Joypads misconfigured after setting up X-Arcade Tankstick

[bollwerk]

Pi Model or other hardware: 3b
Power Supply used: Canakit
RetroPie Version Used: 4.3
Built From: Pre made SD Image on RetroPie website
USB Devices connected: Xbox 360 wired controller
Controller used: Xbox 360 wired controller
Error messages received: none
Log found in /dev/shm/runcommand.log (if relevant): not relevant
Guide used: see link below
File: not sure
Emulator: lr-mame2003
Attachment of config files: https://pastebin.com/9hkKNDgH
How to replicate the problem:

So I recently finished spending a great many hours following

to setup my X-Arcade with my Retropie. Unfortunately, now my other controllers (Xbox 360 wired and 8bitdo NES30 pro) don't seem to work as expected, even after remapping inputs in Emulation Station. For example, instead of Select+Start exiting an emulator, the A button (by itself) exits the emulator. I've gone through the retroarch.cfg under /all and can find no reason why this would happen. I've also checked the 2 CFG files under /all/retroarch-joypads and can find nothing wrong there either.

Any ideas where I should be looking?

UPDATE - added /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg pastebin link

[caver01]

@bollwerk You are probably looking in the right places, but it might help to share your cfg files via pastebin.com so we can look too. Might be something obvious to someone else that you don't see.

[caver01]

@caver01 It sounds like the hotkey is disabled and exit got remapped to button A. I am not going to watch that guide video.

[bollwerk]

Here is my /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg
https://pastebin.com/9hkKNDgH

I wouldn't expect you to watch all the videos. I just posted it since the rules are to reference which guide you use. =)
Basically, the relevant parts of the video are that the X-Arcade is treated like a keyboard (rather than using the keyboard-to-joypad driver for it), then you program the X-Arcade with certain keyboard presses, then edit the cfg file(s) to match those keyboard keys.

Thanks for any help you can provide!

[bollwerk]

Well, I feel dumb now. I think I figured it out. I had mistakenly set some of the keyboard keys to the "_btn" entries, which are for joypads only.
I think I initially didn't realize the difference between the "_btn" entries and those without "_btn" (which are apparently for keyboard only).

[caver01]

@bollwerk Brilliant! It's a really easy mistake to make, and I can't say I would have noticed right away either. So much documentation is a reference for folks with different hardware.

Two other mistakes people make in the .cfg files are:

1. using numbers like "5" instead of "num5"
2. using smart curly quotes like “num5” instead of "num5"

Gotta use the latter in both cases.

[markwkidd]

@bollwerk said in Joypads misconfigured after setting up X-Arcade Tankstick:

Well, I feel dumb now. I think I figured it out. I had mistakenly set some of the keyboard keys to the "_btn" entries, which are for joypads only.
I think I initially didn't realize the difference between the "_btn" entries and those without "_btn" (which are apparently for keyboard only.

Do you have a moment to read the RetroPie docs on the X-Arcade? At this location: https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/X-Arcade

It would be good to know if the docs reflect your actual experience setting up the X-Arcade with the latest RetroPie.

[caver01]

@bollwerk I looked at your pastebin and your config has deviated a lot from the distributed one. Normally there are a bunch of commented sections, unless you hid those for the sake of pasting. I wondered if maybe your config was overwritten by saving settings from inside RGUI.

It looks like there are proper entries for Hotkeys and Select/Start.

In any case, if I had a Tankstick I would probably keep it as a keyboard controller like an IPAC setup, and completely skip the unnecessary driver software they recommend. It is unfortunate that they also have a RetroPie image on their site. That's a big no-no, especially when they also advise NOT to update the RetroPie script. Following that advice puts you into an unsupportable situation. Although, we are all just volunteering here so any build project with RetroPie has no true support, just a great community to help you help yourself.

[bollwerk]

I did try the Xarcade2Jstick driver, but wasn't happy with the results.
I did not follow the instructions at https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/X-Arcade, but rather chose the driver from within RetroPie, if I remember correctly. I know I never did a sudo make or sudo make install.
Although the other method I followed was much more time consuming, I'm very happy with the results.
My retroarch.cfg never had any commented lines to begin with, so I'm not sure why it was different than what I found on GitHub. I used the 4.2 SD card image directly from RetroPie.