The most likely cause for this is that you either do not send the correct commands or that the firmware is outdated. I don't know if you can read out which version it currently has, but there are certainly instruction how to update it via normal SteamVR.
The problems do not end there though. SteamVR's support of the Vive Tracker slowly degraded over time and now we are in the state that it is virtually impossible that you get any more functionally over USB than over the normal Pogo Pins. So if you don't have anything fancy planned with it and the functionality of the Pogo Pins over USB solves your problem, then that's possible. Anything more, you can basically forget, especially if you want to use it in any professional way. Support is also basically non-existent as you see in this dead thread, apart from me who wants to save you a lot of time.
My recommendation would be to spend your time developing an external solution for inputs and just use the Tracker as a location device. That's what it's is good at and will probably always work.