Nah man, I have the same card as you and I can boot to the regular flashcart menu or via a forwarder on demand. Something tells me you just replaced a flashcart file with some incorrect file.
It’s not nice to accuse others of malice due to your own incompetence. I’ll see what files I’m using on my own R4i 3DS Gold Plus in a few minutes
EDIT: Proof the R4i 3DS Gold Plus retains functionality and works with forwarder setup:
https://streamable.com/cwbh3 (launch regular flashcart, then a forwarder)
How to use the forwarders on R4i 3DS Gold Plus (r4ids.cn) (my setup specifically)
Download the "3DS SD Card" file from OP
Download the "R4iDSN/R4i Gold RTS" files from OP
Extract the 3DS SD Card archive, copy these files to 3DS SD card
- create '_nds' dir on SD card
- copy 'nds-bootstrap.ini', 'nds_forwarder.ini', 'release-bootstrap.nds', and 'release-bootstrap-sdk5.nds' to this dir
Extract the R4i Gold RTS file and ALL these files to flashcart SD card (from the 'for Slot-1 microSD (R4iDSN, R4i Gold RTS - Forwarder CIAs only)' dir)
There is also a dir called 'for 3DS SD card (Forwarder CIAs only)' in the same archive, grab the 'nds_forwarder.ini' file from 'for 3DS SD card (Forwarder CIAs only)/nds' and drop it on the 3DS SD card's '_nds' dir (overwrite if prompted)
Generate forwarders (use the R4i Gold RTS option).
It works fine dude.
Thanks again for the great tools,
@Robz8
EDIT: pics of my SD cards -
3DS -
https://i.imgur.com/GpngaRO.png
Flashcart -
https://i.imgur.com/iCFaXsv.png