Homebrew Discussion [POLL] FAT32 vs. exFAT | issue discussion

What do you use and did you face any issues?

  • FAT32 - no issues yet

    Votes: 151 21.4%
  • FAT32 - I had issues

    Votes: 13 1.8%
  • exFAT - no issues yet

    Votes: 412 58.5%
  • exFAT - I had issues

    Votes: 128 18.2%

  • Total voters
    704

Clydefrosch

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of course nintendos implementiation does what it's supposed to do for nintendo. store screenshots and installed data.
it doesn't have all that fancy writeing and rewriting that retroarch needs. and it certainly doesn't crash as often while saving some config or savestate and whatnot.


the problem with exfat corruption is, it happens slowly, bit by bit over time.
you might not even notice the broken files for weeks if you're lucky.
it might just hit some of the smaller gameboy games you never play anyways, or savestates you never load again.
but eventually it'll hit a cfw file or an installed title and then you'll notice.

anyways, when i got a new sd card, i finally made the jump the fat32. with splitters and all that around, there was little reason not to go to the more durable file system.
 

icegold

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Was on exfat with no problems, only loading xci's.
Decided to use Retroarch so reformatted card to fat32 and had problems since. receiving an error for 2 xci files saying "could not start the software. please try again from the home menu". Funnily enough these were both >1gb and didn't need splitting to accommodate fat32, those which did need splitting work fine!

Planning to reformat the card in to fat32 and start from the very beginning with a brand new emunand. big job but i guess it should nip any corruption in the bud... Only other thing i can think is check the cluster size on the SD (which i didnt do when formatting).

formatted the card as fat 32 on a pc as switch didn't recognise Mac's msdos. then used mac to transfer any subsequent files.
 

lordelan

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Was on exfat with no problems, only loading xci's.
Decided to use Retroarch so reformatted card to fat32 and had problems since. receiving an error for 2 xci files saying "could not start the software. please try again from the home menu". Funnily enough these were both >1gb and didn't need splitting to accommodate fat32, those which did need splitting work fine!

Planning to reformat the card in to fat32 and start from the very beginning with a brand new emunand. big job but i guess it should nip any corruption in the bud... Only other thing i can think is check the cluster size on the SD (which i didnt do when formatting).

formatted the card as fat 32 on a pc as switch didn't recognise Mac's msdos. then used mac to transfer any subsequent files.
Clustersize 32 k hopely?
 

icegold

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Clustersize 32 k hopely?

yes it was 32k. Have reformatted the card now and starting a fresh emunand (currently dumping) so hopefully it will be ok if I start from the very beginning...
Retroarch crashed a couple of times + I probably didn't close it properly. Also may have removed sd without ejecting properly or ensuring console was completely powered off.
Also considered there could have been some corruption transfering the emunand back and forth during the exfat-fat32 change.

anyway, I hope it's one of those things and all works well on this second attempt!

also read on here Emunand still works if you delete:
ful.01.bin
ful.02.bin
ful.03.bin
ful.04.bin
ful.05.bin
ful.06.bin

this would save over 25gb space on the sd so may do this as well
 

proffk

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My exfat sd card got corrupted recently. Retroarch failing to find cores folder. Games freezing. Not booting with sx pro. Plugged into laptop windows repaired the errors without formatting.It now works fine.
 
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Dissaor

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I use exfat with SX OS, switch games and CFW, no issues, used retroarch for PS1 games, specifically Tales of Phantasia English patched, after a play session of like 3 hours the whole retroarch thing got messed up badly
 

Elliander

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On SX OS 2.3 ; 6.0.1 FW; I had no issues using Homebrew like Checkpoint and SX Dumper (launched from Homebrew menu) - that is, until I installed Retroarch, which was launched via NSP install.

Retroarch worked for about a day, and I was able to load PSX games and games for older consoles like the SNES. I was also able to download thumbnails directly to the microSD card, and it worked overall. Certain PSX games would never add to collections even after converting from ISO to BIN/CUE (which I thought was a weird prerequisite), I had games that they didn't have thumbnails for (I have cover images, but no idea how to manually add them), and after installing gameboy thumbnails Retroarch would crash trying to load those thumbnails. More seriously, I never could figure out how to configure memory cards for it (Retroarch never saw saves for any console placed in the save directory, and saving to a memcard could be loaded from only until Retroarch was restarted) and while save states worked, pressing plus and minus at the same time to go back to the menu tended to cause crashes right after saving the state. I took screenshots of the way it crashed in case anyone is curious, but basically I could see both the game and the menus bleeding through each other with both going really slow.

