Controller input stops working completely while a romless game (e.g., Breakout, Pong) is loaded

[jroyvde]

Fedora Linux 38
RetroArch 1.15.0
MAME 0.256 (9b15839)

While a romless game like Breakout or Pong is loaded, for whatever reason, controller inputs stop being recognised entirely. This doesn't just apply to in-game input, but also to hotkeys and to the RetroArch menu. Keyboard input continues to work fine.

This only affects controllers connected before the content is loaded - controllers connected after the content starts will work fine. A non-working controller will also start working if it is disconnected and re-connected.

To launch a romless game in mame-libretro and reproduce this issue, you need to create an empty zip with a corresponding name (e.g., breakout.zip) and load it.

[sonninnos]

Not happening here on Windows, and smells like it possibly couldn't be a core issue..

Edit: My hunch is that these particular contents happen to do a video reinit afterwards, so it just loses focus or something. And indeed at least pong.zip triggers 3 different SET_SYSTEM_AV_INFO env calls. First at 240.72 fps, second at 60.09 fps and last 60.10 fps. Perhaps they ought to get filtered somehow so that only last one goes through..

breakout.zip only triggers once with a funky 140.30 fps. Both also have rather insane resolution widths.

Also Windows version of RA will read controller input regardless of window being active or not, but keyboard of course not.

[jroyvde]

Hi, thanks for the attention to this. Unfortunately the issue persists as of version 0.257.

It doesn't seem to be a window focusing issue either - alt-tabbing out of and back into RetroArch doesn't resolve it.

[sonninnos]

Damn. Extremely weird how it could be platform related.. I can't lose control no matter what.

[grant2258]

Im loosing controls randomly on one linux box and it not directly related to this core and it pretty random. A restart fixes it. I might just need to update my retroarch on that machine. I dont have issues on this Linux machine at all but its using a different version of RA so it might be worth a try updating your RA.