Retrode SNES controll port 1 malfunctioning

[Raza]

Hello!

Recently a friend and I bought two Retrodes for our silly gaming plessure and they have been working great so far. But today something really strange happend. It's about the player 1 SNES controll port. I was playing Mega Man X when all of a sudden all sorts of wierd movements started to happen. I checked all the buttons and it was the Button "B" that was messing upp pretty much everything. By pressing "B" it somehow stimulated all other buttons at random. All the other buttons worked fine.

Now after awhile, all the other buttons have stoped working and only the "B" button works, with all its wierd effects. This is the problem atm, no buttons are working and for some reason my laptop thinks the of the gamepad as a mouse (when it comes to right and left clicking atleast).

I tried to switch port of course and SNES port two for player two i guess, works just fine. So it is not the controller itself.

I have not idea what to do, I'm not good at electronics at all. If it helps I could try recording when the controller is malfunctioning, it's kinda random right now though.

And yeah, I tried the classic restart the computer/retrode.

Tried to press the reset button on the Retrode just now, the other buttons on the controller strated working again but the "B" button is still malfunctioning and causing pretty much all the other buttons to be pressed att random.

Is there anything I can do about this or do I need to send it back so you guys can check on it?



Edit: My friends Retrode is working fine right now!
Edit 2: Sometimes all the buttons except the B button stops working and sometimes start working after the effects caused by the B button. Guess I should leave it alone.

[Matthias_H]

Hi,

Sorry to hear about your trouble with the SNES port. That is certainly some really weird behaviour; I have no idea how this would even be technically possible (since all of the buttons + d-pad are transmitted over the same wire). Is it an original SNES controller or a 3rd-party accessory? Have you tried with different controllers? Have you flashed the latest firmware and tried any of the different HID modes?

[Raza]

Hi!

Yeah and it worked fine at the start and this suddnely happend, first it sems like the pause button got effected (but it could have been the loading time to the Mega Man X menu that prevented other effects at the start) when pushing B but now all of them.

I am using an original SNES controller, but this is my only controller right now, but I could ask my friend to try out his controller (we bought em from the same place).  Although I did try port two with the same controller with no problems (not for a longer time as I was afraid the same thing might happen there).

As I am totaly unfamiliar with the firmware function and editing, could you help me locate the propper proram from FLIP? The link from the site only gets me to the starting page of FLIP. I found the latest firmware (v0,17d) on the Retrode homepage and downloaded it.
I guess I can configurate HID modes with this program, it would be really nice if this could resolve this problem. Oh and the site with the "how to upgrade your firmware" is down: http://www.retrode.org/documentation/how-to-update-the-firmware/
Just so you know! =)

I would try searching around FLIP right now but I got to attend some lectures IRL. Thanks for your support!

[JonY]

The FLIP software can be found here. Download the current version for your OS - 3.4.5 for Windows, 3.2.1 for Linux.

There must have been a blip on the site as I just went to fix it and it How to... update the firmware instructions are back up!

[Raza]

Ok, I have installed the latest firmware successfully, but the CFG file refuse to let me replace its content with my backup file (as instructed on firmware updating). Is this a common problem or does not work by using .txt format to edit? Tring to find a way around this atm.

[Matthias_H]

Again, please provide information or we will have to guess Which editor are you using? You have to replace the text within the file on the Retrode using an editor, since copying/renaming/etc. files to the Retrode probably won't work. The Retrode is not a disk drive, it just pretends to be one.

[Raza]

Ah sorry. I'm opening the RETRODE.CFG in Notepad, then I remove the text and paste the one from the backup.
I guess it can't be as simple as replacing the file with the backup? But as you say, the Retrode is pretending to be a harddrive (kinda confusing to me hehe).

I checked troubleshooting and this program dd (Unix) is mentioned, could this be a good solution (never used it before though)? Or can you recommend a suitable editor?

[Matthias_H]

Is there an error message? If so, it would be helpful if you could tell us

[Raza]

Ah no, No popup error messages! I can access the file by using Notepad and then after removing and replacing the text, I save it. But after reopening the file, there is no change in text, like nothing was ever done.
I copied the file from the Retrode to my hard drive and edited the text, this worked fine, which is understandable. =)

Looking around for a CFG editor that I might understand atm.

Edit: Downloaded "Cubepad", might work...

Edit 2: Nope, Cubepad can't edit it, only open and "fake save it", as with Notepad.

[Matthias_H]

1. You still haven't told us your operating system.

2. Did you make any changes to the config at all prior to updating the firmware? If not, there won't be any need to copy it back.

[Raza]

My OS is Windows Vista Home premium 32-bit.

Nope, I never tried to open that file before doing this update. This is the files content right now:

; Retrode .17d - Config
; Remove any line to revert setting to factory default

[HIDMode] 1 ; 0: Off; 1: 4Joy+Mouse; 2: 2Joy; 3: KB; 4: iCade

; Hex codes for KB mode (in this order):
; SNES gamepad: B Y SEL STA ^ v < > A X L R
; In NES mode:  A B SEL STA ^ v < > x x x x
; SEGA gamepad: B A MOD STA ^ v < > C Y X Z
; See usb.org/developers/devclass_docs/Hut1_11.pdf (pp.53ff)
[kbL] 06 1b 28 2c 52 51 50 4f 09 07 04 16
[kbR] 10 11 05 19 33 37 36 38 0e 0d 0a 0b
[nesMode] 0          ; 1: NES gamepads; 0: SNES

[filenameChksum] 1   ; checksum in filename? 0,1
[detectionDelay] 5   ; how long to wait after cart insertion/removal
[sramReadonly] 1     ; write protect SRAM?
[segaSram16bit] 1    ; use 16bit words for SRAM?
[sramExt] srm
[snesRomExt] sfc
[segaRomExt] bin
; Override autodetect:
[forceSystem] auto
[forceSize] 0
[forceMapper] 0
; Optional plug-ins:
[atariRomExt] a26
[tg16RomExt] huc
[vbRomExt] vbr
[n64RomExt] n64
[gbRomExt] gb
[gbaRomExt] gba

And before it was:

; Retrode Config
; Remove any line to return to factory default

[enumerateHID] 1     ; set to 1 to activate game controller support
[nesMode] 0          ; 1: NES gamepads; 0: SNES

[filenameChksum] 1   ; checksum in filename? 0,1
[detectionDelay] 5   ; how long to wait after cart insertion/removal
[sramReadonly] 1     ; write protect SRAM?
[sramExt] srm
[snesRomExt] sfc
[segaRomExt] bin
; Override autodetect:
[forceSystem] auto
[forceSize] 0
[forceMapper] 0
; Optional plug-ins:
[atariRomExt] a26
[tg16RomExt] huc
[vbRomExt] vbr
[n64RomExt] n64
[gbRomExt] gb
[gbaRomExt] gba

Maybe it's all ok and I do not need to do anything about it, should have posted this sooner I guess. =S

[Matthias_H]

No, if you have never changed the config before, you don't need to copy it back. Good point actually; I removed the config-copying part in the instructions in order to avoid future confusion.

[Raza]

Right, so now the firmware should be updated. =)

I tested the buttons and the B button on the SNES controller is still causing the same problems... I'm going to record it to show you how it looks.

[MasterOfPuppets]

Interestingly I've made changes to the config, updated and the changes are still there...

[Raza]

Ok! I recorded my screen while testing the controller with port one and two on the Retrode with the same controller used. Dunno if it helps but atleast it shows something.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA8fkcixqy4