I have a two-player arcade build using a Picade X USB-C HAT for player 1, and a Player X board connected via usb for player 2. I’m also using Plasma buttons for both players (I modified the plasma daemon to support running multiple daemons, see plasma/daemon/usr/bin at multi-daemon · PinkFreud/plasma · GitHub ).
Somewhere along the line, the controls and plasma backlights stopped working for the controls connected to Player X, but only at boot. It’s easily worked around by unplugging the usb cable from the Pi and plugging it back in, and restarting the plasma service for the Player X. While the workaround may be easy, it’s far from ideal!
When this issue first appeared, I realized I was using one of my first RPi4s, with an OS image that had been used for a number of projects prior to being set up as an arcade machine, so I decided to build a fresh minimal image with Raspberry Pi OS lite + Retropie. Unfortunately, this issue continues to plague my build even with the new image. It looks like something is interfering with the Player X on boot, but I can’t figure out what.
What makes this even more maddening is that the Player X’s button backlights cycle on boot when the usb ports first get power, so I know they’re working. Likewise, the controls connected to the Picade X HAT work on boot, and the plasma backlights come up without issue.