Topic: Joy-Con's analog stick moving without input

Thanks everyone for your input.

I've already sent them to Nintendo for repairs.

The first time that that happened was with my launch Joy-Cons a few months back, I sent them to Nintendo and, so far, they're working without issues now. The other Joy-Con set I sent them this week is not the launch set, but a different set I bought with ARMS (the yellow ones). I hope these too get repaired without any more issues...

I haven't bought a pro controller yet... I might need to consider it.

@maruse Regardless of this issue, if you play on TV at all you will not regret buying a Pro Controller. It is one of the best controllers I've ever used.

this has happened to me but it's on the right joy-con and it's registering down inputs when I'm not touching it

I bought pro controller xenoblade edition when it was released. After 2-3 months I got same problem on left stick. I didn’t want to send it so I opened it and clean dust and spray it with contact spray. After that it worked (and still works thankfully) like a charm.
Also.. same problem appeared on my left joycon as well few months ago but I’m too lazy to fix it because I play 95% on pro controller.

@CroRock, are they easy to fix? I have the same problem on both my left and right Joy-Con.
It's a shame how fast the new Switch controllers got an issue, it wasn't even a year old.
Even the N64 controller had more lifetime, even though I played much more with it.

The bitter thing is, they're the most expensive Nintendo controllers ever, and at the same time the worst.

@SKTTR
I didn’t fix joycon yet, only my pro controller.
Pro controller was easy to open, don’t know about joycons.
Maybe just spraying from outside around the stick would do a trick. Actually.. I’m going to try it now and see what happens

Edit:
I spray it with fast drying contact cleaner under left stick (you need to lift up that rubber thing with toothpick that protect the inside from dust I guess). I can’t open joycons because special screws. Pro controller has standard Philips screws so it was easier to open.
Tbh.. it has little effect if at all, but after spraying and recalibrating left joycon stick in controller settings it works like it should - for now..
I would strongly recommend you to buy yourself a pro controller if you can afford it because once you try playing with it you will never go back to joycons. In the meantime you can send joycons to repair before warranty runs out if cleaning, updating and recalibrating them won’t do a trick.
Really, everyone should buy a pro controller.. it’s that good and battery lasts forever, I swear 😉

Just now seeing this, yeah my left joycon control stick is sort of acting the same way. Pushing up takes like a second for a response, too. Other directions seem fine, but it does sometime drift to the left, most noticeable in Just Shapes and Beats for me. (and the calibration thing)

Not sure what I'm gonna do yet...kinda wished I could look inside myself, but I don't want to screw things up and make it worse.

@Joeynator3000
Yea, I know that feeling. When my left stick on pro controller started to act strange like it’s always pressed a little bit left I was so desperate and pissed at the same time that I couldn’t wait to send it for repair even it was 2-3 months old so I get a risk and screw my warranty and fortunately I fixed it. But my hands were shaking so much. Once you open it you see it’s not a rocket science in there 😉
Same should be with joycons but I don’t have that special screwdriver

I had these issues, and in the end sent my left neon yellow joy-con back to Nintendo. Took roughly a week, but it's great to have it working perfectly again. Only downside is, I've just noticed that my left grey joy-con is starting to go - and that one is no longer in warranty, as it's from launch. The yellow one scraped in by a month...

This fixed it for me https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cX6lCQxRWJM Had the same problem on both of my controllers. Just lifted it up and blowed. Then I calibrated. Recommend to try that before buying new ones and sending old ones for repair.

I'm having the same problem, I just bought a new pair as my day one joy con were ugly grey (the neon were sold out) and it'd be handy to have a spare.

Funny this thread popped back up. One of our right joys cons has now developed the same issue. Seems like the launch hardware wasn't exactly the best. Not a huge deal as we have 8 joycons now but with noting.

The drifting joycon error has held me hostage too. I only just noticed this playing paladins as my main game was splatoon 2 where the y axis is disabled while using gyro.
The quality control of these controls is abysmal.

****!!!. My problems came also back after i thougth it was fixed. Probably need to send them to repair. F***in* sh**

@JeffJellyYT I have the exact same problem. Annoys me while playing Minecraft

Ive had my switch for a year now and it started happening about 3 months ago.

My Switch is about 2-months old, and the left Joy-Con (what's the deal with the left ones?) seems to have developed an issue. I tried recalibrating and noticed that the cursor jittered when deflected to the right. I tried re-pairing the Joy-Cons, and that seems to have solved the jitter, but then I also noticed that the stick would occasionally not recenter or is slow to recenter after being pushed to the left — a quick flick in any direction would recenter it, but it's a little annoying. I used a toothbrush to scrub around the base of the stick, and that seems to have helped, but I'll have to keep an eye on it.

This is disappointing, because the quality of Nintendo hardware is legendary. My daughter had a 3DS that she had dropped so many times that it was literally held together with tape, but the damn thing still worked! To have a joystick develop issues after only two months is discouraging.

Edit: Looks like the fix was short-lived. I noticed the jitter was back this morning. Guess I'll be contacting Nintendo for repair services. That really sucks

It's that stupid rubber cap that goes on top of the analog stick. One or more of the tiny rubber bumps (located on the underside of the cap) are not sitting correctly in the tiny holes on the top of the analog stick. If you remove the rubber cap from the analog stick, you will find that your drift goes away.

Same crap happened to me. It's frustrating.

I've read about the rubber cap fix, but don't see how that could be causing the problem. I've also read that's a temporary solution at best.

In my case, I bought a new pair of Joy-Cons this weekend to make multiplayer with my family easier but also to have backup controllers "just in case". First thing I noticed is that the new Joy-Cons mate much more solidly with the Switch. The ones that came with my Switch have had a slight bit of wiggle to them since day one (particularly the infamous left one). Also, the new Joy-Cons work perfectly, so it's obviously not a problem with the Switch itself, which was a relief.

Now I just have to go through the hassle of setting up a repair for the malfunctioning controller. I have no idea why Nintendo doesn't allow you to set-up a repair online like they used to. You have to go through phone support, and when I called the other day, I was quoted a wait time in excess of 20-minutes and finally hung up after not getting a response after 25-minutes. I can't even find online chat or email links, so it seems that phone support is your only option.

Finally got through on the phone. Spent about 30-minutes on hold and then another 15-minutes setting up the repair. Used to be able to do the whole thing in about 10-minutes when you could set it up online. The rep quoted me a 3-week turn-around time. Glad I have an extra set of Joy-Cons.