Arcade Buttons setup... what I am missing?

Warg

Hi,

I have built an arcade cabinet with 1 joystick and 6 action buttons, 3 additional buttons and a coin inserter. They are configured and successfully read with GPIOnext. Now when I start emulationstation, it detects one gamepad but asks for configuration.

My question now is if I understand correctly:

the GPIO-configuration with GPIOnext is "just" the hardware part (recognizing input signals and order them to a command)
the prompt for configuration in ES asks for the software configuration for retroarch
later I can do per game or per emulator specific configuration (when starting the game being prompted), like buttons and, for example, the insert coin etc

Is my understanding correct? If yes,

why after each reboot it ask again for configuration in ES? Probably the configuration isn't properly saved?

Thanks for help or directing me to the reading stuff I'm missing...

Regards

Edit:
I'm using

Pi3 with original PS
Retropie 4.3 downloaded from here
GPIOnext software to map GPIO connections

dankcushions

@warg please fill out the full form in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

Warg

Added to my first post.

caver01

@warg are you doing a controls setup when ES asks?

Warg

@caver01 yes I do. Still it asks again every time when I boot into it next time. It says something like "1 gamepad detected" and asks for configuring it. All the buttons are recognized then, but somehow it is not stored properly.

Clyde

@warg Are other configurations being saved? Just checking if it's actually a sd card problem.

Warg

@clyde I just remember that I used a wireless Logitech Gamepad on the same system before, and when that one was plugged the window in ES did only come up the first time, then never again and the pad worked always.
Other configs are saved correctly, same for example, I force hdmi sound in /boot/config... everything still there as I left it.

Clyde

@warg Okay, then that's ruled out. Does your GPIO controller show up in /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch-joypads after its configuration in ES? (see RetroArch Controller Configuration: AutoConfigurations)

Warg

@clyde I just checked. Nothing in there but the config of my Logitech gamepad. I guess thats whats missing so ES always asks again if the Logitech is not plugged...?

Clyde

@warg I guess so, too. The question is, why isn't it being created like the Logitech config? I don't know enough about the inner workings of Retropie/ES to diagnose that. I'm just trying to help isolating the problem.

edit: Apropos isolating, do you have another controller you could test with if any new configurations are being saved at all?

Warg

@clyde I try to create such a config file there with the output from jstest. All buttons are recognized, even the coin input gives feedback. It already helped to try on. Thanks very much, I get back later...

Edit: unfortunately no. My resources are very limited, I'm actually in the Philippines for holidays, building this machine for my friends bar. Brought all electronics from CH but no controller. But now time starts running out :-( glad that at least there's no power outage for days and internet is working...

Edit2: I copied the cfg of the Logitech gamepad to something like joypad.cfg, commented out most of the lines and ES doesn't ask anymore. Joystick works, most of the buttons too. Not sure if retroarch takes this config for the games now, but that will be sorted out tomorrow. Was a great help to get here, thanks again.