X HAT, Retropie, "Coin" button exits game

A hint in case someone else is getting the same problem. If you use the Picade X HAT, and upgrade Retropie to the latest 4.4.1 version, then pressing the “Coin” button kills mame (and possibly other emulators).

What happened is this: They enabled “screen recording” in 4.4.1. The default toggle button to enable/disable recording is “o”. By bad luck, this is also the “Select” button on the X HAT, which maps to “Coin” in mame.

So, when you hit the coin button the screen recording starts, and immediately crashes on the Raspberry Pi. I don’t know why this got enabled in Retropie 4.4.1 if it just crashes.

To fix this the toggle button has to be remapped to something that does not exist, such as “q”. You have to ssh into Retropie, and then edit “/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg”. Look for the line with “input_movie_record_toggle”. Uncomment it, and change the “o” to e.g. “q”.

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Thanks for the info! I’ve got that exact problem now, but even after I’ve changed the line you’ve suggested the COIN button still pulls me out of the game and into the RetroPie main menu. The command line now says input_movie_record_toggle = “q” and I’ve confirmed that’s been saved after rebooting, and the image I’m running has RetroPie 4.4.2

All the PiCade utility buttons are connected as shown for the PiCade. Would you be able to tell me how you’ve got the utility buttons setup in RetroPie (Order of Left side, right side, front left, front right) so we’re both on the same page?

I’d really like to get this sorted…

Did you remove the # at the start of the line? If not, the line remains commented and has no effect.

Also, there could be additional config files, specific to a particular emulator. The one I edited is the overall default, and I did not have a specific one. You can can do a grep -r "input_movie_record_toggle" /opt/retropie and check if more comes up.

Also, to check what’s going on you should look at /dev/shm/runcommand.log. I did use less /dev/shm/runcommand.log and then pressed Shift-F to auto-scroll to the last line. Then I pressed the “coin” button and saw the error message about the video log.

Wiring: I have the original Picade, and wired them physically according to the labels inside of the Picade. The two buttons on the left are no longer in use, so I wired them in series and connected the pair to the “power” connector. When I press both at the same time, the Picade shuts down.

Logically I set-up the controller the way I liked it. “Select” and “Start” are front left and right, which is how it’s labeled inside of the Picade.

Good luck!

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Well that’s lots for me to look at, I’m a bit new to the Pi world so I’m not sure about some of it, but it’s good to learn!

Thanks again, I’ll let you know where it all lands in the end… 😃

So I’m having this problem in ‘Arcade’ ROMS. I changed the ‘all’ retroarch.cfg - and the one that sits in the ‘/arcade’ folder - but that still has the same problem. However when I go back into ‘/arcade/retroarch.cfg’ it appears to have reset to the default mapping.

Even more bizarrely - if I rename or delete ‘/arcade/retroarch.cfg’ it gets rebuilt again - with the original configuration.

Anybody have an idea what’s going on? Anyway I can make a change stick? Any help much appreciated.

THAT WORKED !! No more recording for me unless I use the keyboard. My scores have improved immensely. And my Select button is JUST THAT Select.
Thank you so much.

To fix this the toggle button has to be remapped to something that does not exist, such as “q”. You have to ssh into Retropie, and then edit “/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg”. Look for the line with “input_movie_record_toggle”. Uncomment it, and change the “o” to e.g. “q”.

Can confirm this fix still works.

Thanks.