Start button not working once games were launched in mame 2003

[melbmatt50]

I have recently installed retropie 4.6 on a pi 4b 4gb. I am using a sf30 pro bluetooth controller but have also tried with a generic ps3 wired type.

Initially when I launched a rom in mame 2003 the game would recognize the direction pad but not the analog stick . I went into retroarch setup and in input changed the controller type to retropad with analog stick. After doing this the start button on the controller stopped working ( have tried with multiple controllers). The start and select hotkeys would also not enable me to exit the game.

In other emulators the start button worked fine. Following advice from someone on one of the retropie support groups I was advised to do the following:
setup the controller as it was before (dpad). Then go to retropie setup, configuration tools, edit retopie/retroarch configurations, configurate basic..., Then choose arcade or mame, and the choose to setup the analog stick as dpad for each player (the four bottom options).

I did this and although it enabled me to get the start button to work in mame 2003 it no longer works in any other emulator so far that I have tried. I have tried lr-handy for Lynx and the nes and snes emulators. I have tried with multiple controllers but neither allows the start button to work and needless to say I cannot exit using the hotkeys.

Apologies for the long issue but this has been a bit of an ongoing saga. I never had so many problems when using the pi3b+.

[mitu]

Looks like a mis-configured gamepad.
Can you post the contents of the gamepad configuration file ? You can find it in \\retropie\configs\all\retroarch\autoconfig\ folder, accessible over file shares, it should be a .cfg file named after your controller (8Bitdo SF30 Pro.cfg probably).

[melbmatt50]

I believe when it detected it, Retropie found it as a Pro controller so here is the contents of Pro Controller.cfg. On a side note when I started Mame up today it had reverted back to before with the start button not working and games not saving high scores.

input_device = "Pro Controller"
input_driver = "udev"
input_enable_hotkey_btn = "0"
input_r3_btn = "11"
input_r_y_minus_axis = "-3"
input_l_btn = "4"
input_load_state_btn = "4"
input_r_y_plus_axis = "+3"
input_up_btn = "h0up"
input_left_btn = "h0left"
input_state_slot_decrease_btn = "h0left"
input_select_btn = "8"
input_r2_btn = "7"
input_r_x_minus_axis = "-2"
input_l_y_plus_axis = "+1"
input_l_x_plus_axis = "+0"
input_right_btn = "h0right"
input_state_slot_increase_btn = "h0right"
input_l2_btn = "6"
input_l_x_minus_axis = "-0"
input_r_x_plus_axis = "+2"
input_l3_btn = "10"
input_r_btn = "5"
input_save_state_btn = "5"
input_l_y_minus_axis = "-1"
input_y_btn = "3"
input_x_btn = "2"
input_menu_toggle_btn = "2"
input_down_btn = "h0down"
input_start_btn = "9"
input_exit_emulator_btn = "9"
input_b_btn = "1"
input_reset_btn = "1"
input_a_btn = "0"

[mitu]

Your hotkey button is set to A, so that's why Start + Select would not work to exit the games.
Try to reset your controls by using the Retropie Setup Script >> Manage Packages >> Manage Core Packages >> EmulationStation >> Configuration / Options >> Clear / Reset EmulationStation Input Configuration.
Then re-configure your controller in EmulationStation and either skip the Hotkey button assignment or use Select as hotkey.

[melbmatt50]

I followed the steps you said and after the start button still not initially working I remapped the controller upon startup and went into the configuration menu once I started a game in 2003.

There was a bit of a delay with it accepting the button choices but now it works ok but now for some reason the analog stick doesnt work in other emulators, only the direction pad. I have tried to use the analog stick in the atari lynx and super nintendo emulators but only the direction pad works. Be grateful if you can help me fix this.

[mitu]

@melbmatt50 said in Start button not working once games were launched in mame 2003:

I have tried to use the analog stick in the atari lynx and super nintendo emulators but only the direction pad works.

Do you still have the option input_player1_analog_dpad_mode set through the Configuration Editor ? Check if it's set to left_analog for all RetroArch cores.
You can also verify in the RetroArch's menu, by going to 'Controls' and checking if the P1 controls have the option set.

[melbmatt50]

@mitu Where do I find the configuration editor to change that if I need to?

[mitu]

@melbmatt50 I thought you already used the configuration editor to set those options ?
Anyway, you can find it in Retropie-Setup, under 'Configuration/tools' - see https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Configuration-Editor/.
You can go into the Advanced Configuration -> Configure Libretro options, choose which core (or all if you want all cores), then in the list choose to configure input_player1_analog_dpad_mode - from there you can configure which joystick (left/right) to control the D-pad.