no Gamepads Detected

yctn

i installed debian 12 on my gigabyte brix. ran retropi_setup to install everything.
when i fire up emulationstation i see NO GAMEPADS DETECTED

i tried 3 different controllers.

[457239.181855] hid-generic 0003:0E6F:1113.0011: input,hidraw2: USB HID v1.11 Gamepad [SWITCH CO.,LTD. Usb Controller] on usb-0000:00:14.0-3/input
[457088.072889] hid-generic 0003:046D:C30F.000C: input,hidraw0: USB HID v1.10 Keyboard [Logitech Logitech USB Keyboard] on usb-0000:00:14.0-4/input0
[286955.292290] hid-generic 0003:057E:2009.0006: input,hidraw2: USB HID v1.11 Joystick [Nintendo Co., Ltd. Pro Controller] on usb-0000:00:14.0-1/input0

can anyone give me some pointers on what i could possible be doing wrong?

mitu

What controllers did you try ? From the dmesg fragment you posted, they don't seem to be initialized as controllers by the system, as they're handled by the hid-generic module.

Are the controller detected by jstest or sdl2-jstest ?

yctn

@mitu when i run jstest i get command not found. so it seems it is not installed.
since this is like a normal PC would it maybe be better if i just install the raspberry pi image instead of installing it on top of debian?

yctn

@mitu jstest works just fine.
root@test:/dev/input# jstest /dev/input/js0
Driver version is 2.1.0.
Joystick (SWITCH CO.,LTD. Usb Controller) has 6 axes (X, Y, Z, Rz, Hat0X, Hat0Y)
and 13 buttons (BtnA, BtnB, BtnC, BtnX, BtnY, BtnZ, BtnTL, BtnTR, BtnTL2, BtnTR2, BtnSelect, BtnStart, BtnMode).
Testing ... (interrupt to exit)
Axes: 0: 0 1: 0 2: 0 3: 0 4: 0 5: 0 Buttons: 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:off 4:off 5:off 6:off 7:off 8:off 9:off 10:off 11:off 12:off

mitu

@yctn said in no Gamepads Detected:

since this is like a normal PC would it maybe be better if i just install the raspberry pi image instead of installing it on top of debian?

That wouldn't work, since the Raspberry Pi image is for a different platform (Pi) than a PC. For a PC system, installing on-top of Debian or Ubuntu is the only supported configuration, so you're fine here.

jstest works just fine.

Ok, in this case can you run EmulationStation from the terminal with the command

emulationstation --debug

and post the debug output generated ? The same messages that are printed on the terminal are also saved in $HOME/.emulationstation/es_log.txt, just get the contents of the log file and post them on pastebin.com.

EDIT: just to make sure, but you are starting EmulationStation from the desktop session and not from the command line ?

yctn

@mitu here is the pastebin.
https://pastebin.com/YzfVNVgJ
i am starting emulationstation from the command line as a Non root user.
debian is installed without a desktop. so i only have terminal. is a desktop session nessecery?

mitu

@yctn said in no Gamepads Detected:

is a desktop session nessecery?

On a PC, yes. Please use a desktop environment and start EmulationStation from the desktop shortcut added by the installer (rpie.desktop).

yctn

@mitu i installed xfce and then the gamepad was detected just fine thank you!.
not sure if i am allowed to ask other questions in this topic. but the n64 controller works fine in emulationstation. but it does not propperly work once i am in a n64 game. it seems i need to go into the retroarch menu once i am inside the rom to actualy change the mapping for n64?

mitu

@yctn Not sure what you mean - once the gamepad is configured in EmulationStation, its configuration is also created for RetroArch.

Is there an issue with the mapping profile for the N64 core - or you have a specific (N64) controller that is not correctly mapped ? You've not given any details about what controllers you have except for the dmesg blurb, which is not enough.

yctn

@mitu i have configured a keyboard and i have configure the n64 controller in emulationstation and that works perfectly fine.
but once i enter the mario kart game the keyboard soft of works. but the game controller does not work at all.

Joystick (SWITCH CO.,LTD. Usb Controller) has 6 axes (X, Y, Z, Rz, Hat0X, Hat0Y)

if i test the controller with jstest /dev/input/js0 it seems to work perfectly fine.

yctn

@mitu also when i look at the InputAutoCfg.init it seems to only contains support for the keyboard.

