X-Arcade TANKSTICK exiting issues v 2.10

[Kman]

I'll probably piss people off now but since no one gave a damn about responding to my setup with DEL and a combo I will regard this solved and stop watching this topic.
Good luck to y'all. Peace.

[Kman]

Damn, I couldn't keep my hands off this topic.

Ok just to clarify, are you having problems exiting all emulators or just MAME?
I just upgraded to MAMEUIFX32 1.32 and found that I couldn't exit games correctly any more.
I edited my X-Arcade.cfg (in the ctrlr-folder in your mame-folder) and got it working again.....
I added the keycombos I use on my Tankstick.

I've set it up so I can use 3 ways to exit...
1.) My keyboards Esc-key
2.) Keycombo on my Tankstick: "P1 Button2" + "Start Player 1"
3.) Keycombo on my Tankstick: "P2 Button2" + "Start Player 2"

It looks like this in the .cfg-file....
<port type="UI_CANCEL">
<newseq type="standard">KEYCODE_ESC OR KEYCODE_5 KEYCODE_1 OR KEYCODE_6 KEYCODE_2</newseq>
</port>

Hope this helps.

[spacegoogie]

Hello KMAN,
It’s not just mame it happens to all of them. But I want everyone to check this out!!
I don’t know if most of you have a keyboard hooked up to your cab or not. I do. It’s a small little USB keyboard, I use it to config things and most of the time it’s out of sight. So the other night I'm stuck in NFL Blitz 2K, I can’t exit.
No matter what I do. Now that I know that that it’s not an exiting problem (the tankstick just stops responding all together) I thought what if I grab my little USB keyboard and push some buttons? I button mash the arrow keys on that little USB keyboard and MY GOD!!! the tankstick came back to life!!! All the buttons worked. I have done this every time the tankstick dies and it has worked. Its crap I have to do this but it beats telling my friends I have to restart the system. I press the arrow keys on the USB keyboard a few times and the tankstick comes back to life!! I'm so happy I found a way around having to shut the system down. And KMAN I did try your way and it did not change anything for me. Sorry I didn’t reply sooner I have had some family things going on and didn’t have much time to jump online. Also note I have tried different Ver. of mame and that doesn’t matter. But again I feel a lot now. I'm hoping if any of the admins ever read any of this that it might be something they want to look into. Why does MA seem to put the tankstick into a sleep state and why can a keyboard wake it up??? I know i'm asking for the world on a silver platter but for the love of god can someone tell me why it does this? Maybe the guy that works on MA?
Take care, hope this helps you guys!!!
Sorry I forgot to put this in, KMAN you should not have to go thru all that BS just to exit your games.
If you wanted to you should be able to pick one button to be your exit button and it should work.

[Kman]

I thought what if I grab my little USB keyboard and push some buttons? I button mash the arrow keys on that little USB keyboard and MY GOD!!! the tankstick came back to life!!! All the buttons worked. I have done this every time the tankstick dies and it has worked.

Cool, I hope this helps the developer to find a solution for this problem... I wonder if we have difrent versions of the Tankstick? Have you ever opened your TS? I might have some pictures at home of the inside of mine... Might have diffrent hardware in it.

I did try your way and it did not change anything for me. Sorry I didn’t reply sooner I have had some family things going on and didn’t have much time to jump online. Also note I have tried different Ver. of mame and that doesn’t matter. But again I feel a lot now.

That's ok. Sorry it didn't help.

I know i'm asking for the world on a silver platter but for the love of god can someone tell me why it does this? Maybe the guy that works on MA?
KMAN, you should not have to go thru all that BS just to exit your games.
If you wanted to you should be able to pick one button to be your exit button and it should work.

I totaly agree.

[Yoeddy]

I have also confirmed that pressing the arrow keys on the keyboard will bring the Tankstick back to life allowing my configured exit button to work again. Hope this leads us to a fix.

[spacegoogie]

Glad to hear its working for you guys and it's not just some freak thing for me!
Now if we can get someone to explain this to us.

[useruser]

I posted that fix (well not really fix but workaround) back in January and still no one has figured out how to fix it. I have almost given up. Anyway here is what I had posted with no response.



