The controller is moving on its own

I have an 8bitdo sn30 pro+ controller which is nearly 1 year old. I am using it in switch mode and I added the games that I am playing to steam and I enabled switch support in steam. I am connecting the controller to my laptop by using a usb wire. A few days ago I removed the battery from the controller.

I was playing a game on a pcsx2 emulator for like 1 hour and then the problem suddenly happened. I moved the left analog stick to the right to move a girl that I was controlling to the right. She moved to the left by herself and she's stuck moving to the left. If I move the left stick to the right then she moves to the right and when I release the stick she moves to the left on her own. I quit the emulator and i ran it again. The problem went away. I dismissed the issue and I thought that it happened because of a bug in the emulator.

A few days later the same problem happened in another game that I am playing and it's a normal Windows game and it happened when I started playing the game. I moved the character to the right and he moved to the left by himself. I unplugged the usb wire of the controller so the controller switched off because there is no battery and I plugged the usb wire back in. The problem came back. I quit the game and I ran it again. The problem went away.

After that I took the issue seriously and I wanted to know why the problem happened. The problem didn't happen because of a driver bug\firmware bug because I have been using the controller in switch mode for 5 months and the problem never happened. Also I don't think that the problem is because of a game bug because it happened in 2 games in a row. Thus something physical is causing the problem like something is wrong with the left stick.

My guess is that the issue happened because of debris because I haven't cleaned the controller for a long time. I want to know if debris really is causing the problem then is it normal for the problem to only go away when I quit the game and run it again?

You're like the second person I've seen on this website that has issues with this controller. I just use a regular N64 controller that is USB but not an sn30 pro+. I also have a MadCatz Xbox USB controller and a PlayStation like game pad that's USB. Add to that a Super Nintendo USB game pad. All work flawlessly in emulators and in Steam, Epic games, etc.

The issue may be that you need to recalibrate the controller. Or it's the controller its self and how it's interacting in Windows. To recalibrate the controller go to the Windows Control Panel and find "Devices and Printers." Right click the game pad and chose "Game controller settings." Chose properties and chose the Settings tab.

F22 Simpilot said:

The issue may be that you need to recalibrate the controller.

The controller is 1 year old and the issue never happened before so I doubt that it's because of a calibration issue. My guess is it's because of debris because I haven't cleaned it in a long time. I just want to know if debris is causing the issue then is it normal for the issue to go away when I close the game?