Mac OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 update broke my F710 gamepad

Update 2015-03-07: Thanks to Evi Vanoost for pointing out that inserting the USB wireless receiver while holding down the Logitech button on the gamepad will cause it to be recognized by Mac OS X, provisioned with power, and once again be usable in Steam games.

I had been happily using the wireless Logitech F710 game controller with Mac OS X Yosemite 10.10.1 (and OS X Mavericks before that) in the Steam game “XCOM: Enemy Within” for several months. After applying the OS X 10.10.2 update the USB receiver is no longer working. The OS X System Information app shows that the receiver is recognized but not configured and therefore not drawing any current to power its wireless operation. Pressing the Logitech button on the F710 confirms that as the status LED blinks three times indicating it can’t find the wireless receiver. The Steam game reports that it can’t find a gamepad controller.

I’ve spent a couple of hours trying to troubleshoot the problem. Google yields nothing useful. In fact, I can’t even find any other reports of this problem which has me wondering if perhaps the OS X update was incomplete or corrupt.

See also my earlier article where I reported that the F710 does work on Mac OS X without special drivers.