Controller disconnected - press A

Hello. I'm totally new to games consoles. Set up this racing game last night and it seemed to work fine. This morning, even though the controller is definitely connected and moving about the screen etc, it says 'controller disconnected, press A to continue'.
Pressing A just takes me to the user name, then the only thing I can do is press A again which starts the cycle again.

What am I doing wrong?

:)

 

freeplay mode issues

im trying to play against my friend in freeplay mode and its not letting me. when I press the button to add other controller I try to pick guest and it doesn't let me. also it keeps disconnecting the controllers and when I finally get where u start the race it says cancel launch

 

the day one edition controller's d-pad is making springy noises

yes! I have a day one controller and pressing right on the d-pad makes a kind of "twang" sound every 2nd or third press... definitely made me think this controller was badly put together.

I'm also having major issues keeping the wireless controllers connected. I've had to resort to using a USB cable as I was getting a "you controller disconnected" message every couple of minutes in Forza.

 

Hi!

Check that the controller is
updated to the latest version. Then, try again to
match the controller with the console by pressing the connect buttons.

 

Thanks for replying. I ended up turning it off and on at the plug, and it's fine now. I didn't understand why the controller was able to navigate everything else. Hopefully a one-off...