Why will my controller only turn on if it's plugged in?

Hi Levi, my name is Rodrigo. I'm an Independent Advisor and a member of the Microsoft community and I'd love to assist you today.

I am sorry to hear that.

Please, reset your controller pairing.

To unpair it, press and hold the pair button on top of the controller for a few seconds until it vibrates twice.

Then, pair it again.

Turn on your controller by pressing and holding the Xbox button.

Press and release the Pair button on the Xbox.

Within 20 seconds, press and hold the controller’s Pair button a circular button on top of the controller as you hold it in your hands) until the controller's Xbox button flashes a few times.

That means it's searching for a console.

The Xbox button stays lit once it's connected.

I hope this helps.

I'm not entirely sure on this because I only use the controller on my console but have you tried only turning on controller via plugging it into your PC?

The reason why the controller turns off is to safe its battery life. You can change this by plugging in a usb at the very top of the controller.

Hi,thank you for taking your time to lend some help, my controller is mainly a wireless one but it does support a wired connection too. I tried connecting it to the Xbox using a wire, but still the controller was yet not lighting up(Logo button). I did plug it to my laptop and to my surprise it turned on for a bit but then the light turned off and there was just vibrations occuring while it was plugged and now the light does not turn anymore when it's plugged to the laptop only vibrations.

That's an odd issue. I would like to suggest turning the console off and plugging in only one controller before turning it on. After a gamertag has been signed in there try plugging in the other controller and logging in the second gamertag.