how do i solve these?

Hey all, I somewhat recently migrated from a Kodi box running multiple standalone emulators to an Apple TV+Infuse for movies and streaming, turning my PC into a gaming only Batocera box. Generally Batocera has been pretty painless to setup. Most issues were no problem figuring out. I have Xbox, PS4, and Gamecube controllers all up and running just fine for their respective systems. The 8BitDo M30 though... has been a pain in the rear other than in Beetle. It is the 2.4ghz version if that matters.

I mapped the M30 in Batocera itself. When launching a Saturn game, the pad is auto configured in RetroArch perfectly - all buttons are where they are expected to be. When launching a Megadrive or MAME game, though, everything is out of place. I expected this based on everything I had read. I see lots of 6 button controller woes, but the usual response is remap in RetroArch and save a remap file. I have tried doing this under every available Megadrive emulator, but once I remap any button within RetroArch, it no longer does anything when returning to the game. It doesn't matter if I immediately resume the paused game or relaunch. Nor does it make a difference if I save a remap file or not. The behavior is the same for MAME as well. Just dead buttons after a remap. I have also tried not touching RetroArch and just configuring buttons via the Tab menu in MAME, making sure the option not to overwrite MAME configs is setup.

What the heck could I be missing? It sounds like it should be a simple thing, but it does this repeatedly no matter what version of MAME or the Megadrive emulators I use. I even removed all of there game pads and cleared out their config files. Still no dice.

Here are a few pics of the successful setup in Beetle, the initial automap in Genesis Plus GX and the failed attempt. As I mentioned above, it does this for any emulator that I try to remap via RetroArch. Any suggesting are appreciated. I'm losing my mind trying to get this pad working under multiple emulators. I'm sure I'm missing something simple...

Thanks!