HOTAS randomly starting/stopping pitching up/down.

[Nero Tacitus]

Hey all.

I have a Thrustmaster T-Flight HOTAS that has been serving me pretty well considering its entry level price tag. However, I've started having an issue where my ship randomly starts pitching up or down after returning the joystick to the centre position. Conversely, when pitching up/down, it will suddenly stop receiving input, and refuse to continue pitching until I rattle it around a bit, which fixes it for anything between 5 minutes and 5 seconds. It's annoying in general, but makes aiming in combat almost impossible.

At first I assumed it was the sensors on their way out (900 hours of use, not inconceivable), but I did some reading and people have suggested driver conflicts can cause this kind of behaviour. Oddly, the stick doesn't require drivers, I just use the Windows ones and have never run into this problem before. They also suggested removing peripheral devices; tried it, seemed to work for the first 20 minutes, then back to normal issues.

Before I go ripping the joystick apart to try and clean/repair it, I thought I'd see if anyone else has run into this issue before, and whether they solved it (or at least worked out whether it was software or hardware)?

Cheers.

 

[[VR] Enexemander]

It could be the pots going out. It could be the wiring. I had one and fixed it a few times (different issue). More likely just the sensors have lived their life than the wiring. The wiring has plenty of room and while just kind of hot-glued in place, doesn't have issues where they will actively fray (looking at you, old X-55/56s...)

It's probably not the drivers. You might want to open up Windows joystick panel and check the inputs.

Honestly, I think it's probably just time for a new stick (or an upgrade). I was using the throttle on the T-Flight and a T16000M for a quite a while. But if you have the cash, might want to just upgrade to a nicer set up. If you're 900 hours in, I'd say that warrants a bit of splurging. There really is a very noticeable difference between the entry level and higher level sticks.

 

[Raino]

its the stick, those high quality materials they use (according to the price class)

 

[Julio Montega]

It could be the pots going out. It could be the wiring. I had one and fixed it a few times (different issue). More likely just the sensors have lived their life than the wiring. The wiring has plenty of room and while just kind of hot-glued in place, doesn't have issues where they will actively fray (looking at you, old X-55/56s...)

It's probably not the drivers. You might want to open up Windows joystick panel and check the inputs.

Honestly, I think it's probably just time for a new stick (or an upgrade). I was using the throttle on the T-Flight and a T16000M for a quite a while. But if you have the cash, might want to just upgrade to a nicer set up. If you're 900 hours in, I'd say that warrants a bit of splurging. There really is a very noticeable difference between the entry level and higher level sticks.

Checked the USB slot and controller?
Using any software that can take control of the input device?

 

[RedJlve]

Might be the drivers. Bought HOTAS One for Xbox back in March. Worked out of the box, plug and play. Recommended that to a friend who was interested to buy it as well. He however had trouble getting it working, was unable to use controller unless with cable, later on hotas itself seemed to not work at all. Tried numerous solutions and finally got it to work when connected to PC and software updated through Thrustmaster Control Panel or something like that.

But as said, after 900 hours hardware might start to fail as well.

 

[Nero Tacitus]

Thanks for the input.

The reason I suspect drivers is primarily due to the fact that this started happening around about the time I returned to playing Dark Souls. I have one of those Xbox wireless connector knockoffs I bought from eBay, and while it's a fantastic little device, it doesn't play well will Windows. As much as I'm happy with the life I've gotten out of the HOTAS, it seems just as likely that those drivers are interfering with the HOTAS ones.

I'll play around with the drivers some more today, if that fails, I'll pull the stick apart and see if I can get it working that way. If not, I might just finally upgrade to the T16000.

 

[concentric]

I have a similar problem with my X52 Pro.
In my case I'm sure it's software related.
Sometimes my ship all of a sudden pitches up or down or the srv will go forward despite my throttle resting at zero...
The latter happened yesterday at a Guardian structure. All pylons lit up, sentinels destroyed, just going to scan the orb when suddenly the srv goes off straight against some structure, thrusting against it.
No rattling or any other physical input helps in that case.
Only thing that helps is unplug the hotas from the pc and re-plug it.
Unfortunately the X52 Pro Flight Controller software sometimes doesn't restart after re-plugging the device and I have no clue how to manually restart it. Only way I know to restart it is to restart the pc. Of course exactly this happened yesterday so I had to redo the Guardian structure run...
Today even more annoying: I went to Lori Jameson in Shinrarta with my new combat Krait and got interdicted by another cmdr in an FDL. Submitted and engaged. I'm not much into pvp but it went pretty well until a few minutes into the fight my hotas freaked out again and my ship was doing loopings at zero pitch input. Said sorry and waked out. Would really have loved to see how the fight turns out. Pretty annoying.
Long story short – definitely software related here but since we use different hotas the reasons for our issues might be completely different, too....

 

[MrFailfactory]

Out of curiosity, are you using a powered USB hub?

Even if your HOTAS isn't plugged into it, if your hub starts to go out, it can cause a number of input issues.

Just a thought based on my experience thus far when I replaced mine.

Riôt

 

[concentric]

Out of curiosity, are you using a powered USB hub?
Even if your HOTAS isn't plugged into it, if your hub starts to go out, it can cause a number of input issues.
Just a thought based on my experience thus far when I replaced mine.
Riôt

No hub here. Hotas directly plugged into the pc. No other hardware connected either...

 

[Julio Montega]

Thanks for the input.

The reason I suspect drivers is primarily due to the fact that this started happening around about the time I returned to playing Dark Souls. I have one of those Xbox wireless connector knockoffs I bought from eBay, and while it's a fantastic little device, it doesn't play well will Windows. As much as I'm happy with the life I've gotten out of the HOTAS, it seems just as likely that those drivers are interfering with the HOTAS ones.

I'll play around with the drivers some more today, if that fails, I'll pull the stick apart and see if I can get it working that way. If not, I might just finally upgrade to the T16000.

Hmm weird issue. Good luck, as you said no other devices are connected yet you have the issue.