Mame (CDi) wont keep my controller bindings, resets on startup now?

So i set up cdi some time ago. Went through the trouble of getting controls working in such a way that I can navigate the cdi menu, and play.

I returned to it today and found I was unable to control anything. I checked the cfg files and for some unbeknownst reason they were blanked out. I couldnt remember how the heck I had set everything up, but more importantly I couldnt get into the cdi menu settings to fix it anyhow.

Fortunately I had backed this stuff up elsewhere, so I pulled my config files over - restarted the core - and to my surprise, still had no controls.

When I looked at the cfg files this time, they werent blanked out, but modified by the core. It does this upon loading content no matter what I do.

this is the default.cfg how its supposed to be 1

this is the default.cfg how it ends up after starting a game 2

this is the cdimono1.cfg how its supposed to be 3

this is the cdimono1.cfg how it ends up after starting a game 4

it seems like its simply no longer recognizing the controller properly. I’m unsure if this is a mame issue or a RA issue

fixed it. evidently the controls went from being JOYCODE_1_BUTTON11 to JOYCODE_1_HAT1DOWN for example.

no idea if this was a change on RA or mamecores end but that explains that.