Hacking Annoyed by ez flash Omega constantly corrupting save folder - error 4

[Virtua]

I got an extra flash Omega about 3 weeks ago and at first it worked great.

But in the last week I've had the "error 4" 4 times now. I put the memory card in the PC, run chkdsk and delete the files, then make a new saves folder.

I realize the first time was because I shut it off too quickly. But I was playing baldurs gate and let my character stand still for 10 seconds, shut it off, then turned it back on after another 10-20 seconds, and error 4 appears.

I really have no idea how to avoid error 4 appearing. I was playing James bond Nightfire and shut it off in the middle of a mission I had been playing for at least 5 minutes and the saves corrupted. Save corruption just seems like a when, not if question with this device.

This issue makes the device unusable. Its a portable device and if I have to plug it into the PC 2x-3x a week to remove the corrupted files, it's useless to use at work on breaks or during travel.

Shouldn't there be some redundancy in the firmware that creates a backup saves folder and if the main folder is corrupted it gets deleted and replaced with the backup? There could be an option to backup when first starting the system.

The current design where a corrupted save folder makes all games not boot and the flashcard useless until you get it to a pc and clean up the mess it made is a bad experience.

I'm using a ds lite us model and a SanDisk 32gb card.

 

[FAST6191]

How many games are on the cart?

 

[Virtua]

How many games are on the cart?

I have a lot of them across about 8 folders. Probably no more than 100 in any folder

 

[kuwanger]

Shouldn't there be some redundancy in the firmware that creates a backup saves folder and if the main folder is corrupted it gets deleted and replaced with the backup? There could be an option to backup when first starting the system.

The problem is the corruption can be more pervasive than this. For example, I had one of my roms corrupt. I would say it's not enough to run chkdsk because there's no way to be sure chkdsk was thorough enough*. It's why I keep a mirror of my microsd card so I can reimage the whole thing if needed.

The current design where a corrupted save folder makes all games not boot and the flashcard useless until you get it to a pc and clean up the mess it made is a bad experience.

I definitely agree. IMHO, they should redesign it so that the clusters used for a save are passed to a game and design it so only those clusters can become corrupt. Then the backup save folders (you'd need at least two) would be useful to recover good saves.

* In theory it should be enough to do what you were doing: chkdsk, new save folder, copy over good files, and continue. But given a random rom was overwritten, I get the impression that either (1) it was an older firmware and a fatlib issue unrelated to an early shutdown or (2) a random shutdown can cause corruption all over the microSD (in which my idea won't work). Either way, the problem seems to compound itself like you've noticed. Using a clean reformat makes it happen less often. Also, it seems to vary by microSD card which makes me it's a contact or fatlib issue.

PS - Sorry I can't really provide useful answers. I had a lot of problems for a while on the initial firmware/kernel, but I've had zero corruption issues on my latest microSD card. Like you, the corruption just seemed to happen at random no matter what I did. :/ There's virtually no way to actually debug the issue, which is the main problem.

 

[Virtua]

The problem is the corruption can be more pervasive than this. For example, I had one of my roms corrupt. I would say it's not enough to run chkdsk because there's no way to be sure chkdsk was thorough enough*. It's why I keep a mirror of my microsd card so I can reimage the whole thing if needed.



I definitely agree. IMHO, they should redesign it so that the clusters used for a save are passed to a game and design it so only those clusters can become corrupt. Then the backup save folders (you'd need at least two) would be useful to recover good saves.

* In theory it should be enough to do what you were doing: chkdsk, new save folder, copy over good files, and continue. But given a random rom was overwritten, I get the impression that either (1) it was an older firmware and a fatlib issue unrelated to an early shutdown or (2) a random shutdown can cause corruption all over the microSD (in which my idea won't work). Either way, the problem seems to compound itself like you've noticed. Using a clean reformat makes it happen less often. Also, it seems to vary by microSD card which makes me it's a contact or fatlib issue.

PS - Sorry I can't really provide useful answers. I had a lot of problems for a while on the initial firmware/kernel, but I've had zero corruption issues on my latest microSD card. Like you, the corruption just seemed to happen at random no matter what I did. :/ There's virtually no way to actually debug the issue, which is the main problem.