; InputAutoCfg.ini for Mupen64Plus SDL Input plugin

; Keyboard_START
[Keyboard]
plugged = True
plugin = 2
mouse = False
DPad R = key(100)
DPad L = key(97)
DPad D = key(115)
DPad U = key(119)
Start = key(13)
Z Trig = key(122)
B Button = key(306)
A Button = key(304)
C Button R = key(108)
C Button L = key(106)
C Button D = key(107)
C Button U = key(105)
R Trig = key(99)
L Trig = key(120)
Mempak switch = key(44)
Rumblepak switch = key(46)
X Axis = key(276,275)
Y Axis = key(273,274)
; Keyboard_END

mitu

@yctn said in no Gamepads Detected:

but once i enter the mario kart game the keyboard soft of works. but the game controller does not work at all.

Which emulator are you using - the libretro core or the standalone emulator ? Can you please get a verbose log and then post the log file (/dev/shm/runcommand.log) on pastebin.com ?

@mitu also when i look at the InputAutoCfg.init it seems to only contains support for the keyboard.

I think that's ok, when using the standalone emulator the configuration is generated at runtime, when the game is started.

yctn

@mitu i see mupen64plus-glide64 as emulator

cat runcommand.info
n64
mupen64plus-glide64
/home/test/RetroPie/roms/n64/mario-kart.n64
/opt/retropie/emulators/mupen64plus/bin/mupen64plus.sh mupen64plus-video-glide64mk2 "/home/test/RetroPie/roms/n64/mario-kart.n64"

and

cat runcommand.log
Parameters:
Executing: /opt/retropie/emulators/mupen64plus/bin/mupen64plus.sh mupen64plus-video-glide64mk2 "/home/test/RetroPie/roms/n64/mario-kart.n64"
grep: /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch-joypads/*.cfg: No such file or directory
grep: /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch-joypads/*.cfg: No such file or directory
grep: /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch-joypads/*.cfg: No such file or directory
/opt/retropie/emulators/mupen64plus/bin/mupen64plus.sh: line 425: /proc/device-tree/compatible: No such file or directory

since the output was quite small i thought it would be okay if i post them here.

mitu

@yctn said in no Gamepads Detected:

grep: /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch-joypads/*.cfg

This means you have no gamepads profiles configured for RetroArch and thus the auto-configuration process didn't work since it uses those profiles to configure the gamepads in Mupen64plus (the standlone emulator). Did you disable the EmulationStation's auto-configuration scripts ?

yctn

@mitu no i did not disable Emulationstation auto-configuration scripts as far as i know. i just ran the retropie_setup.sh with all the default settings.

yctn

@yctn i checked in the ./retropie_setup.sh and auto-configuration is set to enabled perfectly fine.
would it matter if i ran ./retropie_setup.sh as root? but emulationstation is running as a non root user?
i already did chmod 777 /opt/retropi -R to make sure my non root user has access to everything there.

i am confused about how things should be exactly.

mitu

@yctn said in no Gamepads Detected:

@yctn i checked in the ./retropie_setup.sh and auto-configuration is set to enabled perfectly fine.

That's not where the auto-configuration is saved, but if you didn't explicitely disable it, I don't understand why the EmulationStation configuration of the gamepad hasn't created the corresponding RetroArch profile(s) - perhaps folder permissions at the time when the configuration was run ?

would it matter if i ran ./retropie_setup.sh as root? but emulationstation is running as a non root user?

While retropie_setup.sh needs to have root permissions - but it should run with sudo, not as root - , running EmulationStation/emulators is not.

i already did chmod 777 /opt/retropi -R to make sure my non root user has access to everything there.

Please don't change any permissions since they're not needed, retropie_setup.sh should handle any needed permissions. Did you ran EmulationStation as root as some point ? Or started as root the initial setup ? If the folders under /opt/retropie/configs do not have the correct permissions, then saving the controller profiles wouldn't work if the folders are/were owned by root.

yctn

@mitu i tried to run emulationstation as root but it refuses to do so. so i am running emulatorstation as a user.
no i did not explicitely disable it.
i already tried to reconfigure the controller in emulationstation but that does not seem to save the controller config.
when i open the retroarch menu it also looks pretty.... bugged/strange. i dont know how to proceed from here.

mitu

@yctn I recommend you reinstall the OS and re-do the installation. Start the installation as a regular user with sudo, as explained in the installation docs. Start EmulationStation from the rpi shortcut/icon added by the installer - as regular user also.

yctn

@mitu thing is. this is not a raspbarry pi its an a gigabyte brix. anyway its just a regular pc with debian 12. on top of that i have installed the retropi installer thing. i also have 10+ years experience with working with linux so overall i have a pretty good understanding of what i am doing. i just dont know the whole retropi system and what it exactly needs/wants. i can definitly do a reinstall. but i would actualy prefer to learn/understand what is going on and fix it.