Very confused about RetroPie.

[dankcushions]

@dchurch24

Before I left, even plugging a keyboard in and pressing [esc] would not get me out of the game. I left the whole lot on and went out. Came back an hour later, pressed [esc], and the game exited.)

retropie is designed for controllers (be that gamepads or arcade interfaces), which are configured using the process when they are detected on boot. you plug something in later on and it will probably do nothing or act strangely.

It was the same on my other build - could not exit a game until I accidentally stumbled across a combination that took me out.

the combination is hotkey + start. see https://retropie.org.uk/docs/First-Installation/#hotkey

There's also a dual-button combination that resets the game (i.e. effectively rebooting it) and those are set to two buttons that I frequently press in a particular game - so really quite annoying.

hotkey + B. https://retropie.org.uk/docs/First-Installation/#hotkey

so if you’d followed the first installation doc, you would have configured hotkey as select/insert coin, and B as an action button, and that would never be a combo you’d press by accident.

[dchurch24]

@dankcushions

Agreed. The docs DO say that. Initially, I DID set it up with the coin/select combination. It wouldn't exit the game, so went back through the controller config and changed it to other buttons in an attempt to diagnose the problem. Those didn't work either.
In the end, I was randomly assigning buttons in an attempt to get ANYTHING to work, and eventually stumbled across a combo that DID exit the game (using my iPac controller), so left it at that - I wasn't about to raise my blood pressure again and waste several hours going back over it. The knock-on effect of those buttons working was the resetting of the game with the reset key-combo. It was a price worth paying to not go back through it and potentially lose the ability to exit a game once again. Whilst not perfect, I considered that particular bar-top machine "finished" as much as it could be.
We started to build one for my BiL, and am experiencing the same problems again.
I realise that everyone here assumes that I didn't read and follow the docs. I did. I read everything, and then even watched youtube videos of people setting it up (which I hate doing, I would much rather read at my own pace rather than waiting for someone to show me via a video).

[sewart]

@dchurch24 I spent many hours building a bar top machine and it turned out great. I had the same trouble as you, gave up and ended up putting it in the closet never really being used. I googled it and will be trying again. Hopefully this time I can succeed. I'll be reinstalling everything from scratch.

Wish me luck!

[AXEL]

@sewart It's been a couple of months, did you ever get back to your build?