RetroPie/EmuStation/RetroArch not Keeping IPAC4 Config

ToddThomas

Hi,
I am running a RPi4 with the official "normal" RetroPie setup. I am on version 4.6.7 (buster). I have an IPAC4 that I am struggling to get configured with the new build of RetroPie.

Back story -> I assembled a 4 player upright arcade about 5 years ago with the RPi 2. I had bought the IPAC4 from the beginning. I a few years ago, I upgraded to the RPi 3. Earlier this year I upgraded to the RPi4 and have had nothing but trouble with it as it pertains to the IPAC4.

I have been spending weeks working the IPAC and looking at posts to figure out what was wrong.

The big problem I have is that when I boot up the RPi, with the IPAC plugged in, it states "No gamepad detected". Now the booger of the whole thing is that somehow I got past that. But this past weekend while I was remapping the buttons to the IPAC, the IPAC connectors to the appropriate key strokes, and the retroarch.cfg for each keyboard player to a keyboard character.

My last struggle was to get the shift key (not the hotkey) to work with the IPAC. I finally figured that out and I do not know what I did, but I was back to getting the message:

"No gamepad detected" when the machine boots up.

I have read the docs and stuff like "start here". I have read a lot of posts of people setting up the IPAC2 and IPAC2 with RetroPie on an RPi4. But I just cannot find anyone who is having this issue.

Would anyone, please, help me out here? I am so very close.

Thank you.

Ashpool

Have you tried with different Controllers/USB Devices?
As it seem that for some Raspberry 4's the "silicon lottery" where held by Murphy (Just as an example: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=262649&sid=92d685a153c96ecf27c44d4167c0863a). My first (returned) Pi4 had some other strange behaviour with the ports , the USB Stick with the retropie-mount folder was always recognized, but HID Devices where either on or off (not shown via lsusb). The situation was less worse with just a cheap keyboard connected, but a connected IPac2 or F310 Controller produced that error much more often [The Overvoltage settings mentioned in the linked thread above were of no help in my case].
So if your IPac behaves well on other Pis, it may be that you got a defective Pi4.

ToddThomas

@Ashpool said in RetroPie/EmuStation/RetroArch not Keeping IPAC4 Config:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=262649&sid=92d685a153c96ecf27c44d4167c0863a

Ashpool,
Thank you for the reply.
I think the RPi4 keeps the configs when I use one of my F310. I will have to double check.
I have been connecting a real keyboard up to it to get on the command line and type. I do not think I have tried to configure that from the beginning and then restarted to see if it kept the settings.

The thing is, I had it all setup with the IPac4 as far as player 1 (of 4) working. The only problem I was having was getting the "SHIFT" functionality to work so that I could exit a game and get back to EmulationStation. Then I did something that screwed up the configs. Something in the text based menu when ./retropie-setup.sh executed.

I feel like it is a configuration issue. But I will read through the link you posted to see if that is where my problem lies.

Let me take one step back and ask you this. On a fresh install of Retropie, if all I have hooked up is the IPac4, should EmulationStation prompt me that there is no controller/gampad recognized (like the F310)? Or should it move on to the heart of the program?

Finally, do you happen to know what config file and what setting(s) I could look at to determine whether or not it is a config issue? I have players 1 - 4 all mapped in the /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg, but I know there are many more configs in there. I have gone through them a few times, but I cannot find anything that would be a setting to let EmuStation know that some type of controller was already configured. Like a boolean value.

Thank you

Ashpool

@ToddThomas said in RetroPie/EmuStation/RetroArch not Keeping IPAC4 Config:

Let me take one step back and ask you this. On a fresh install of Retropie, if all I have hooked up is the IPac4, should EmulationStation prompt me that there is no controller/gampad recognized (like the F310)? Or should it move on to the heart of the program?

On a fresh install, it always ask to configure controlls (even with a recognized controller). IMHO that it ain't reporting something like "keyboard detected, press any key to configure it as input" and just states that no controller was detected is a bit arguable, nevertheless on first start that is the expected behaviour.
But afterwards, if the keyboard was setup as a controller, the dialog shouldn't appear anymore - and besides /opt/.../all/retroarch.cfg I have no idea what other configs could be responsible and /core/rom override retroarch.cfgs should have no effect on ES.
Could you log into your system via ssh and look at the output from lsusb to see if the IPac is listed as a recognized Device if that Requester Pops up again after the initial setup?