Anyway, after dealing with that I went and bought Smash Bros Ultimate and then started dumping the backup. The game dumped successfully, but then it wouldn't load because the file was corrupted. I then dumped it again, overwriting the previous backup, and this time it took ran at a fraction of the normal dumping speed and in the end that didn't work either. I took the microSD card to my PC, and the only file that was corrupt was Smash Bros Ultimate, but I couldn't delete it because of the way it corrupted, so I copied every file off the microSD card except for Smash Bros Ultimate (which couldn't be copied either) and did a full reformat to exFAT and then copied all the files back, except for the Retroarch files.

After doing that, I was able to dump a game no problem at full speed and it worked right away.

So basically, the bugs in Retroarch on SXOS 2.3 led to SX Dumper creating corrupt dumps because the partition on the microSD card was starting to go bad. I'll have to keep Retroarch off my Switch for the time being.

It seems to me that the simplest solution would be to use a dual partition system: FAT32 for retroarch on the same microSD card and/or hard drive. The question then becomes, can a Switch mount both partitions?
 

m4xw

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On SX OS 2.3 ; 6.0.1 FW; I had no issues using Homebrew like Checkpoint and SX Dumper (launched from Homebrew menu) - that is, until I installed Retroarch, which was launched via NSP install.

Retroarch worked for about a day, and I was able to load PSX games and games for older consoles like the SNES. I was also able to download thumbnails directly to the microSD card, and it worked overall. Certain PSX games would never add to collections even after converting from ISO to BIN/CUE (which I thought was a weird prerequisite), I had games that they didn't have thumbnails for (I have cover images, but no idea how to manually add them), and after installing gameboy thumbnails Retroarch would crash trying to load those thumbnails. More seriously, I never could figure out how to configure memory cards for it (Retroarch never saw saves for any console placed in the save directory, and saving to a memcard could be loaded from only until Retroarch was restarted) and while save states worked, pressing plus and minus at the same time to go back to the menu tended to cause crashes right after saving the state. I took screenshots of the way it crashed in case anyone is curious, but basically I could see both the game and the menus bleeding through each other with both going really slow.

Anyway, after dealing with that I went and bought Smash Bros Ultimate and then started dumping the backup. The game dumped successfully, but then it wouldn't load because the file was corrupted. I then dumped it again, overwriting the previous backup, and this time it took ran at a fraction of the normal dumping speed and in the end that didn't work either. I took the microSD card to my PC, and the only file that was corrupt was Smash Bros Ultimate, but I couldn't delete it because of the way it corrupted, so I copied every file off the microSD card except for Smash Bros Ultimate (which couldn't be copied either) and did a full reformat to exFAT and then copied all the files back, except for the Retroarch files.

After doing that, I was able to dump a game no problem at full speed and it worked right away.

So basically, the bugs in Retroarch on SXOS 2.3 led to SX Dumper creating corrupt dumps because the partition on the microSD card was starting to go bad. I'll have to keep Retroarch off my Switch for the time being.

It seems to me that the simplest solution would be to use a dual partition system: FAT32 for retroarch on the same microSD card and/or hard drive. The question then becomes, can a Switch mount both partitions?
If you think its a bug in RetroArch then you will be in for a ride.


So basically, the bugs in Retroarch on SXOS 2.3 led to SX Dumper creating corrupt dumps because the partition on the microSD card was starting to go bad. I'll have to keep Retroarch off my Switch for the time being.
Are u kidding me?
 

Elliander

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If you think its a bug in RetroArch then you will be in for a ride.

lol. what, you think retroarch isn't bugged? It crashed on loading thumbnails, it crashed on loading the menu, it couldn't recognize all my files, it couldn't handle the saves I had, etc. Obviously it needs work, and repeated crashes are a good way to cause file corruption regardless of anything else.

In any case, the point of writing out specific details is for those attempting to find solutions.
 

m4xw

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lol. what, you think retroarch isn't bugged? It crashed on loading thumbnails, it crashed on loading the menu, it couldn't recognize all my files, it couldn't handle the saves I had, etc. Obviously it needs work, and repeated crashes are a good way to cause file corruption regardless of anything else.

In any case, the point of writing out specific details is for those attempting to find solutions.
Maybe you should do some research, because all your Issues are caused by exFAT to begin with.
I am the main dev of the Switch port, let me reassure you these Issues ARE caused by exFAT and it affects EVERY homebrew INCLUDING your SX shit.
 
