Bug#1034583: kodi-game-libretro: Joystick input doesn't work in games

[Hugh Cole-Baker]

Package: kodi-game-libretro
Version: 20.2.2-2
Severity: normal

Dear Maintainer,

In Kodi 20 in Debian testing, game addons don't seem to receive any input from
a USB game controller.

I have an attached USB game controller (VID 2dc8, PID 9001, 8Bitdo NES30 Pro)
which is working OK to control the user interface in Kodi to navigate menus,
etc, but when I launch a game in Kodi, the game doesn't receive any input from
the controller. The Kodi UI still seems to receive game controller input while
the game is running, for example I can press Select+Start to exit the game,
or hold Start to bring up the Kodi game settings menu, but the actual game
can't be controlled at all.

This is a regression from the previous version, since I had the same game
controller working with the libretro-based game addons in Kodi 19 on Bullseye.

I have mapped the buttons in Kodi's settings for both the default type of
controller (named "Kodi" in the UI) and the "Super Nintendo" control scheme,
and have tested and found this problem with the libretro
"kodi-game-libretro-bsnes-mercury-performance" Debian package, but also with
other libretro addons I've built locally, so I don't think it's specific to
any single libretro game addon, and the controller works fine in other Kodi
UI, so kodi-game-libretro seemed like the most appropriate package to report
the bug against.

Some things I've noticed that could be useful info:
- if I hold Start while a game is running in the BSNES emulator, and go into
  Settings->Controls, the Kodi UI shows "Super Nintendo" under the controller
  profile, and a picture of a SNES gamepad, but under the list of "Buttons"
  it says "Nothing to map". I'd sorta expect the SNES gamepad buttons to be
  listed there.
- If I turn on debug logging in Kodi, for every button press while a game is
  running, I can see 2 log messages about the button being ignored and one
  about it being handled, e.g.:
  debug <general>: BUTTON [ 11 ] on "8Bitdo NES30 Pro   8Bitdo NES30 Pro" pressed
  debug <general>: FEATURE [ start ] on game.controller.default pressed (ignored)
  debug <general>: FEATURE [ start ] on game.controller.snes pressed (ignored)
  debug <general>: FEATURE [ start ] on game.controller.default pressed (handled)
- I'm using Kodi GBM 'windowing', i.e. running it without X or Wayland.
- Other maybe-relevant package versions: kodi-peripheral-joystick 20.1.3+ds-1,
  kodi-game-libretro-bsnes-mercury-performance 094+git20220807-6

I'm happy to test patches or recompile Kodi/addons to help debugging.
Regards, Hugh

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 12.0
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: arm64 (aarch64)

Kernel: Linux 6.0.3-g54e50e1b1-sigmaris (SMP w/6 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
Kernel taint flags: TAINT_CRAP
Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=C.UTF-8 (charmap=locale: Cannot set LC_MESSAGES to default locale: No such file or directory
locale: Cannot set LC_ALL to default locale: No such file or directory
UTF-8), LANGUAGE not set
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages kodi-game-libretro depends on:
ii  kodi [kodi-api-main]  2:20.1+dfsg-1
pn  kodi-api-filesystem   <none>
pn  kodi-api-game         <none>
pn  kodi-api-general      <none>
ii  libc6                 2.36-8
ii  libgcc-s1             12.2.0-14
ii  libstdc++6            12.2.0-14
ii  libtinyxml2.6.2v5     2.6.2-6

kodi-game-libretro recommends no packages.

kodi-game-libretro suggests no packages.

-- debconf information:
perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
	LANGUAGE = (unset),
	LC_ALL = (unset),
	LC_CTYPE = "C.UTF-8",
	LC_TERMINAL = "iTerm2",
	LANG = "en_GB.UTF-8"
    are supported and installed on your system.
perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
locale: Cannot set LC_MESSAGES to default locale: No such file or directory
locale: Cannot set LC_ALL to default locale: No such file or directory