Re: version 2.10 beta 8 released
by useruser on Mon Jan 05, 2009 3:07 am

I have tried this new Beta version and it did not fix my exiting problem with the TankStick. I did however figure out how to get out from the Black Screen of Death and exit cleanly with the help of the keyboard.

A little background of the issue I am seeing: To troubleshoot this problem I am playing Street Fighter II (needs to be 2 players and all it takes is about 2-3 minutes of 2 player action). I would then try to exit using either the single button, multiple buttons, mixed, w and without delay. Either way I would get the Black Screen of Death and most of the time would have to reboot to get anywhere but on occasion alt+ctrl+del would get me back to Maximus Arcade but with a new problem. It would continue to cycle through the different consoles (MAME-Nintendo-Nintemdo64-Jukebox,etc.) as if the right arrow key or joystick was stuck. The good news about this Beta version is now alt+ctrl+del always gets me back to Maximus Arcade without the cycling through the different consoles....Whoohoooo!

But, the point is not to have to use the keyboard so I started playing with this a little and figured out how to exit cleanly but it still requires you use the keyboard. I will let the experts figure out whats going on and hopefully this will be helpful. If I play Street Fighter II (2 players as stated above) and want to exit all I do is press the up,down,left, and right arrow on the keyboard before I use the exit command and it works like a charm. There is no particular order in which the arrows need to be pressed just as long as each one is pressed. It's almost like it is resetting itself. I tried doing this with all types of exiting commands (single button, multiple buttons, mixed, etc.) and it worked everytime for me. Anyway, this works for me and hopefully someone can use this information to exit without having to manually press the arrow keys. If you do please share.

[Epyx]

I officially give up...1) no word from the dev to us Tankstick users 2) ads from X-arcade on the very controller giving us grief and promoted as being "compatible"!!!! 3) supporting an indi developer...never again.

Back to freeware.

[useruser]

Here is an interesting thing I found on my Arcade last night. I don't think I had my Tankstick hooked up properly. I was reading the manual again (kind of confusing manual) and realized there is a Keyboard PS/2 Input on the back of the Tankstick (Not the output cable that has PS/2 or USB option but a separate connection). I always plugged my keyboard straight into the computer. I went ahead and unplugged the keyboard from the computer and into the Input on the Tankstick, rebooted, and I havent had the exiting problem since. I'm not saying this fixed it because it has only been about 24 hrs. but I am curious how everyone else has theirs hooked up.

[spacegoogie]

How mine is hooked up.
Tankstick USB TrackBall USB. Little Logitech Keyboard USB. All go straight into the computer.
So what you’re saying to do is, try hooking the keyboard straight to the tankstick?
Keep in mind it’s only an exiting issue because the tankstick just dies.
Please let us know how it goes.
How often are you having problems?

[delusional29]

Hello all,

I just shot a quick e-mail to Mameseer about this issue. I imagine that it is a very difficult bug to squash, since everyone with Tanksticks are getting mixed results. Mameseer purchased a Tankstick himself to try to replicate the issue, so hopefully this will help with debugging.

I'll keep you all posted when he gets back to me.

Thank you for your patience.

~ DeLuSioNaL

[Epyx]

Thanks Delusional29...I over-reacted with my post...in reality the amount I paid for the registration is small and I have waited this long...I can wait longer. In the meantime I will flirt with some other FEs...I just liked this one so much because of the flexibility with computer emulators (Winvice/Winuae) and batch files (PC games)

[Kman]

A question for all you other tankstick lovers out there...
Are you running MA "in" windows or have you hidden Windows, using the guide posted in this forum, and run MA as the shell?
I'm asking because I actually had exiting issues this last week when I changed from Tiny XP to XP Pro.
I had MA as shell in Tiny and it worked witout hickups. I changed to XP Pro to get the text to speech functions of LedBlinky.. Well anyway...
After installing XP I couldn't exit games witout pressing up, down, left and right on a KB (as someone pointed out earlier on this thred).
However after I thought -"F**k it!" I'll go ahead and hide windows anyway... And -Hey Presto! The problem disappeared.
I've been playing for 20 mins now and I could exit without any issues..

I run XP Pro SP3 Swedish, with English Keyboard settings.

Good Luck.

[spacegoogie]

I have had MA shelled the hole time. XP Home SP3.