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brickmii82

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I've had no issues with Retroarch or exFAT. Using Rei and playing daily. Although I only have 16 bit system cores and under. Retro is my thing :gba:
 

m4xw

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I've had no issues with Retroarch or exFAT. Using Rei and playing daily. Although I only have 16 bit system cores and under. Retro is my thing :gba:
It will work until it stops working.
The least I can advice you is to regulary backup your saves or switch to FAT32 already
 
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Beware

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lol. what, you think retroarch isn't bugged? It crashed on loading thumbnails, it crashed on loading the menu, it couldn't recognize all my files, it couldn't handle the saves I had, etc. Obviously it needs work, and repeated crashes are a good way to cause file corruption regardless of anything else.

In any case, the point of writing out specific details is for those attempting to find solutions.

The solution is and always has been the topic of discussion in this thread: Switch to fat32 already. These are known issues and no amount of ignorant confirmation bias is going to change that
 
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brickmii82

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It will work until it stops working.
The least I can advice you is to regulary backup your saves or switch to FAT32 already
Nah I live life on the edge. #rebel :gun:


Tbh Im just lazy and I have my whole SD backed up to Google Drive so worst case scenario I'm formatting and downloading the files again. But its been like 3 months or so and literally no issues with anything. Choi, Hekate, Retroarch, Kezplez ... nothing has caused me any issues at all. If I did switch it'd be when I upgraded the SD, but the effort just isn't worth it to me.
 

VashTS

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i was on exfat for a while, mainly used sx os XCI loading but some emulators and homebrew. minor corruption here and there. then overclocking in retroarch came along. it basically destroyed my file system. went to fat32 and no issues so far.

whatever retroarch did, which is prob not a true bug, more of a feature that just doesn;t play well with exfat, it corrupted my custom home menu theme.
 

lordelan

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On SX OS 2.3 ; 6.0.1 FW; I had no issues using Homebrew like Checkpoint and SX Dumper (launched from Homebrew menu) - that is, until I installed Retroarch, which was launched via NSP install.

Retroarch worked for about a day, and I was able to load PSX games and games for older consoles like the SNES. I was also able to download thumbnails directly to the microSD card, and it worked overall. Certain PSX games would never add to collections even after converting from ISO to BIN/CUE (which I thought was a weird prerequisite), I had games that they didn't have thumbnails for (I have cover images, but no idea how to manually add them), and after installing gameboy thumbnails Retroarch would crash trying to load those thumbnails. More seriously, I never could figure out how to configure memory cards for it (Retroarch never saw saves for any console placed in the save directory, and saving to a memcard could be loaded from only until Retroarch was restarted) and while save states worked, pressing plus and minus at the same time to go back to the menu tended to cause crashes right after saving the state. I took screenshots of the way it crashed in case anyone is curious, but basically I could see both the game and the menus bleeding through each other with both going really slow.

Anyway, after dealing with that I went and bought Smash Bros Ultimate and then started dumping the backup. The game dumped successfully, but then it wouldn't load because the file was corrupted. I then dumped it again, overwriting the previous backup, and this time it took ran at a fraction of the normal dumping speed and in the end that didn't work either. I took the microSD card to my PC, and the only file that was corrupt was Smash Bros Ultimate, but I couldn't delete it because of the way it corrupted, so I copied every file off the microSD card except for Smash Bros Ultimate (which couldn't be copied either) and did a full reformat to exFAT and then copied all the files back, except for the Retroarch files.

After doing that, I was able to dump a game no problem at full speed and it worked right away.

So basically, the bugs in Retroarch on SXOS 2.3 led to SX Dumper creating corrupt dumps because the partition on the microSD card was starting to go bad. I'll have to keep Retroarch off my Switch for the time being.

It seems to me that the simplest solution would be to use a dual partition system: FAT32 for retroarch on the same microSD card and/or hard drive. The question then becomes, can a Switch mount both partitions?
Using exFAT and SX OS are two mistakes at the same time.
I can't pull you away from SX OS if you're so happy with it but since you pulled every file from your SD and reformatted it, why in the world would you go for exFAT again? That was the chance of your life.
Format it to FAT32 for f*cks sake. There's no downside to FAT32 any longer but enough for exFAT.
That's all the advice I can give you. If you don't wanna enjoy RetroArch, stay where you are.
 

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