Broken Reset Button on a PS3 Controller

Something happened the other day while using my PS3 which I  must mention. You may remember in a previous post I had a whinge why I think wireless for controllers is an unfinished, annoying and basically crap technology that's not worth the price, nor the trouble. Yeah, go ahead and read that article first if you haven't already!

Anyway, back to the thing that happened the other day. After completing the new firmware update on PS3 (oh boy, is the FW update a good thing to rant about...later), my Dual Shock 3 controller started acting very strangely.

I'll explain what was happening and I should mention that every time things were different, sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't! Turn PS3 on, login to my user and the XMB loads, I press the buttons on the D-Pad but there is no response. I turn the controller off and turn it on again. Yay, problem solved, or so I thought. Once the game had started and I pressed the PS button to access the XMB ingame, again the same thing happened. No response to my inputs on the controller whatsoever. Strangely though, the PS button would work. The only way to access the XMB was to turn the controller off and on again on the ingame XMB... I thought it was a bug with the firmware and didn't put too much thought into it.

After a few days, I went online to play Hot Shots Golf (great game by the way). However, when I entered the lobby, the text chat which is controlled by the R2 button kept opening a text box automatically. Closing it would just result in it opening up again and I was unable to move my character or press any other button commands, when I canceled the text chat, it just kept coming back. I tried my "turning off and on" controller solution, but this did not do the trick.

So basically, I was royally screwed and was unable to play online at all. After cursing the wireless controller, I thought that there might be something wrong with my PS3. I decided to search the problem up on Google. You see, people on forum boards are usually very helpful and actually able to solve your problem, I really recommend using google and forum boards as your FIRST choice for fixing any tech problems you might have.

After my initial search, I found heaps of people on forum boards with the same or similar problem as me! Unfortunately in this case, replies (if there were any) were unhelpful. But I'm not one to give up so easily! After about 15 minutes of searching, I found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The reply on the forum (forgot the link, sorry), mentioned that if the controller is working but acting strangely than it's most likely not broken. But, the wireless signal can go out of sync and there's a reset button on the back of the controller you can press. Right, reset button on the back......WHAT???? Yes, have a good look and you'll find a little black button in the center on the back of the controller. I kid you not! I did not know about this at all, I thought wireless always worked fine. Did I mention I hate wireless?

To finish up, I turned on the PS3 with the controller, jammed a pen in the reset button and held it for 10 seconds and turned it on again. Voila! Controller worked perfectly again. If you ever have a similar problem, you'll now know the solution. Thank you for reading.

Case closed.