactly is happening in Big Box? For example, when you mention “unwanted inputs,” does that mean Big Box cycles through games or performs actions like confirm/cancel even when nothing is pressed? If possible, a screen recording demonstrating the issue would be incredibly helpful.

 

4. Frequency of the Issue:
Can you describe how often this happens? Is it consistent, does it occur only after leaving Big Box idle for a while, or is it entirely random?

 

Let’s start with these steps. If you can confirm the above details, we’ll do our best to get this sorted for you.

[dragonkoh]

Hi @AstroBob and thanks for the reply

When I was troubleshooting this I came across several comments by others regarding the issue and assumed this was a known bug, so if it's not I'm going to continue troubleshooting my setup more first since it could be on my end.

I'm now wondering if the UltraStik 360 joysticks are actually the problem since although they're centered I see occasional slight movement by the sensors when looking in their configuration software, although it falls in the deadzone. I already have a large deadzone in my configuration but I tried increasing it further and it seems to have improved the problem (but didn't solve it fully) so that makes me think it's their sensors rather than a Big Box issue -- Maybe what's happening is that every so often a joystick's sensor is jumping out of the deadzone. When enabling "Use all controllers" perhaps having all four sticks enabled just makes the problem more frequent since there are more sensors to potentially cause problems.

I've updated LaunchBox and tested reverting to the default theme and neither solved the problem.

To clarify the problem ~ The behavior is inconsistent but about once every few seconds it will automatically scroll once or open search (both of these actions can be triggered by joystick movement).

Again, knowing that this isn't a confirmed bug I'm now suspecting a sensor issue with UltraStik 360 joysticks so I'm going to do a thorough cleaning and inspection of the sensors. I'll mark this thread as solved or follow up once I've done that.

 

 

Edited December 3 by dragonkoh

[AstroBob]

Hi there, thanks for the informative update there and for elaborating on the situation. Sounds like you're absolutely on the right path there given the symptoms you're seeing. With the amount of controllers enabled, with the Use All Controllers preference turned on in BigBox, the number of potential inputs is significantly increased.

Sounds like you have an idea which one it's coming from, but if not you could try disconnecting each of the controllers 1 by one until the issue stops. From there I can't say exactly whats causing the stick to jump outside the dead zone, but I wonder if some sort of keylogger program might help, to at least see what sort of input it's doing on its own.

Keep us posted with how you get on.

[kmoney]

I can confirm and had the same issue that @dragonkoh had when I had the ultrastick 360's in my cabinet exactly as he was describing. I tried different troubleshooting steps for hours on end and could never figure out what was wrong until it drove me so mad that I ended up replacing them with a different less sophisticated joystick and problem was solved. I did not want to however because having the U360's in the cabinet had great versatility and functionality of changing the maps from 4-way, 8-way and analog and were way better than the joysticks that I am using now. They only acted like that and had those weird issues with BigBox just like he said. I even emailed back and forth with the developer of the joysticks and he even sent me a new circuit board for one of the joysticks to see if it solved the problem and sadly it did not. 

[Crush]

I had similar problems with my Ultrasticks drifting with various emulators and games. With some of them increasing the joystick deadzone helped.

 

[cbuckthree]

Shoot, this is a huge bummer. I have the same thing on a new installation I'm working on. BigBox registers movement, even when the Ulstrastik's are perfectly still. Bringing up the UltraMap software I don't see movement at all. I really want to use these sticks so I might just live with it until a fix is stumbled upon.