MoHadiShibli--Control4Free/docs/troubleshooting.md

Troubleshooting

Find the message you see, or the symptom, below. If nothing here helps, open an issue with a diagnostic report, as described at the end of this page.

On the controller page

"Signing a controller in needs the PS4's kernel log, and something else has it." A klog viewer is connected to GoldHEN's log server (port 3232). Close it and pick the controller again. A diagnostic app from a test build before 1.1.1 can also hold the log while it sits in the background: close it (press PS, highlight the app, press OPTIONS, choose Close Application) and update. Only signing a controller in needs the log, so this never interrupts play.

"Another controller is being connected; try again in a moment." Controllers are added one at a time. Wait a second and pick yours again. Everyone already playing carries on undisturbed.

"Control4Free cannot add controllers until it is restarted." or "The PS4 did not report the new controller." The PS4 didn't confirm a new controller, so one may exist that Control4Free can't address. Rather than leave more of those behind, it stops adding controllers. Stop it in the app (Square, then Cross) and start it again with Cross, or restart the PS4.

"Controller is in use on another device." Someone else has that controller. Pick a free one. If it's yours from a phone that has gone, it frees itself 15 seconds after that phone stopped sending input.

"That controller was disconnected after sitting unused." Nothing drove it for 15 seconds, for example because the phone's screen locked. Pick it again. To keep the phone awake while you play, leave Keep the screen on turned on in the settings.

"Someone else is still using a controller." The page's Stop Control4Free won't cut other players off. Ask them to disconnect, or stop it from the app on the PS4.

"Control4Free on the PS4 is older than this page." The page is newer than the service it's talking to, typically a saved copy of the page. Update the PS4 side: see Updating.

The page doesn't open

• Use the address the app or the notification shows, including :4264.
• Type http://, not https://. If the browser turns the address into a search, put http:// in front.
• The phone or computer must be on the same network as the PS4: guest Wi-Fi networks often keep devices apart.
• Check the app on the PS4 says Running. If it says Not running, press Cross.
• If the address worked before and doesn't now, the router may have given the PS4 a new one. Reserving an address for the PS4 in the router's settings keeps it the same.

The page opens but cannot connect

The page loads over HTTP, then opens its controller connection over WebRTC. Loading successfully does not prove that the controller connection can get through.

• Reload the page from the PS4. After an update, replace saved copies so they use the current connection code.
• Use a browser with WebRTC data channels enabled. If the browser asks for local-network access, allow it for the controller page.
• Both TCP and UDP port 4264 must be reachable between the phone or PC and the PS4. Guest networks, client isolation, VPNs or firewall rules can allow page loading while blocking the controller connection. Keep these ports on your own network; internet port forwarding is not needed.
• Close unused controller pages if the service has reached its connection limit.

Picking a user

The "Who's using this controller?" screen doesn't appear. Wait a few seconds after picking the controller. If it still doesn't, disconnect the controller from the page's menu and pick it again.

The screen went away without a user. PS cancels it. Pick the controller again and use only the D-pad and Cross until you're signed in.

The page keeps saying "Choose user on PS4" after signing in. The page learns about sign-ins from the PS4's kernel log. If a klog viewer was connected at that moment, it missed it. Play on: the controller works either way.

In games

A game ignores the virtual controller. Turn off other GoldHEN controller plugins for that game. A plugin that takes over a signed-in user's controller can stop games from reading Control4Free's.

Buttons feel slow, arrive late or stay held briefly. The number next to the version at the bottom of the home screen is the round trip to the console, not the full button-to-game delay. Keep the controller page visible and the device awake. Note whether the problem happens continuously or in short bursts, the devices and browser used, and whether motion or linked controllers were enabled when reporting it.

For bursts of lag, ghost inputs or brief held buttons, connect the PS4 to the router by wired LAN first. The phone or PC can stay on Wi-Fi. This removes the PS4's wireless link from the path and is a useful first check even when the usual reading is only a few milliseconds. Compare the same game and devices before changing other settings.

If bursts remain with the PS4 wired, check the phone or PC's Wi-Fi signal and compare another device or browser. Report whether the RTT number spikes at the same time and whether the issue also occurs with Control4Free stopped; that helps separate connection trouble from the controller or game.

No vibration from the game. For an Android phone, turn on Vibration in the settings; Safari on iPhone cannot vibrate the phone. For a gamepad, check its assigned controller and keep the page in front. A gamepad marked no rumble in this browser needs another supported browser or, for a Sony controller, the experimental direct link. The phone's Vibration switch does not control gamepad rumble. Not every game rumbles every player.

