I FIGURED IT OUT :)

I just had to do some special config in the tetrarch controller settings and then make sure to save that config file so it would be persistent after reboot. It is working now.

I created an account just to say thank you for this!

Hello! I realised that maybe you guys are assuming that my usb keyboard is a gaming keyboard. It isn't. I think I'll have to buy an actual video game controller eventually. Thanks anyway for your guys' help!

@top-specci So when you said "this is the solution" to @sleve_mcdichael 's suggestion to press the button "shortly", you actually meant it didn't work ? It was a bit misleading.

Does it work if you plug a keyboard and press the "lshift" key ?

@bberlin1 This kind of functionality would be provided by the emulator (RetroArch with lr-pcsx-rearmed or lr-duckstation), but it's not present at the moment.

@quicksilver i disabled ertm and it still gives me the same error

@mahoneyt944

Finally resolved this! Thanks for all the help.

For future people encountering this problem, the issue was the iPac Ultimate IO not playing well with the PS4 Gamepad I had plugged into it. I was using them simultaneously for setup and configuration. When I removed the PS4 Controller and only had the usb keyboard and the iPac plugged in it started to work just fine.

@mitu
When I tried using gpionext I kept being met with error messages. I ended up just getting a few different parts to work with the super pi girl drivers. Still, thank you for the help.

@dwarfboysim any update?

Installed, same issue. So I dunno then.

I have reset EmulationStation input configuration (Retropie Setup -> Configuration / tools -> emulationstation -> Clear / Reset Emulation Station input configuration), after all previous actions and everything now works as after fresh install.

Well m assuming you are referring to street fighter games. Pick 6 button(snes layout) or modern for these games. 8 button is specifically for an certain arcade panel layout. Classic layout is for 99% of other games that are wrong with this setup.

Well i could hack code into mame2003-plus to read it thats not a good global solution though so ill add it to my todo list which isint too long atm!

@ronbo85. Apologies. I haven't been on the forum in a long while. If you need any help with the ButtonMap work I did, post again. Agreed. I stopped at buttons, and never directly used controllers.xml...

Regarding FBI:
Take a look at the Python file: simpleServer.py on my github area.
These are the args I'm using to show the image.

sudo fbi -vt 1 -a --noverbose </path/to/image>

Hopefully one of these switches will help your scripting.
Cheers

Based on the info @rion dug out, I'd say it's likely not compatible with RetroPie (and a bit overpriced in my opinion).

@cyperghost I have a working scriptmodule that installs mpg123 and sets up the background music automatically. May I have your blessing to include a modified version of this volume fade script (with credit) in the distribution?

Have you tried to get into RA's input controls and select P3's controller as your 2nd controller ? Or add an override for the game (see https://retropie.org.uk/docs/RetroArch-Configuration/#custom-retroarch-override-examples) with

input_player1_joypad_index = 0 input_player3_joypad_index = 1