keyboard problems with DOSBox if using attract mode

[LPSeg13]

i want to keep a long story short,not so sure how that will go...
using a raspberry Pi 3B+, retropie ver. 4.7.20

i installed attract mode because i was having a lot of difficulty surgically placing hundreds of images i had on hand. not being able to get ES to pick up on them and use them. and scrapers being even less effective.

i eventually got to configuring my DOS games in attractmode. all running DOSBox for the emulator. (everything already working great from Emulation station)

however when i try to run anything DOSBox from attract mode i am having keyboard problems. I have reset the keymap and made sure the correct code page is being used.
i eventually got smart and programmed they mapper to start from a hotkey combo on the controller (not the ctrl-f1 dosbox expects) i did, and re-saved the mapper file (didnt help any)

however in doing so, i did notice that there was a HUGE and inconsistent latency after keypresses which explains why sometime i could hotkey out of a game needing keyboard input and other times not. whats wierd is often the keys become "sticky" 999999999999999999999999999999999...and on and on filling a screen. i didnt hold the key THAT long. only a second or two. it only stopped if i held down another key. then it would stick too. if i could start the keymapper with a ctrl-f1 or the buttons i set on the controller and exited again. that stopped the sticky key. however i cant get to a useful prompt to type exit and a hot key out does not help,(next paragraph) reboot required.

the other big issue was when i did hotkey out, the process didnt kill. the music. i could start many instances of the same game even. gets very noisy. and also when i could hotkey out, and then exit attract mode, it went back to the game that did not close. also, it keeps the keyboard from working properly in attract mode after hotkeying out.

i have had to SSH into the RPI with my phone (no pc available) and reboot it to get back to normal again.