Controllers Not Working - Extremely Frustrating!

[uraverageplayer]

I am using two dragonrise generic USB joysticks with retropie 4.5.3 on pi 3b+

Controllers are setup exactly the same and they configure but when I start a game, they just stop working.

I'm am new to raspberry pi and this is my first raspberry pi system so please be detailed and i apologize in advance for my ignorance.

This problem has been annoying me for the past few days and any help would be appreciated.

I have also posted this question on Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/RetroPie/comments/edyk5b/controllers_not_working_extremely_frustrating/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

[tobas]

@uraverageplayer so you configure your controller through emulation station, it works in the menus, but when you go in game it stops working? do I have that right?

everyone here started as a noob, everyone. although some seem to forget that. I'm no expert especially compared to some around here but I will do all I can to help you.

tell me a little about your setup. what systems are you playing? do the controllers stop working for all systems or just some?

[mitu]

@uraverageplayer What emulator/game are you starting when it's not working ?
Configuring the joysticks in EmulationStation would automatically create a configuration for RetroArch based emulators (the ones that start with lr-), but certain emulators are not auto-configured (i.e. advmame or mame4all).