MAME4ALL does not recognize bluetooth (knockoff) PS3 controllers

[LateToTheParty]

Pi Model or other hardware: 3B
Power Supply used: 2.5A 5V USB supply & cable
RetroPie Version Used: 4.0.2
Built From: Image, retropie-4.0.2-rpi2_rpi3.img
USB Devices connected: USB BT dongle, USB keyboard, USB memory stick
Controller used: Generic Shanwan-clone PS3 BT
Error messages received: no error, just no input
Emulator: MAME4ALL
How to replicate the problem: Launch any MAME4ALL rom

I hope I got all the relevant info above. I've tried searching for my issue in the forum so far, but have not found anyone with the same issue exactly - so please forgive me if I missed it, will be happy to follow any links to the fix anyone might have.

Here's what is happening: I've had a RetroPie setup working for some time now. Installed it from the 4.0.2 image mentioned above and have been using 2 wired USB controllers to play everything. All of the Libretro roms work great, always have, and once I figured out some of the mysteries of MAME ROM versions I eventually got a set of MAME ROMs that I liked working with MAME4ALL. Note, not the LR version.

Life has been grand. However, I decided to take the plunge and go wireless. I cheaped out and bought the least expensive PS3 BT controller clone I could find, and (shocker) had a heck of a time getting it to work. In the end, I just grabbed an inexpensive BT dongle and added:

dtoverlay=pi3-disable-bt

to the end of my /boot/config.txt - eventually trying all the PS3 controller drivers until I came upon the "Shanwan" driver which found my controller spot-on. Overjoyed squealing followed.

Until I went to play Joust! in MAME4ALL and realized that my controller mappings were all fubar'd. Undaunted I hit TAB on a USB connected keyboard and attempted to remap the bindings, but the MAME config wouldn't recognize any button presses. Strangely though, if I exited the menu, some of the buttons on the controller DID in fact interact with MAME - one button successfully paused the emulator, another turned out to be mapped to button 1. But beyond that, nothing.

Can't for the life of me understand why it won't see the button presses in order to remap them. I went and tried running the same rom using LR-MAME4ALL, and it ran, but none of the buttons worked at all there. Very confused.

I probably messed something up. Hoping that someone knows what it is, or where to begin to fix it.

Again, apologies if this was covered anywhere. I tried to look.

Suggestions?

[jeshaw70]

I'm having a similar issue at the moment. I've been trying for some time to get Joust working (it's my all-time favorite video game on any platform!). I just recently figured out how to reset the game to get it to actually start up, but now I can only control it via the keyboard. My 8bitdo SNES30 controllers don't seem to register any button presses, but they work fine for all other MAME games. The behavior seems to be the same for lr-mame2003 and mame4all. Any ideas? I'm on the same hardware and software versions as the OP.