Xbox One Controller forgetting bluetooth pairing after being plugged in.

DexLuther · May 5, 2020

I have a fully updated Windows 10 PC and have an Xbox One Wireless controller connected to it through
bluetooth. Everything works fine until the battery pack runs low in the middle of a game. I plug it in and everything is fine.

That is until the Battery Pack is charged and I want to go back to Wireless the next day. That's when I turn on the controller and the Xbox Symbol flashes instead of remaining solid.

Easy fix. Just repair the controller, but it's annoying to have to constantly have to re-pair anytime I plug the thing.

This seems to be a Windows 10 issue, since the controllers do not behave the same way when pairing to a console (when I had one).

When a controller is paired to a console you can:

Plug the controller in

unplug it

Turn the console off

Unplug the console

remove the batteries

change batteries

the controller will always remain paired to the console without issue.

When a controller is paired to Windows 10, Windows immediately forgets it has a controller paired as soon as you plug it in. On some occasions I can still see the controller appear in my Bluetooth devices. If it's present, I have to remove it.

In either case the act of plugging it in seems to invalidate the previous connection (nobody would want to use it again later, right), and it's been happening for years now. Is Microsoft ever going to fix this or does somebody have a workaround/solution
to change this behavior in Windows 10?

:)

DexLuther

Phone, data and Bluetooth are three distinctly different wireless technologies and, since you don't need to sync voice and data connections manually to something else, discussing them here with relation to a controller seems rather irrelevant.

What you can't seem to accept is that the Xbox controllers have two wireless connectors built in, one of which is BT, the other is not. Saying it's a flaw would be an acceptable argument if the controllers were PC only, but they aren't, they were designed
first and foremost to work on Xbox consoles. The Xbox consoles don't use Bluetooth. PCs play second fiddle.

Call it a design flaw or an oversight if you like, but auto syncing can only be done on an Xbox or a PC with a Gaming Receiver. Perhaps they could have added more configuration settings for PC, I don't know. I'm just stating the facts.

Talking about Phone, Data and bluetooth is absolutely relevant. It's 3 distinct wireless technologies while the controller has 2.

The phone can use and switch between all 3 wireless technologies without ever having to resync anything. Whether you plug the phone into USB or not.

The issue and design flaw is that the controller erases a connection profile just because you plugged in to a PC and
defaults back to Xbox wireless signal even if it's never been used before.

For a first time power on it would make sense that it defaults to the Xbox Signal, but once paired with bluetooth it should stay that way.
When you plug it in and then unplug it from a PC, it should default back to the last used wireless signal, which in many cases would be the Bluetooth.

It seems to be a fairly small and simple firmware update to make. Sadly we don't have access to such firmware or it probably would already be fixed. Unfortunately, we are at the mercy of developers who seem deaf to complaints like these (I've seen many of
them on this forum).

Obsessive Power

Phone, data and Bluetooth are three distinctly different wireless technologies and, since you don't need to sync voice and data connections manually to something else, discussing them here with relation to a controller seems rather irrelevant.

What you can't seem to accept is that the Xbox controllers have two wireless connectors built in, one of which is BT, the other is not. Saying it's a flaw would be an acceptable argument if the controllers were PC only, but they aren't, they were designed
first and foremost to work on Xbox consoles. The Xbox consoles don't use Bluetooth. PCs play second fiddle.

Call it a design flaw or an oversight if you like, but auto syncing can only be done on an Xbox or a PC with a Gaming Receiver. Perhaps they could have added more configuration settings for PC, I don't know. I'm just stating the facts.

DexLuther

If in the meantime you reconnect your controller to the xbox it's normal that it does not connect to the pc by itself

There's no Xbox, so that point is irrelevant.

DexLuther

For some unknown reason when you plug in an Xbox One controller, it or Windows 10 (or both) deletes or resets the bluetooth profile associated with it, which requires Windows 10 to pair with it again.

Hi,

Pretty much all other devices that you can pair with Bluetooth only have BT, not a separate wireless tech built in.

What are you even talking about? Do you know how phones work? My phone (and probably yours too) has more wireless technologies built in than a PC or controller does. The wireless signal to connect to the Cell Towers, WiFI and of course Bluetooth, so the
Xbox One Controller having multiple wireless technologies is not a valid excuse. It's a design flaw and/or Windows 10 bug.

If I connect my controller to my PC using Bluetooth, and then plug it in to the PC, it resets the onboard Bluetooth profile that's used for pairing. Why? There's no reason for it to do that even if for whatever reason it defaults back to the console's wireless
signal, which it shouldn't be doing anyways for no reason.

The controller should instead remember the last wireless technology used, and use that automatically when unplugged.

Nano Donodidio

If in the meantime you reconnect your controller to the xbox it's normal that it does not connect to the pc by itself

Xbox One Controller forgetting bluetooth pairing after being plugged in.