Guide button (XBOX 360) causes random functions in MAME 2016

Libretro Cores
#1

I think this problem started with the recent input changes. My older setup doesn’t have this problem.

I use the guide button on the controller to bring up the RetroArch menu. Which works nicely with all cores since they don’t use this button. The same applied with MAME 2016 but nowadays when i press the guide button it causes random functions that don’t make sense.

First, it brings up MAME volume options. Then it enables player 2,3 and 4. It’s like every time i’m pressing it, something odd happens. Can’t fix it though, it looks like an internal issue. Other cores don’t do that so it’s not a Windows issue, i have disabled this button on Windows.

#2

I tested more MAME cores and the guide button is messed in all of them.

It does all sorts of things as if every single button is mapped to it.

Edit: I dual boot to Windows 7 and it seems fine on the same RetroArch setup. the problem exists only in Windows 10. But i have everything that has to do with the guide button disabled. Yet, it still acts crazy in RetroArch.

#3

If the problem suddenly appeared on more than one core when RetroArch updated and the problem only occurs on some versions of Windows then it seems safe to start from the assumption that this is a RetroArch bug.

Maybe those MAME cores do something in the same way that causes the issue to be similar but the fact that it’s a RetroArch update seems central to me. :man_shrugging:

Sometimes people help troubleshoot bugs here in the forum, but if that doesn’t work out I would suggest generating a log and posting an issue in the RetroArch github issue tracker.

#4

I suspect it’s an issue with Windows’ (and/or Steam’s) handling of the guide button, if the same RetroArch installation is fine on Win7 and weird on Win10.

1 Like
#5

See, now we have a pro to help actually diagnose this :slight_smile:

I just want to protect the reputation of the poor MAME cores. They have so many of their own internal quirks.

Now that you mention changes to the OS as a possibility, these symptoms do remind me of when there was some update needed to the WiiU HID code a month or two back. Folks would press some button on their WiiU and would be launched into the mame2010 degugger or some legacy OSD code or something.

It was good for identifying some old inputs for me to disable on the libretro port but the problem turned out to be in the operating system layer.

#6

Yeah, almost definitely not the MAME cores’ fault :smiley:

For some reason, MS and Valve both think they can just monkey with the guide button whenever they feel like it, and it causes these kinds of issues whenever they do.

@GemaH do you have Steam running? If so, try closing it. I forget how to make Win10 stop hijacking it, but I know there’s a way…

#7

Thanks for the reply.

I don’t have Steam opened and i already did all the steps for Windows to stop hijacking the button some time ago because i had a different but similar problem then. And that was fixed.

I also tried reinstalling the XBOX controller driver, disable every new feature that appeared in newer Windows updates that might have something to do with the pad, etc. But the problem is still there unfortunately. Dunno where else to look so i can troubleshoot further tbh. So yeah, back to Windows 7 (yet again), just so i can have a stable emulation experience.