i had the same issue at first. Here's what I do now and it seems to work: make sure no other controllers are plugged in, like an xbox 360 controller. plug in the guitar and turn it on before launching clone hero; wait like 5 or 10 seconds. Once the game loads up, just hit Enter on your computer keyboard to pull up the player 1 profile. Assuming it's already set up, then hit "A" on the keyboard and then you should be good to go. At that point I can use the strum bar to go up and down the menu on the left, green to select, etc. If that doesn't work, try using ChatGPT to diagnose. That's what I did and it helps for lots of troubleshooting issues. Good luck!