Xbox One Elite controller terribly misbehaving?

mitu

@ultrakev9 Did you modify the RetroArch configuration after the installation/update ? Do you have save_on_exit enabled ?

ultrakev9

@mitu I "had" save on exit enabled but it could have been reset by the update? Be back in a few minutes!

mitu

@ultrakev9 Don't enable this option, it's not recommended. If you want to save your settings, use the 'Save Core overrides' or 'Save Game Overrides'. Updating will not disable this option, so if you explicitely enabled it, you should disable it.
What ROM are you trying to launch ? Look in the Docs and find the .cfg file for the game's system, then check its size. If it's more than 4 lines, you need to replace it with the .cfg-dist file from the same folder. Do that, then re-launch the ROM.

ultrakev9

@mitu Okay I'll make sure to turn off save on exit.

The problem persists, however. Entering RetroArch after boot and configuring the Elite causes the controller to stop responding. Using the keyboard to ESC out locks up everything. I have managed to get it to say "one gamepad detected" when booting now even with the keyboard and mouse plugged in.

mitu

@ultrakev9 The problem is that - once enabled - it will overwrite the system's retroarch.cfg file and this will mess up your settings. In my previous post I described how you can revert that.
If you have the option, reinstall from scratch, then update RetroPie and all its packages, then retry the controller configuration.

ultrakev9

@mitu Am I reinstalling RetroArch and updating RetroPie through the menus or am I doing a complete reinstall of everything. I found a video on YouTube about fixing controllers not being configured when starting a game but of course I can't seem to get it to work in RetroArch properly and that's more than half the battle. If I have to reinstall/update I have no problem but that's certainly going to take some time.

I'm more afraid of losing all my roms if I don't back them up somewhere.

mitu

@ultrakev9 Whan I said reinstall, I mean reinstall the whole image (which of course will wipe out everything). Or you could follow the steps I said a couple of posts ago about fixing the ROM's system config file.
You could back up your current image (though 64 Gb will take some time to write) and then test with a fresh install.

ultrakev9

@mitu It's a 64gb card but there's nowhere near 64gb on it. It took somewhere in the neighborhood of ten hours to download and install everything through the menus and I just want to make sure that's the best bet before I go that route. I'll see if I can find the .cfg files and fix them but I can't seem to find the individual emulator folders. Honestly I got lucky with the devices file that I copy/pasted when I found that one.

I can back up all my roms to my thumb drive and re-image the sim if necessary. I have today off and I'm super thankful for the help so far but I've been pecking at this for over eight hours and need some sleep. I'll check for a response and tackle it when I'm not so tired.

mitu

@ultrakev9 Take your time.

ultrakev9

@mitu I've decided to do a complete fresh reinstallation. Ran in to another controller problem and couldn't find the config files so, after my Tata USB gamepad started acting up I'm taking your advice and starting from scratch.

Thankfully, so far, I've reformatted and installed the image and keyboard, mouse and Elite controller are all behaving as they should. I've backed up and sorted my roms since I had some duplicates and bad iso files so there's little point in copying them again.

I'm sure by tomorrow I'll be pretty much okay and hopefully this time I'll stay out of certain settings that turn this in to another nightmare.

Thanks so much for your help!

madmodder123

@ultrakev9
Try this tool out: https://github.com/meleu/RetroPie-joystick-selection
You should be able to set it so the Xbox controller is always player one (you have to enable the "By name" option and then set it as P1).

ultrakev9

@madmodder123 Thanks. I'll give it a look over once everything is up and running.

ultrakev9

Well, I did a complete reinstall of the OS image and started over reloading everyting.

Unfortunately, I didn't get the intended results but for a brief moment everything seemed to be behaving but then once again the Microsoft Xbox One Elite controller flipped out and locked everything up.

So, since I had a clean install I got a bit drastic and found a $15 controller for Xbox 360 at Wal-Mart and gave it a whirl since it's close to the Elite. Picked up a Rockcandy Xbox 360 controller in "Blueberry" or whatever.

When I plugged it in and configured it the left and right triggers started spazzing out and would mess up the configuration. Not bad enough that it would lock up but annoying enough that buttons would register weird button presses. I figured it was the controller being $15 and made in China so I took it back and exchanged it. This time, fearing a repeat of the trigger malfunction I got this one in "Cherry" and plugged it in. Got a very similar problem and realized it was probably ALL Microsoft USB controllers and offbrand ones, too.

On a whim I tried configuring the new controller without triggers or thumbsticks since that's where the problem seemed to originate. After loading and playing a couple different random roms from pretty much every emulator I had I then rebooted the system and tried the same exact thing with the Elite controller in place of the Rockcandy one.

Lo, and behold, the Elite works just fine as long as the thumbsticks and triggers are not part of the set up and now I'm comfortably playing games that were never designed to be played with such a precision piece of equipment.

TL;DR -- If a superior grade controller is giving fits then try not configuring all the buttons and only go with the bare minimum.

I may not be able to use the Elite on something like a PS1 emulator but I don't need one seeing as I have a PS3 with backwards compatibility and something called a Cronus MAX so I can pretty much use any controller on any system.

Thanks to everyone's help the clean install took care of most of the issues and I'm using my favorite controller!

mitu

@ultrakev9 Did you update the xpad driver ? The shoulder triggers acting as joysticks means you're not using the RetroPie xpad driver, but the default one (from the Raspbian kernel).

ultrakev9

@mitu
Actually, I think I did update it and that caused some of the issues again with it not working properly. It's working well enough as is so I'm a little leery of messing with it at this point. I don't have any games that require thumbstick or trigger input so I'm happy enough with the good D-pad.