@foly12
I've had similar issues, my issues that 8.0/8.0.1 has some problem allocating controllers properly, it seems to be random at times.
controller 1 in menu does not set to controller one in game. same goes for all controllers, it seems to be random.
Ive noticed if you have a keyboard plugged in, a lot of the times the keyboard gets set to player one ingame and games just wont play unless you press start on the controller that it thinks its player 1 (keyboard).
another issue is only 1 controller can use hotkeys, and sometimes with 4 players on my system this gets very frustrating.
I would suggest. go to config file through the webmanager and go right to the end, delete all "pad0/pad1/pad...." and restart the box within manager. (unplug keyboard and controllers)
if you are only playing with 1 controller,
what probably is happening is your keyboard gets set to player 1 and controller to player 2.
once recallbox starts, plug in your joystick only and see if that works (no keyboard).
I have PC version
its frustrating, and I've yet to have it acknowledged that the controller (port) mapping is completely out of wack in 8.0+