xboxdrv deactivating Windows/Xbox controller after single game usage

[SavedByZero]

Hey,
Sorry if I'm being an idiot, but I followed the setup instructions here for my Windows/XBox USB controller: https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Universal-Controller-Calibration-%26-Mapping-Using-xboxdrv/

Then created an xboxdrv file based on this:
https://gist.github.com/dudleydes/dae86816bcc504ff6ee8e0451e09ef36

And, for a while, it worked....decently well. Mapping intellivision side buttons to the x2/y2 axis maybe not so well, at least when diagonal motions were involved in Tron Deadly Discs, but that's beside the point for the time being.

For reasons too long to explain, I removed my Windowx XBox controller temporarily and later put it back. But I can't seem to get it to work with xboxdrv the same way anymore.

I noticed a few things:

1. dev/input/by-id no longer lists the name of my Windows/XB controller. I've seen that name appear and vanish from the folder based on who knows what, but it's just not coming back, regardless of system reboots after remapping the controller in RetroPie. Why would this happen? In my previous setup, I used that as part of my command line for instantiating xboxdrv, but this time, I was forced to use the event number (which changed from 6 to 7, for some reason) that I found

2. The intellivison event_diag, when loaded with my xboxdrv config command line, will properly read the control inputs and show me their names. However, as soon as I quit of it, the circular light around the mode button goes off and the controller goes completely dead until I reboot the entire system.

3. this happens with any other Intellivision game I play using that controller with the xboxdrv command line I have set up.

The log from dev/shm after that happens is:

Parameters: 
Executing: sudo /opt/retropie/supplementary/xboxdrv/bin/xboxdrv --config /opt/retropie/configs/xboxdrv/intellivision.xboxdrv >>/dev/shm/runcommand.log & /opt/retropie/emulators/jzintv/bin/jzintv -p /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS -q --kbdhackfile=/opt/retropie/configs/intellivision/hackfile_trondd.cfg "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/intellivision/event_diag.rom"; sudo killall >/dev/null xboxdrv
xboxdrv 0.8.8 - http://pingus.seul.org/~grumbel/xboxdrv/ 
Copyright © 2008-2011 Ingo Ruhnke <grumbel@gmail.com> 
Licensed under GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html> 
This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. 
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions; see the file COPYING for details. 


Your Xbox/Xbox360 controller should now be available as:
  /dev/input/js4
  /dev/input/event6

Press Ctrl-C to quit
AVI: 1.000 1.000 1.000
active x: 0, 159, 8 active y: 4 195, 16
Shutdown complete

I think my controller name missing from dev/input/by-id is connected to this behavior. Anything I can do to completely restore the controller? I already tried erasing and remapping all 4 of my controllers, but that didn't help.

Other info: the handler for my controller says js5 event7 (which is weird, given the success message above), the Name says "Xbox Gamepad (userspace driver)", and as stated above, there's no name listed in the dev/input/by-id folder, even though I can get this information from the command line.