Tool

Controller button test

Press every button on the controller once. Each one turns green the moment the browser sees it, and the count beside it goes up by one for every press. A button that stays gray is not registering, and a count that jumps by two on one press is a switch that bounces.

Read the checklist

  • Green. The browser has seen that button pressed at least once.
  • The count. One for every press. Press a button ten times: the count should say ten.
  • Possible double presses. Two presses of the same button less than 60 milliseconds apart, which is faster than most people can press twice on purpose.

One flagged press can be a quick double tap. The same button flagged again and again points to a worn switch.

Test the buttons that hide

  1. Press each face button, each bumper and each trigger.
  2. Press the D-pad in all four directions, one at a time.
  3. Click both sticks straight down.
  4. Press the small buttons in the middle, including the home button.
  5. Press Reset and go around once more, faster, to catch a button that only fails on a quick press.

If the controller does not show up

Climb this ladder, smallest step first:

  1. Press a button. A browser hides every controller from a page until a button is pressed while that page is in front.
  2. Click the page, then press again. The tab has to be the active one when you press.
  3. Reconnect it. Unplug the cable and plug it back in, or turn the controller off and on so it pairs again.
  4. Check that the computer sees it. On a Mac, a connected PlayStation, Xbox or Switch controller is listed in System Settings under Game Controllers. If it is missing there, the fix is pairing: controller connected but not working on a Mac has every step.
  5. Try a second browser. Browsers read controllers in different ways, so one that is missing in one browser can show up in another.

What this test can miss

The page looks at the controller once per screen frame, about 60 times a second on most screens. A press shorter than one frame can be missed, and a bounce shorter than one frame cannot be seen at all. Buttons past the standard seventeen, such as Share, Capture, mute and back paddles, appear only when the browser reports them. For the names each button has on PlayStation, Xbox and Switch, see controller button names.

It works. Now give it a job

A tester tells you the controller is fine. On a Mac, InputConfig is the app I make for the next step: it turns the buttons and sticks you just tested into keys, the mouse pointer, clicks and scrolling, in any app or game. It is free, and its Live Visualizer draws the same live picture inside the app, with the touchpad and motion sensors a browser does not pass to a page. Test it here, then put it to work there.

Questions

How do I test if all my controller buttons work?

Connect the controller, open this page and press every button once. Each one turns green when the browser sees it. Any that stays gray did not register.

What is a double input or button bounce?

A worn switch can make and break contact twice on one press, so the game sees two presses. This page flags two presses of one button less than 60 milliseconds apart.

Why does a button not light up?

Either the button has failed, or the browser does not report it. Extra buttons such as Share, Capture, mute and back paddles are the usual ones a browser leaves out, so check those in a second browser.

Related

Download InputConfig on the Mac App StoreFree. macOS 14 or later. No account, nothing leaves your Mac. Open source on GitHub.