William Gallagher
Users are reporting problems with game controllers following the macOS Monterey 12.3 update, with some unable to use Xbox, Playstation, DualSense, or controllers from other vendors.
Apple updated macOS Monterey to version 12.3 on March 14, and since then a number of users have reported game controller failures. The update has not, however, affected all users.
There are multiple reports across the Apple Developer Forums, and also Reddit, with users recounting differing degrees of problems. One says that no Apple Arcade games work with the controllers, but others that do not rely on Apple's GameController framework have at least limited functionality.
"My DualSense controller does nothing when paired over Bluetooth after updating," writes Reddit user cultoftheilluminai. "The web APIs seem to work fine, my controller works fine when testing on https://gamepad-tester.com/ for instance. Looks like the lower level macOS APIs are broken."
There doesn't yet appear to be any consistency, with some users suggesting that another source of the problem may be in the Bluetooth connection to the Mac.
Apple has yet to comment publicly. The issue was spotted by MacRumors.
Christine McKee
Andrew Orr
Charles Martin
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Wesley Hilliard
8 Comments
My Nimbus+ appears to connect normally via Bluetooth on my Mac but NBA2K22 in Apple Arcade doesn't recognize that a controller is connected. Not having any problems like that with ATV 4K and NBA2K22.
I guess Apple will lunch own game pad soon?
How is it breaking the controllers? ... it seems as if the controllers aren't broken at all, but just don't work with the new version of the OS.
Since running this upgrade I have found that the dock on multiple MBPs has frozen or disappeared completely!
I have fixed this by running the following in terminal:
How nice to see Apple's quality assurance is as robust as ever.