Hardware & Technical Latest X52 Pro quirk

[Jack Schitt]

This will probably get lost here in the Subforum Of The Damned but I thought I'd post it anyway.

One of the many recent software updates to my system -- my money's on one of the Windows 10 updates with its ever tighter security -- has broken the X52 Pro Profiler software. It appears that it's no longer able to send keystrokes to other applications.

This is a problem for me in ED because, while every other button is bound directly within ED itself, the only button I could never get ED to recognise was the mouse button on the throttle. I wanted to use this button for cargo hatch toggling. To work around this I set the keyboard '4' key to toggle the cargo hatch, then used the Saitek Profiler software to make the throttle mouse button press the '4' key. And that worked, for years.

Now it's all stopped. No matter what keys I program that throttle mouse button to do it cannot send them. Not to ED, not to Notepad, not even to the Profiler's own Test window.

The workaround for the workaround has been to not use the Profiler software at all but instead to open the X52 Pro's Properties dialog from within the Game Controllers Control Panel applet (the place where you'd normally go to disable Clutch Mode or turn down the LEDs). Bizarrely, having this dialog open allows ED to directly bind the throttle mouse button as Button 16.

Without the Properties sheet open, ED cannot see the throttle button. Yeah, don't ask me what combination of trial, error and desperation led me to stumble upon that little gem.

This is not too onerous for me; I've added a launch command for "joy.cpl" to the batch file that launches ED and all of the third-party tools I use, so all I have to remember to do is open the Properties dialog. No worse than having to remember to select the Elite profile in the Profiler, which I had to do before. But I'm not looking forward to the next time I play FSX or X-Plane, both of which used much more complex profiles than ED all of which will now need to be set directly in the games.

Anyway, I thought I'd leave this here for any other X52 Pro users who may suddenly find their Profilers not working as they once did, and find this thread with a fortuitous search. I'm still not sure what's at the heart of this change, so if anyone knows for certain and/or can offer a more elegant solution than having that Properties sheet open, please let me know.

 

[Shadowdancer]

Are you using whatever software and drivers Logitech are offering, or still the stone-age Saitek crap? (I'm not saying that Logitech's is any better—their track record for controller software is only marginally better than Razer's—, and even though I have an X-52 sitting in a cupboard I won't taint my system with any of it.)

 

[Jack Schitt]

It’s the latest Logitech stuff. SuMo claims there’s a slightly newer point version of a couple of components but re-downloading them doesn’t change anything so I’m guessing SuMo has got confused with a beta version. Wouldn’t be the first time.

 

[Flimley]

Hey jack, I think this may be to do with new permissions for apps set to “no” from Microsoft as standard. I’m just going through my old posts as I gave someone the answer to this a while ago.

....if I am remembering the right issue correctly.

Flimley

update.... app permissions was for my microphone in privacy settings; Not X52pro...

x52pro answer for me was as below

 

[Flimley]

Fast boot

See if fast boot has been renabled first... this prevented my X52pro from being recognised.

The 1803 update resets and turns on ‘Fast boot’. This setting can cause problems at start up for some hardware, such as my X52pro which doesn’t start up correctly.

1. – Head to the [FONT=noto_serifbold]Control Panel[/FONT] and click on [FONT=noto_serifbold]Power Options[/FONT]
2. – Click the link of the left-hand side [FONT=noto_serifbold]‘Choose what the power buttons do[/FONT]’
3. – Click the ‘[FONT=noto_serifbold]Change settings currently unavailable[/FONT]’ line
   
4. – Tick the ‘[FONT=noto_serifbold]Turn off fast start-up’[/FONT] box under Shut-down settings

This may help? At least in terms of correctly connecting the device to the operations system, and hopefully your issue after that ?

Flimley

 

[Jack Schitt]

The 1803 update resets and turns on ‘Fast boot’. This setting can cause problems at start up for some hardware, such as my X52pro which doesn’t start up correctly.

Thanks for the info but I don't have that option. I just have the option to show Sleep in the Power menu, and to show Lock on the account picture menu. My hardware is pretty old (late 2013) so maybe doesn't support this. I'll make a note of it, though, in case I see similar on any other Windows 10 systems.

I suspect you're right in that it's probably a permissions/security thing buried somewhere. I remember having to temporarily disable one of the more recent security features in order to get EDDiscovery (or was it EDEngineer? One of them) to install properly after an update. Microsoft do love adding stuff and changing settings behind the scenes. One of my favourites is the one that silently re-enables "allow this device to wake the computer" on my wireless mouse receiver. I put the computer to sleep, a truck drives past in the night, mouse shakes on the desk, computer is merrily whirring away when I wake up. This happens at least every couple of updates.

To be honest when it comes to ED I think I actually prefer it this way. It always seemed like overkill having a whole Profile manager running just for a single keypress, and although opening the joystick Properties is the oddest workaround I've ever had to do it makes a lot of sense to have everything in the game bindings. The only downside is that I no longer have the option to use the mode switch in any meaningful way, but to be fair I never got around to doing that anyway. And the oddity that opens up the throttle mouse button for reading in-game also seems to have opened up all of the other throttle buttons including the rollers below the display which never worked before. So I've got at least 8 more free inputs to play with.

 

[Flimley]

Stupid windows !
The only other thing I can suggest is to set the USB hubs so they are always powered. Windows likes to shutdown USB hubs when it decides your not using them enough.
So for that I normally go to control panel then find device manager, right click on the USB hubs and in power management set to HeMan settings. ...or, untick power off when not used. Or something to that effect.

Its worth trying everything until something works !

Flimley

 

[Shadowdancer]

Open device manager and disable the mouse device created by the stick in the HID section. Don't delete it or it will just come back.

Saitek was massively stupid on the X-52 and made that broken mouse emulation—in software too which is way more exciting on modern Windows because software-generated input is quite a significant security issue—, with the nipple-stick plus surrounding buttons and wheel. As long as that emulation layer is active, it's a crapshoot to use the controls anywhere because they will just show up as mouse events if at all.

 

[Jack Schitt]

Open device manager and disable the mouse device created by the stick in the HID section. Don't delete it or it will just come back.

Thanks for that; I knew there was a virtual mouse setting somewhere but I was looking in the Logitech software. Didn't think to look in the Device Manager.

Well, it just gets nuttier. Disabling that virtual stick made the Profiler start working again, but only until I cleared the profile then reloaded the Elite profile, at which point it went back to ignoring it. What's really odd is that with the mouse disabled and the Properties dialog closed, I can assign that button to a function in ED's bindings, but then it doesn't do anything in the actual game. With the Properties sheet open, it works. With neither running, the game doesn't see the button at all.

Guess I'll stick with what works. Assuming it's a security policy that's borked the Profiler then I can understand, from Microsoft's point of view, why they don't necessarily want applications to be able to inject keystrokes into other applications which is basically what the Logitech software does. And it does feel more elegant having ED read the stick directly, even if it means having that dialog open. I'm just surprised that it hasn't caused more problems though. I wonder if it's had any effect on Voice Attack, or AutoHotKey? I haven't used either for a couple of years but I know some ED players swear by them. I might do some experimentation at the weekend if I get a bit of free time.

In the meantime, "joy.cpl" is going to see more action than it has in a while.

 

[Viking84]

I just got done with some extensive control setup in Joystick Gremlin. It is quite user friendly once you grasp the concept, and the xml files are easily editable if you need to mass-bind various keys. It can do both rebinding to keyboard strokes and to vJoy devices.

Could be worth testing it out to see if the mouse button on the X52 is picked up there?