Why do I get LIBUSB_ERROR_ACCESS when trying to get my Xbox controller working?

Question

I can't get my Xbox controller to work. It doesn't show up on jstest. Can anyone help? When I type xboxdrv on a terminal, this is what I get:

:user@ChrUbuntu:~$ xboxdrv
xboxdrv 0.8.5 - http://pingus.seul.org/~grumbel/xboxdrv/ 
Copyright © 2008-2011 Ingo Ruhnke <[email protected]> 
Licensed under GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html> 
This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. 
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain 
conditions; see the file COPYING for details. 

Controller:        Power A Mini Pro Elite Glow
Vendor/Product:    24c6:5300
USB Path:          002:036
Controller Type:   Xbox360

-- [ ERROR ] ------------------------------------------------------
USBController::USBController(): libusb_open() failed: LIBUSB_ERROR_ACCESS

Answer 1

Use the command sudo xboxdrv and enter your password. This will give you permission to use the usb port. However, I have only got this working for one controller so far.

Answer 2

The libusb permissions are not set for you, you would have to go into user and group settings to change it or use sudo. But even then depending on what version of chrubuntu you installed you still might be out of luck, because I use 12.4 on the c7 parrot and the kernel module uinput, isn't installed. and is required for xboxdrv.

Answer 3

As I see from the output, you have Xbox Elite. Its support was first written in the end of 2015 year by SteamOS devs, and added to Linux kernel 4.7 (not yet released for writing these words) just 28 May 2016. See this for details. So, the easiest way to get the support is to install Linux-4.7 (e.g. from a PPA after it released).

The ones to blame are the company released the gamepad. Instead of using the standard for gamepads as everyone does, they decided to reinvent the wheel, and created their own, incompatible with the World, protocol.

The Microsoft's — the manufacturer company — support for their own gamepad is, actually, so bad, that there's rumor it isn't even supported on their own OSes, except Windows 10 (I'm saying «rumor» just because I have neither Windows, nor this gamepad to check this out). Next time you want to buy a gamepad, think twice before supporting such a manufacturer.