Have been at this for hours, even created an autoconfig save and it just won’t load or doesn’t work. I’m using a Chinese Saturn-style pad and configure the buttons perfectly for the Saturn emulator using the main (not quick menu) option of input. However I can’t seem to save it accurately in the quick menu remap option or any other way! It’s a nightmare. I’ve read through the documentation and just can’t get this to work at all.
So you can get the remapping to work properly, it just won’t save when you use the ‘save core remap’?
Does it print any yellow text when you try to save? Can you get a log of an attempt?
Yup I can save. It confirms it’s saved, but opening the remap file in Notepad ++ there is very little if anything in there. I would of thought it would have to have all the binds in there - DPADUP = “whatever” etc. etc.? It loads the file too, but there is clearly not much to load!
it should have all of the controls that are overridden, yeah. 
If nothing else, you could try just adding the things you want to override manually.
Is there a clear format for this? Sometimes it has player 1 other times it doesn’t. Is there an example file as God knows why but mind clearly isn’t writing correctly. I also tried autosave controls, they are all correct in that file, it loads at bootup, but the bindings don’t change. Tried a third party usb Saturn pad and a mayflash adapter with Megadrive pads, same issue
Please can someone help. I’ve read over 30 posts and it’s an utter mess this config setup. It will save and reload, but never what I’ve put in. To make it more confusing the Quick Menu control keys which you select left and right (why!?) don’t match up with the controls. I’ve been using emulation for over 10 years and this is the most hideous mess I’ve seen. How does it work!?
You said you configured the controls through the main menu and not the “quick setup” menu. Is there a particular reason for this? Maybe start from scratch and try to not touch the main menu input configs or autoconfigs and make all the changes through the quick menu control options. AFAIK at least.
I don’t think you can save main menu input options per game/system. I had the same issue with the N64 when i was trying to make some unconventional changes that weren’t possible in the quick meny controls. Mine too, would claim it saved in the remap but no text was inside. Basically the commands are different so they won’t save.
Basically, i would not touch the main menu inputs. Just change everything through the quick menu and use “save core remap” for the system or “save game remap” for a particular game. The way you change the controls is a pain in RetroArch (cycling the buttons through a menu and not just pressing the one you want) but you can do it via trial and error and you only have to do it once per system.
I think Retroarch is generally very good, and the CRT driver has made it great, however the input stuff is hideous beyond belief and I cannot believe, looking at the several hundred threads on the topic, it hasn’t been re-worked. I ended up using a new instance of Retroarch for every emulator core in Bigbox and this works perfectly. I understand that the main input settings are one thing and then they are essentially replicated and can be configured in the quick menu. The issue, however, if when using Mayflash adapters or Saturn usb pads etcc. etc. when these are set up in the main settings menu, some of the commands are simply not available in the quick menu, for example one of my SEGA pads reads as hats for the ups and downs, another axis, so in this instance it would be impossible to use a single instance of RetroArch for multiple control methods. I’ve got what I was after and actually this works far better than what I wanted as I now use all my original pads on my CRT with Bigbox launching Retroarch, and with latency adjustments it’s superb, but the controller config is overall utterly backwards. Cheers for the responses everyone.