I was going to post this in /c/retropie but it seems they haven't had any activity in 8 months. So I figure here is the next most appropriate place.
I recently brought out my raspberry pi, and started taking care with it. I downloaded some new themes. I put a hell of a lot more roms into it.
One problem is, if I try to connect a controller, I can map every button except LT and RT.
At first I thought it was because I was using the 8 Bitdo Switch arcade stick (which also has the ability to connect to PC/Linux/Raspberry Pi.
I didn't understand it, but I thought "Ok. Maybe something about it being an arcade stick means I can't use those two buttons on THIS stick. Whatever. I'll just use a different controller.
So I pull out my WiiU Pro Controller......SAME EXACT ISSUE.
So now I don't know WHAT to think. I WAS going to connect it to my switch, and see if I could do a button test on that, to see if it registers the inputs for those two buttons, but now I'm not sure that's needed if it's had the same issue with two unrelated controllers with two different form factors, made by two different companies.
Is this a common issue with an easy fix, or has life once again said "FUCK YOU Lost_My_Mind!!!" ?
I've never had issues with the 8bitdo Controllers on rpi, Bluetooth or wired, but I found a thread where others solved the same problem. Looks like that particular controller isn't perfectly supported and you need to update xpad and a configuration file.
I got it working. I wasn't expecting it to be as simple as pasting 2 lines of code into a config file. Still not sure why emulationstation doesn't see them, but at least retroarch does now.
Plus I fixed my issue of emulators not saving. I am SO excited with what I'm building. Every game from my childhood on one machine. Arcade, NES, SNES, Master System, Genesis, N64, PS1, Dreamcast.
It's all here. I turn on one machine, and it's all here! 14 year old me is screaming into a pillow. 41 year old me wants to scream into a pillow, but is responsible enough to not want to wake up the neighbors.
No, seriously......I am legit screaming at what this is.
On Linux, that's usually the case. Finding the config file is the problem. I suspect that's why emulation Station isn't working. I don't know where that's installed, but I'd assume there's another configuration file for ES. It's probably in the home directory, ~. maybe ~/.emulation_station or or ~/.ES. I don't recall, but there will be a file structure similar to the RetroArch tree.
In either case, it would be very kind to post the full solution for the next person.
I'm running RetroPie on a Debian laptop and I'm able to map all the buttons of my 8BitDo Pro 2 controller; no issues at all. I was also able to connect and configure an Xbox 360 controller just fine.
You might want to try getting help on the RetroPie forums if you don't get any luck here.