Gamepads making involuntary movements in Emulation Station

SkittleBrau79

I'm having a very odd problem suddenly where any gamepad I hook up makes random involuntary movements. Not constantly... but often when using it or when its left alone it will suddenly go left, right, up or down. I've tried 4 different gamepads and I still get the same thing. Even more strange is that I tried them on a second Pi3 and the same thing happens. These two Pis have the same image... so I'm hoping there's a setting that's causing it.

I've tried reconfiguring them from scratch but I get the same behavior. It happens in both Emulation Station and in games. Any ideas?

Pi Model or other hardware: 3
Power Supply used: 5v
RetroPie Version Used: 4.1.14
Built From: Pre made SD Image on RetroPie website
USB Devices connected: 2x iBuffalo SNES gamepad, XBOX360 gamepad, WiiU Pro Gamepad
How to replicate the problem: Leave gamepad alone in Emulation Station or in a game.

LS650

Have you tested these 4x gamepads on a PC or other device? I saw exactly this behavior with one SNES-style gamepad, and when I tried using it with a PC, I found it was the controller acting up, showing the same behavior on the Windows platform,

Not likely with 4x different controllers at the same time I know, but that's possibly something to check.

SkittleBrau79

@LS650 Yes, I checked them on my PC and had no issues. This thing has me baffled.

edmaul69

@SkittleBrau79 do a search on here for "raphnet northwest fix" this might fix your problem. I use this fix because my apple iie keyboard adapter also lists as a joystick but has no joystick function. This fix was first created by raphael when i had this issue with his 4nes4snes adapter. He was really helpful and awesome that he found an issue in linux and made a patch for it.

FlyingTomahawk

I have the same issue but only with my iBuffalo SNES pad. I read somewhere here in the forum that it can happen with those gamepads. It's like a hit or miss thing. I don't have that issue on my PC though, same controller. Neither with my other 2 arcade sticks. Only the iBuffalo one does that.
It is not a big deal for me though, normally when you play you move constantly so it doesn't affect my game play.

edmaul69

@FlyingTomahawk im pretty positive what i posted above actually fixes your problem. There was another user that fixed his issue with his ibuffalo with this fix.

FlyingTomahawk

@edmaul69

Thanks for the link. I was/am reading through it already. ;)
Yeah, let's hope it'll fix it but as I said not a biggy for me if it doesn't work.

edmaul69

@FlyingTomahawk i will do this fix for any image i create. I backup my image so i will never have to do this again, but if i had to i would. You never know what controllers you may get and have issues with that too. I like the idea of never having to worry about it. But of course that is just me. It obviously doesnt bother you. But my ocd just wont let me deal with something like that.

dankcushions

with my ibuffalo pads i "fixed" this issue by connecting them via a powered usb hub. i think for them specifically the issue is caused by electrical inteference or something like that.

FlyingTomahawk

The iBuffalos are known for this issue but the TC says he has that issue with 4 gamepads, some not iBuffalo.

Rion

@dankcushions said in Gamepads making involuntary movements in Emulation Station:

with my ibuffalo pads i "fixed" this issue by connecting them via a powered usb hub. i think for them specifically the issue is caused by electrical inteference or something like that.

Have you tried this?

/boot/config.txt

max_usb_current=1

sets the available current over USB to 1.2A (default is 600mA.

Would this solve your problem without connecting the iBuffalo controllers to a powered usb hub?

obsidianspider

I just ran the Raphnet Fix on my Genesis Pi and it appears to have fixed my iBuffalo ghost input issues. I'm going to let it sit a while longer on the EmulationStation menu to confirm, but all signs are positive.

Edit: Never mind, after a few minutes, it had a ghost input.

~~I updated /boot/config.txt as @Rion suggested. I'll report back about if the ghost input returns.~~

Edit 2: iBuffalo ghost inputs still present after the Raphnet fix and after updating the config.txt file to have up to 1.2A

Dochartaigh

I can confirm I've had this issue with no less than 6 brands of controllers. Everything from iNNext/Retrolink/Gtron/no-name from ebay/no-name from AliExpress, to good quality Hyperkin Genesis controllers and iBuffalo SNES. Don't think it's happened on my 7 wireless controllers.

It's also EXTREMELY common to get the game list scrolling up or down when switching from one system to another as well (as if a key was stuck, when you haven't even touched it). This seems to be a common complaint with RetroPie/Raspberry Pi's – when all these controllers seem to work just fine on a PC.

AlexMurphy

@Dochartaigh Yeah, I have the iBuffalo plugged in while watching YouTube on Kodi and it's giving ghost inputs there too and randomly bringing up the info and seek bar. So it's a Pi thing rather than an Emulation Station or RetroPie thing.

Rion

Well then it seams like @dankcushions solution using a powered usb hub is the way to go.

SkittleBrau79

Thanks for the replies everyone. Good to hear I'm not going crazy.

I'll try some things when I get home. I'll start by moving it to another TV to see if it's an interference issue.

SkittleBrau79

@SkittleBrau79 What has me the most confused is that this only started a few days ago. Since nothing has changed with my controllers I just assumed that a setting or maybe a package/driver installation broke things. It's not that annoying in a game but very annoying in Emulation Station.

The only other thing I changed recently was moving my Pi3 to a new case with better cooling.

RumblinBuffalo

@SkittleBrau79 said in Gamepads making involuntary movements in Emulation Station:

@SkittleBrau79 What has me the most confused is that this only started a few days ago.

I found this to be the case with me as well. I had the Pi/Retropie setup (with 2 iBuffalo gamepads) for about 4 months and never "noticed" any problem using Retropie v3.8. It seemed to coincide/start with my switch to 4.1, but from reading alot of the posts it sounds like this is far more common so maybe for me it was just coincidence. It seems that only one of my gamepads has this problem though.

Ponny

Got the same problem with ONE of my iBuffalos. Will try fix on weekend.

Xyb0t

I suddenly had ghost inputs after reinstalling my image and updating it right away. I posted inhere, but was told "your controller is bad", but the funny thing is that both of them got the twitches, and it came about all of a sudden.

These are PS3 wireless bluetooth controllers btw, so i don't think that powering any kind of USB hub will do me any good :D

I see them do it when i install stuff from the retropie config thingie (in the terminal window), where weird chars can appear, just like if i pressed the controller.