Though the excessive emojis make me 
I have the same experience. In previous versions (I don’t know at what point it changed) Plex HTPC would not respond to controller input if the controller was already connected to the PC before the app started. I would always have to first start Plex HTPC, and then turn on the controller for Plex HTPC to respond to input.
It appears that Plex does detect the controller, but does not log any input behavior from it.
Mar 07, 2023 21:55:52.185 [30652] INFO - Starting Plex HTPC version: 1.34.1.3578-e078bda7
Mar 07, 2023 21:55:52.185 [30652] INFO - Running on: Windows 10 Version 2009 [10.0.22621] x86_64
...
Mar 07, 2023 21:55:52.662 [30696] INFO - [Input/SDL] Found 1 joysticks
Mar 07, 2023 21:55:52.663 [30696] INFO - [Input/SDL] JoyStick #0 is Xbox One Elite 2 Controller with 16 buttons and 6 axes
Mar 07, 2023 21:55:52.663 [32300] INFO - [InputManager/SDL] Successfully inited input
Mar 07, 2023 21:55:52.663 [30696] INFO - [Input/SDL] Detected device was added.
Mar 07, 2023 21:55:52.663 [30696] INFO - [Input/SDL] Found 1 joysticks
Mar 07, 2023 21:55:52.663 [30696] INFO - [Input/SDL] JoyStick #0 is Xbox One Elite 2 Controller with 16 buttons and 6 axes
Mar 07, 2023 21:55:52.664 [6200] INFO - libCEC was successfully initialized, found version 262151
Mar 07, 2023 21:55:52.666 [32300] INFO - [InputManager/CEC] Successfully inited input
I then see input event log lines from the keyboard, but none from the controller.
This happens both when the controller is connected via wireless dongle, and by USB-C cable.
For what it’s worth, there was discussion of this same issue over a year ago.