Gamepads

"This browser only allows gamepads on secure pages." Save the page to the device, open the saved file, and enter the console's address in its connection box. See Gamepads.

The buttons are mixed up. The page says "buttons may be mixed up" when the browser doesn't recognise the gamepad's layout. Press Mapping on its row and change each control that's wrong: see Gamepad mapping. Another browser, or connecting the gamepad another way (cable instead of Bluetooth, or the other way round), can also help.

A gamepad button does nothing after changing its mapping. Let go of it and press it again: a button held down while a gamepad starts playing waits until it's released.

The Xbox button presses PS for another controller in Chrome or Edge on Windows. By default these browsers read Xbox controllers through Windows.Gaming.Input, which has no Xbox/Guide button. The browser reads that button separately for all Xbox controllers at once and reports the combined press on its lowest-numbered one, whichever controller it came from. It happens with any two Xbox controllers, not only mixed generations. Other buttons still belong to the correct gamepad. Check Mapping → Gamepad Controls on each device: if the wrong device's B16 lights up, the browser has already lost the physical source, and Control4Free cannot recover it from the reported input. See the Chromium implementation.

On Windows 11, Chrome and Edge also have an experimental Windows GameInput backend that reports each Xbox button on its own gamepad. It is off by default. Find your browser's version under chrome://settings/help (edge://settings/help in Edge), then turn GameInput on:

• Version 155 or older: open chrome://flags/#enable-windows-gameinput-data-fetcher (edge://flags/#enable-windows-gameinput-data-fetcher in Edge), set it to Enabled, and relaunch.
• Version 156 or 157: the option is hidden because it has expired. Set chrome://flags/#temporary-unexpire-flags-m155 (edge://flags/#temporary-unexpire-flags-m155) to Enabled and relaunch, then enable the GameInput option as above and relaunch again.
• Any version, including 158 and newer: start the browser with --enable-features=EnableWindowsGameInputDataFetcher. Right-click the browser's shortcut, choose Properties, add a space and the option to the end of Target, and press OK. Close every browser window, check the notification area for a browser still running in the background, and open the browser from that shortcut. chrome://version (edge://version) lists the option under Command Line when it was applied.

Chromium hides expired options from the flags page, but the command-line option keeps working as long as the browser still contains the GameInput backend. See Chromium's backend selection, per-device Guide handling and flag expiry.

Reconnect the gamepads and repeat the Gamepad Controls check: each Xbox button should light B16 only on its own gamepad. Confirm both PS buttons after assigning controllers. This resolved combined Xbox/Guide reporting in a two-controller user test on Chrome 154 and Windows 11. Controller models and connection modes were not recorded, and other input and haptic capabilities were not revalidated. The backend remains experimental; input counts and haptics may change. Compare Gamepad Controls, including any extra paddles, and review saved profiles after changing the backend. If gamepads stop appearing, return the flag to Default or remove the option from the shortcut.

GameInput is a workaround for this browser's multi-controller Guide reporting, not a general Control4Free requirement. The controller page cannot select a Windows input backend or change browser flags through the Gamepad API. A permanent correction to this browser path requires a browser fix; a future PC app could choose its own per-device reader.

On Windows 10, or if none of these work, try Firefox on Windows or map an independently reported button to PS button using DS4 Mapping → PS button → Change. That replaces the Xbox/Guide binding. Remapping or swapping controller numbers alone cannot separate the combined Xbox-button signal.

The gamepad does nothing. Keep the page's window in front, press a button on the gamepad after the page has loaded, and check it has a controller under Gamepads on this device.

In the app on the PS4

"PayLoader did not answer." Open GoldHEN → Server Settings → Enable PayLoader Server, check the option and retry Start in the app, or restart the PS4 and run the jailbreak: with auto-start on, Control4Free starts by itself.

"Control4Free is not responding." Wait a few seconds after the PS4 wakes from rest mode, then press Cross again. If it stays stuck, restart the PS4 and run the jailbreak.

"Sent, but Control4Free did not start." or "The transfer to PayLoader broke off." Press Cross to try again. Two copies can't end up running: a second one quits at once. If it never starts, open an issue with your firmware and GoldHEN versions.

