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    Please do not post a support request without first reading and following the advice in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

    Controller D-Pad not working in games

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    controller8bitdokeyboardinputdpad
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    • V
      Vampire337
      last edited by Vampire337

      I have Retropie installed on a Raspberry Pi 3 B. I installed a few weeks ago onto a 32GB SanDisk microSD using Unetbootin, and everything worked fine. I decided yesterday to update the system per these instructions: http://blog.petrockblock.com/2012/07/22/retropie-setup-an-initialization-script-for-retroarch-on-the-raspberry-pi/. Now, I believe I have the latest version of everything, but for some reason I've lost the ability to use the D pad in any SNES/Genesis/Playstation game. D pad works as expected in the Retropie interface. This is consistent with my SNES30 controller as well as a Playstation 1 controller plugged into a USB adapter (from Radio Shack, I got it a few years ago).

      A little searching and poking around has left me scratching my head. I've connected via SSH and tried modifying some settings in the /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg, and nothing seems to fix my issue. I've noticed that with my USB keyboard plugged into the Raspberry Pi, the arrow keys are functioning as the d pad, and while I can no longer return to the main menu from a game by using select+start, I can hit escape on the keyboard and it does the same thing. Problem is, it appears to be overriding my controller D pad with the keyboard even if the keyboard is not connected (also tried rebooting with the keyboard disconnected, which didn't accomplish anything).

      One other oddity I noticed, which may or may not shed some light on what's actually wrong: while in a game, the d pad does not work in the game. But I noticed that while I was connected via SSH and had RetroPie setup running, the D pad on the controller (plugged physically into the raspberry pi) moves the selection in the menu (in a Putty session), while only the keyboard arrow keys work to move my character in the game, although the buttons on the controller make the character jump/shoot/etc.

      Any thoughts/tips on what I need to edit or delete to get things back to where the controller just works? Thanks in advance!

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      • V
        Vampire337
        last edited by

        I found my answer at this link:
        https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/40/retroarch-joyconfig-tool/2

        Basically, the issue I was having (and couldn't figure out) was something decided to break my retroarch.cfg, and the fix was to recreate it via the RetroArch option in the menu, but it would only accomplish this after I went in via SSH and deleted the retroarch.cfg file. No clue what happened or why it wouldn't fix itself, but hopefully my experience is useful to someone else down the road.

        meleuM 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • meleuM
          meleu @Vampire337
          last edited by

          @Vampire337 please, mark your topic as solved.

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