Unresponsive PS Vita 1000 Joystick

I have a PS Vita joystick that is completely unresponsive, i.e. no drifting or spotty signal. I opened it up hoping to find contacts to clean, however it appears there are only three blob chips, with some ground pads.

Any idea what might cause the unresponsiveness? Since the left and right joysticks are symmetrical, I plan on swapping the right to left to check the ribbon cable connector and daughter board.

 

I believe these use Hall effect sensors, those go bad sometimes, also check the contacts on all 3 ribbon connectors for corrosion, very common on vita units

 

Ah, that makes complete sense.

I swapped the right joystick to the left and it worked fine, so the daughter boards are fine. I'll look for any microscopic corrosion.

 

Update: bought another joystick on eBay and it is permanently stuck up. I disassembled that one as well and gave it a clean with compressed air. I don't think that really has an effect. Then I swapped the ribbon cables between the housing. No such luck. However the unresponsive ribbon cable stayed unresponsive with the stuck up joystick, and vice versa, so the problem probably exists in the cable. I'll keep fiddling with them. I really want to buy another to test however they're quite expensive for what they are and I don't want to risk another broken one.