"Something answers on port 4264 but not the way this app expects." or "No answer the app understands." Something else is answering on port 4264, often an older version of Control4Free. Stop it from its own page, or restart the PS4.

"The app cannot reach Control4Free." The app couldn't connect to the service from its own sandbox. Close the app and open it again; if that doesn't help, restart the PS4 and run the jailbreak.

"The bundled payload is damaged." Reinstall the package.

Controller page RTT is measuring or unavailable. Update and start the service bundled with the app, then reload the controller page from the PS4; replace any saved copy too. Select the user signed in on that page's controller. A local physical controller has no page connection to measure. The reading expires when reports stop; it measures the page's connection round trip, not the full game or TV delay.

Control4Free is listed under Games instead of Applications. That's a package from before 1.0.0. Delete the app and install the current package.

Experimental features

A switch is greyed out: "This browser treats the page as insecure". Browsers give motion sensors and direct controller access only to secure pages, and the PS4 serves the page as plain http. Chrome and Edge can treat your PS4's address as secure:

1. Open chrome://flags/#unsafely-treat-insecure-origin-as-secure, or in Edge edge://flags/#unsafely-treat-insecure-origin-as-secure. On Android, open the same address in Chrome.
2. Type the page's address exactly as the app on the PS4 shows it, for example http://192.168.1.20:4264, and set the option to Enabled.
3. Press Relaunch.

The setting belongs to that browser on that device. If the PS4's address changes, update it here too. Add only your PS4's address: the flag allows those browser features but does not encrypt the HTTP page. Safari on an iPhone has no equivalent flag.

"This browser can't talk to controllers directly." Linking a DualShock 4 or DualSense needs Chrome or Edge on a computer. Android, Firefox and Safari don't offer it.

The controller isn't in the browser's list, or linking fails. Close other programs that use it, such as Steam or DS4Windows, reconnect it, press a button on it, then press Link again.

Motion feels off. Hold the phone sideways with the screen towards you, keep it still, and press Recenter in Settings → Experimental.

A linked DS4 or DualSense only clicks its touchpad, without showing fingers. Turn on Lights and rumble on Sony controllers, press Link and select the matching controller. Once linked, up to two fingers are sent. Use Test controllers on the PS4 to check the received touch positions.

Trigger rumble does nothing. Turn on Trigger rumble, assign the gamepad to the controller being used, and pull a trigger while the game is rumbling. Xbox controllers need a browser that exposes trigger-rumble support. A DualSense also needs Lights and rumble on Sony controllers enabled and a direct Link. A DS4 has no separate trigger effect. With both triggers held, only the one pulled last receives the effect; release it to move the effect to the other. See Trigger rumble for what the effect does and a quick test.

Reporting a problem

Every release comes with a diagnostic package, troubleshooting-Control4Free-<version>-diag.pkg. It's the same Control4Free, except that its app shows on screen what the PS4 reports, so you can send screenshots instead of digging out log files. Please use it before you open an issue:

1. Download troubleshooting-Control4Free-<version>-diag.pkg from the latest release and install it over the app. It replaces the app and shows up as Control4Free (diagnostic).
2. Open it. If it says RUNNING, the normal version is still the one running: press Square, then Cross to stop it. Then press Cross to start the diagnostic version, and wait until the top stops saying "WORKING" (up to 30 seconds).
3. Make the problem happen again, for example open the page on your phone or pick a controller. Then go back to the app.
4. Press R1 to go through its 5 pages, and take a screenshot of each one: press SHARE, then Triangle. To copy them to a USB stick, open Capture Gallery, press OPTIONS and choose Copy to USB Storage Device.
5. Open an issue and attach the screenshots.

The app also attempts to save the same report as text: control4free-diag.txt on a plugged-in USB stick, and /data/control4free/diag-report.txt on the PS4. Its first page reports which saves succeeded. You can attach a saved report instead of the screenshots. The report shows your console's local network address. It only works inside your home network, but you can blur it.

When you're done, install the normal package again over the diagnostic one, open it, press Square, then Cross to stop the diagnostic version, and Cross to start the normal one. That also puts the normal one back on auto-start.

The service's own log is /data/control4free/control4free.log on the PS4, readable over GoldHEN's FTP server (port 2121). Each active segment is bounded to 1 MiB: rollover moves it to control4free.log.1 and starts a new one, replacing the older segment. The last segment of the previous run is in control4free.log.previous. The diagnostic app shows the end of each, and its first page says whether it managed to save the report.