We may earn a commission if you buy something through the affiliate text links or affiliate image links on Seeking Tech.

How to fix Nintendo Switch OLED Joy-Con recognition and registration issues

When playing on your Nintendo Switch OLED, you may experience issues with your system recognizing or registering your Joy-Con controllers. You can check out this troubleshooting guide from Seeking Tech to see how you can resolve these problems.

1. The first step we recommend taking is to see if both the left or right Joy-Con controllers will work when detached from the console.

Start be detaching the controllers from the Switch OLED system.

Afterwards, test to see if the system will recognize your inputs from both the left and right Joy-Cons. You can also use the Test Input Devices menu, which you can get to from the System Settings menu by selecting the Controllers and Senors option on the left side and then Test Input Devices option on the right side.

2. If the system still can’t recognize one of both of your Joy-Con controllers when detached, then you can try to reset the gamepads. To do so, you need to do the following:

On the problematic detached Joy-Con, press the sync button, which is the small circular button located in the near the Player LED indicator.

Afterwards, press any other button on the troublesome detached Joy-Con to turn it back on again.

You can then try connecting the problematic detached Joy-Con back onto your Nintendo Switch OLED system to see if it is working normally. Make sure that it is inserted all the way into the correct slot.

3. If the aforementioned solutions do not work, then you can try detaching and reattaching the controller several more times to see if the recognition or registration issues go away.

4. If you are still experiencing problems, then the last step you can take is to see if there is a firmware update available for the Nintendo Switch OLED system.

In order to do so, you can take the following steps:

First off, you should be in the Home menu, which is where you can select which game to play.

In the Home menu, select the System Settings option. (Note: If you don’t have any working controllers connected to your Switch OLED, then you can touch the screen with your finger to select options in the menus.)

Inside the System Settings menu, scroll down on the left column and then select System.

On the right side of the same menu, select the System Update option.

If none of the aforementioned help fix the Joy-Con recognition and registration issues, then you may need to contact Nintendo in order to send in the controller and/or the console for repair.