OS X PS3 Controller *Flashing Lights*

Mine does the same thing. Small piece of black electrical tape solves that!

Lucky all of you who can get the PS3 controller to pair at all.

I just got one today to pair with my MacBook Pro or Air, and it won't pair with either one. I just brought up this forum to search for any threads I missed through Google search and saw this one at the top of the page.

No methods for pairing are seeming to work for me. Both of my Macs use Mavericks, and I've seen people mentioning in various places that they have similar issues.

My bluetooth preferences might say "connected" for a short while, but that doesn't seem to make much difference for any games or apps that could make use of it. OpenEmu sees the controller in its options when it's plugged in through USB only, but it doesn't register if I press any buttons. Fez changes its menu from "Press Enter to start" or "Press A to start" but again no button pushes register.

-- I should also mention that I'm never asked to enter a pairing code. Is that normal on mavericks?
I really am sorry to thread hijack. I see that bobbytomorow is using 10.9.1 just like I am. It's just nuts that it isn't wanting to go.

Also, if by any chance you're using OpenEmu while the flashing is happening, I did see this reddit thread in my searching around: http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/1tjoyk/openemu_10_released/

…I found a way to connect my PS3 controller without the lights glowing. After your controller is connected to your computer, quit OpenEMU. The lights will cease to glow, but your controller will still be connected. Start OpenEmu again and you'll still be able to use the controller without the lights glowing.

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bobbytomorow said:

Only thing I can think of is that maybe its the switch from Bluetooth 2.1 to 4.0?

My MacBook is Bluetooth 2.1 and AFAIK about mid 2012 MacBook's switched to Bluetooth 4.0...I literally had zero problem connecting my PS3 controller...aside from the blinking lights (the reddit suggestion did not work but thanks)

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No, I realized it's very much most likely because it's a Chinese knock-off controller, and a search for the model number given shows posts with similar issues for Macs.

It's not a huge deal to me because it was free (an ebay seller making up for a mistake) and I'm not at all huge on video gaming, otherwise I'd spend money on a real controller. It's just that if there's a possibility of it working, I have an issue of fixating to getting it to work somehow even if I'm not going to want to spend much time with it afterward.

For me, it was mostly about OpenEmu. It's a great concept and I'm glad it's finally released. I just realize that I don't care about spending much time with it after getting to play and marvel at it.

But no, I have one 2009 MBPro and a 2013 MBAir and both have the exact same issues with the controller. Thanks though!