Ok I’ll give that a shot right now. the setup post on here made me think that doing both was important and that’s why I did them… Can you fill me in on the why? I’m trying to learn as much from this experience as I can. RetroPie is just one of many stops for me and my Pi.

**EDIT** I made the changes you suggested, rebooted my pi and still have the same symptoms.

I thought I read in the config file that using input_enable_hotkey = alt requires you to press alt before your gamepad hotkeys will respond. like this would make it so I would have to hit alt + select + enter? anyhow, I tested this as well and there was still no change in the symptoms.