I have two controllers plugged into the laptop. On the menu screen both work. When I start co-op, it says for both players to press any button. As soon as one player presses a button, it goes to character select and the other player can't press anything. It then assigns whichever character is chosen to both players. When the game starts, two copies of the characters appear and the game is split screen. However, only one controller can send inputs (the game doesn't read the one that didn't get to press a button at the beginning). The two characters are linked and where one goes, the other follows perfectly mirroring everything the first character does.

Does anyone have an idea how to fix this?

3 ideas:

1) Replace one of the joysticks with a different type of joystick(not the same brand preferably) to make it easier for Windows to differentiate between them.

2) Move one of the joysticks to a different USB block(not plugged in directly beside the other joystick) as it's possible the 2nd port might be unpowered in that block.

3) Check the bios to make sure the ports are enabled and powered(if accessible)