Keyboard/Joypad randomly disconnecting.

[k1ttenface]

Hi, I have a problem i need some help with.

About a year ago i got a 1st gen pi, installed retropie and used it to play snes games with a hori arcade stick (with keyboard attatched so i could use Esc to quit the game), never had any problems. Today I dug it back out and re-imaged with the newest version of retropie, set it up with the same cables and have encountered 2 issues I didn’t have before.

1: During gameplay the controller and keyboard will initially work but at somepoint (between 5 seconds and 10 minutes into the game, i’ve played a bit longer without it disconnecting a few times) I will get a message saying that the controller has disconnected at which point neither the controller or the keyboard will register input and i can’t do anything despite the emulation continuing to run as normal and have no choice but unplug the power cable. This has happened with the hori fighting stick, a generic usb snes controller and an xbox 360 controller. I have only seen this happen in the SNES emulator [Edit: Has happened with mega drive too].

2: Not as great an issue since i’m probably better off with a different controller anyway but I can successfully map the hori fighting stick on the retroarch gui and control the menu without problems but if I start a game it only registers the buttons and not the joystick.

Any help will be appreciated.

[RawToxic]

What are the ratings of the power supply you are using? I had the same problem that you are describing and had to upgrade from a 600mAh power supply to a 1000mAh or 1A power supply. After doing so fixed my problem. The current retropie image increases the voltage by +2 and sets the overclocking to a medium setting by default, which requires more available power.

[k1ttenface]

That’s a good point actually. I can’t remember what my power supply’s power is but i think it’s weak, i got it from a phone accessory shop. Does this look more like the right thing?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/UK-Mains-Power-Supply-Micro-USB-Adapter-Cable-1A-5V-for-Raspberry-Pi-A-B-Black-/261486954608?pt=UK_MobilePhones_MobilePhoneAccessories_MobilePhoneChargers&hash=item3ce1d64870

[k1ttenface]

Actually, maybe not. Looked at my adaptor and it says that it’s 1000mAh. Could i need more than that? I’m using a different keyboard so i guess it could have higher power usage, although it’s pretty basic.

[Anonymous]

Are you having the controller issues with different emulators or just the one emulator?
Ah yes, just read your post again, try some other emulators for a bit longer and see if the issue shows up again.

If it just one emulator you should check the configuration file, alternatively do some diagnostic/calibration stuff with the joystick package that is included with raspbian (i believe)

https://packages.debian.org/sid/utils/joystick

As a note check the power usage/draw for the arcade stick as well.

What drivers are you using for the arcade stick?

[k1ttenface]

I didn’t intall any extra drivers for the arcade stick. It just worked plug and play last time and it does detect it and map buttons to it no problem.

Oddly i just managed to play somthing for an hour with no problems on snes and tried the GBA for about 5 mins with no problems. I’m gonna do some more tests with other emulators now.

[k1ttenface]

Ok, i can confirm that the problem happens with other emulators. About 5 mins into castlevania bloodlines on megadrive the framerate dropped for a few seconds then the controller disconnected and keyboard wouldn’t respond.

Another thing i thought, i have a 1st gen model B so it only has 256MB of ram, could it be that retropie is trying to use too much ram or somthing?

[Anonymous]

Which hori arcade stick are you using?

[k1ttenface]

It’s this one.

[Anonymous]

I can’t find any details on power requirements for any arcade sticks, but I don’t think it’s an issue with a 1000ma PSU. You could use an externally powered USB hub to see if it really is a power problem.

You say it worked with the previous RetroPie image, so that leads me to think that this is a driver problem. I’ll need to do a bit more digging to try and find out whats going on.

http://elinux.org/RPi_VerifiedPeripherals
This page has a lot of information on peripherals, it also includes information on the power usage between different models of the Raspberry Pi and lists all the peripherals that are known to work.

May I suggest updating your RPi:

There are two steps to upgrading. First, run sudo apt-get update in order to synchronise the database of available software packages and the versions available. Next, run sudo apt-get upgrade which will cause any packages with newer versions available to be updated.

[k1ttenface]

Thanks for the advice. I’ve just done the update. I just need to test it again.

[Abe]

I can confirm that I’m also having this issue. It’s not emulator specific at all, mine disconnects even when I’m just in the menu scraping for game content.

Unplugging and plugging the controller back in works for about another minute or so and then it disconnects again.

I’m using a RetroUSB NES and SNES Controller and they both have the issue. My power cable is a USB Micro cable I bought at a dollar store that’s just drawing power from my SmartTV’s USB port.

Is there a trace I could run that could determine the cause of this problem?

[Author]

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