Thanks, I'll try to format and restore from backup. Maybe buying a few other 8gb cards might work too.

I'm sure ez flash team is working on a firmware update to address this

 

[EZ-Flash2]

as told in the manual, once you meet an error, you have to scan and fix your microsd card. if you do not scan and fix the card. the issue will get worse over time.

 

[Steeljackrabbit]

i don't mean to grave dig this thread, but this problem has gotten really bad for me. its happened three times now and when i save i make sure i wait about a dozen seconds after the save before i power it down and it still corrupted..... i have scan-fixed this brand new 8gb microSD every time this happened and now, as i type this, I'm completely reformatting the entire card, and not just the quick format, we'll see if that helps but I'm really pretty angry as this was not a cheap device. I'd really like to see this addressed in a future update or hardware revision or something

 

[EZ-Flash2]

i don't mean to grave dig this thread, but this problem has gotten really bad for me. its happened three times now and when i save i make sure i wait about a dozen seconds after the save before i power it down and it still corrupted..... i have scan-fixed this brand new 8gb microSD every time this happened and now, as i type this, I'm completely reformatting the entire card, and not just the quick format, we'll see if that helps but I'm really pretty angry as this was not a cheap device. I'd really like to see this addressed in a future update or hardware revision or something

What is the kernel version you are using? Did you use the emulator to play GB/GBC games?

 

[Steeljackrabbit]

K:1.06 FW:7 the newest, if you are asking if i have used the GB/BGB emulator before, yes but not much and it wasnt the game i was playing each time it corrupted. the first time i was playing SNOOD for GBA and the last two times was NEED FOR SPEED UNDERGROUND for GBA. so every time its been a GBA game

 

[EZ-Flash2]

K:1.06 FW:7 the newest, if you are asking if i have used the GB/BGB emulator before, yes but not much and it wasnt the game i was playing each time it corrupted. the first time i was playing SNOOD for GBA and the last two times was NEED FOR SPEED UNDERGROUND for GBA. so every time its been a GBA game

Did you choose the exit when you want quit the emulator?

 

[Steeljackrabbit]

this is the 5th time this has happened. all of my saves, 5 times!!!!! erased!!! I haven't even been using the Gameboy or GBC emulator this time and i always wait after i save!! I'm very unsatisfied with this

 

[playstays_shun]

ive returned my ez omega to the eBay seller I bought it from as I cant stand this / dont want to always worry and have to do backups of game saves to the computer... getting an x5 mini

the extra $50 is money well spent,

game randomizer feature is cool too, and power efficiency

Krikzz makes awesome stuff. makes me glad I got x3 gb instead of Jr too

 

[NecroCombine666]

Is there a fix because I JUST bought it and luckily something told me to back it all up. Reformatting now before trying again but it's not so awesome that the first boot of a new product corrupts

 

[TapTap]

I have been using my EZ-Flash Omega for 17 months, and never had any save issue. Obviously, there is some variability in user experience. Probably several reasons, but I suspect one of them is the speed and quality of the microSD card. A higher writing speed could help with switch-off timing issues, and a better quality could help with the resilience from power loss. I think that using a recent, branded, U3-speed microSD card can make a difference. Those are quite cheap nowadays (at least in 32GB and 64GB capacity) so there is no reason to use some old crap.

The point is the internal flash controller of the SD card, which has evolved a lot since the early days of SD cards. A good recent card has a better controller, which should never corrupt its internal metadata (notably its Flash Translation Layer) in case of power loss, even when the power is cut at the worst possible time. Sure, the payload (filesystem and user data) can still get corrupted, but detection and/or journaling can mitigate the consequences.

Speaking of detection, in the Omega, does the FPGA write any checksum in the save file, along with save data? If not, doing so would be a good idea, so that corrupted data from the last game session could be detected early, during the boot of the kernel. Granted, that could interfere with the cross-device compatibility of save files, but I am sure there would be some creative ways to work around that...