Logitech X56 Stick Issues - Help!

[Ching Dai]

I've had this stick (black and grey model) with matching throttle for almost a year, no major issues. I'd taken a 2-week or so break from Elite to enjoy MS Flight Sim 2020, and noticed in the last few days that occasionally the hat switch to toggle views was either hanging up or not working at all. Then it'd be fine. Assumed it was the game. Coming back to Elite last night, I immediately realized I was having similar issues in that game also.

The hat switches and triggers will occasionally not respond quickly, or at all. In testing the device in the 'USB game controllers' settings, I can see the issues when they occur. It's about 35-40% of the time currently. Unplugging the USB connection OR detaching and reattaching the stick itself seems to help, but only momentarily.

• Plugged into USB 3.0
• Drivers up to date
• Issues occurring regardless of game
• Stick functionality appears fine regardless of switch/trigger issues
• Stick is kept clean, doesn't appear to have any buildup/etc.

I'm concerned this is a hardware issue, and right now is a terrible time to try and buy a stick for several reasons. Any thoughts? Thanks in advance!

 

[Northpin]

No warranty?

 

[Bravo17]

Try a USB 2 port instead, I've come across something that didn't like a USB 3 port before.

 

[gorankar]

The X56 ghost key. The easiest fix is to use a powered USB 2 Hub, not a 3 or 3.1. The next easiest solution if you want to keep using a powered USB3+ hub, or want to direct connect directly to the PC, is to turn the lights off on the X56. Just drag the brightness down to 0 on all three colors. It generally fixes the issue. It is best to simply not use unpowered hubs at all.

It appears to come down to a power issue.

 

[Ching Dai]

Hey gents, sorry for the belated update but here we go....

I got really excited that trying to the 'no LED color' idea suggested above was going to work.....sadly can confirm, same results. And honestly, I've had this thing set up and running fine for literally an entire year before these issues happened, so I'm doubting a powered hub would solve them.

That said, I've initiated the warranty process with Logitech (bought it directly from them purposely). I'd say this should be a good indicator of how their warranty process is currently handled. I'll try to report back.

In the meantime, I've strongly considered utilizing whatever MAY come out of this warranty process as my new back-up stick, and I'm looking specifically at the VKB Gunfighter MKIII Space Combat Edition. The reviews are very consistent and it's very comparable to the X56 stick. Almost all my game time is spent in either Elite or Flight Simulator, so a stick upgrade would be a decent investment, at least.

 

[STRONTIUM DOG]

it may be a good idea to monitor the 5v rail in bios for volts drop or spikes if happerning across multiple titles (ideally should be smooth)
as worst case could be your PSU and nowt wrong with stick
I hope it is just down to just dirty contacts on ya stick

 

[ebbrell]

i had this happen on my x52 plus it also give me sticky triggers. they would keep firing or not fire sort of thing. happened mainly in CZs
i managed to get mine to work better in fact it doesn't do it anymore since i turned on chat on to tabs.
tuning on squadron and wing to tab stopped my x52 doing it., if i turn all tabs off the problem comes back

i guess there is something be put on the chat box in a CZ which characterise is confusing the x52,

 

[michalfoc]

The X56 ghost key. The easiest fix is to use a powered USB 2 Hub, not a 3 or 3.1. The next easiest solution if you want to keep using a powered USB3+ hub, or want to direct connect directly to the PC, is to turn the lights off on the X56. Just drag the brightness down to 0 on all three colors. It generally fixes the issue. It is best to simply not use unpowered hubs at all.

It appears to come down to a power issue.

I am successfully utilizing my powered usb 3.0 hub to run both stick and throttle without any issues... maybe just lucky dunno.

 

[gorankar]

I am successfully utilizing my powered usb 3.0 hub to run both stick and throttle without any issues... maybe just lucky dunno.

Works for some hubs , not others. Mine worked on one 3.0 powered hub, but gave ghost keying on another that works fine with everything else.

 

[Saltyseadog]

Well after three months I've joined the ghosting problem club. My X56 has worked pretty well until the early hours of this morning when suddenly lights switched on, galaxy map opened, hardpoints switched about etc. I reset and rebooted the PC but still problems so recalibrated the stick and throttle and rebooted again and apart from a couple of hiccups it was workeable again but spent this morning googling info.

I already have a seperate powered usb 3.0 hub connected to a usb 3.0 connection on the back of my PC. I came across a post on google where someone using a headset had this issue, they found that there was some interference from the headset to the X56 throttle. they solved it by re-installing X56 drivers after the ones for VR and headset ones. This may have a bearing on what happened to me.

Normally I play sound through my 2.1 full range speaker system through the PC optical out connection but being in the early hours and not wanting to wake the wife I connected my new Turtle Beach recon headset for the first time using the green and pink connections on the front of the desktop unit and had to fiddle about with the sound settings to get it to work. Previously with my old stereo headphones I just connected to the headphone output on the DAC.

Anyway while checking all this out this morning I noticed that in my Win 10 Programs list I have entries for both Logitec Direct Output and Logitech X56 H.O.T.A.S. both using the 8.0.213.0 driiver version, size 28.2MB in the X56 one and 3.37MB in the Direct Output one. I am trying to find out whether I need the Direct Output one as some older info on Saitek I came across in a post while googling was blaming it for causing problems with their game eqpt but it was another game and not Elite so I decided to post this and see if you other X56 users have the same install or indeed can shed light on why there are two entries in the program list?.

 

[Saltyseadog]

Another thing I just noticed. While checking out that all my usb ports were not allowed to be switched off in device manager I saw the header for the X56 throttle and the X56 stick. While checking out the properties I saw that the drivers installed on both were windows drivers dating from 2012?. How do I ensure that when I download and install the Logitech software that it actually installs?.

 

[Latva Laho]

If my X56 hotas not respond, i use logitech program and calibrate all axles. If my hotas fire button not working, i take off stick and cleaning it connector and but it back.