Corrupted Cartridge Fixer Release
- Thread starter skawo
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Hi skawo, thank you for developing this Corrupted Cartridge Fixer software! I could have never guessed that this kind of thing was possible!
In the past few days, I have been using the software to try to repair my copy of Pokemon Omega Ruby. I bought it (complete in box) in March 2015 in a secondhand video game store. Starting in December 2018, whenever I played that cartridge, the game would boot but crash about one minute later.
Here is how the Corrupted Cartridge Fixer software went :
-First, I used the software "normally" (no Select mode). I let it run all day and all night, and it stayed at 0% the entire time. It looked as if there wasn't a single correct "chunk" on the cartridge. Sometimes, I would skip a chunk using the Y button, and other times, the software would be able to fix a chunk on its own. Eventually, I started seeing the "Chunk OK" message more and more often.
-Then, since the software was still at 0% after so many hours, I stopped it and tried again with the Select mode. It looked promising, since there were more and more correct chunks (the software once again never progressed past 0%, though)... until the 3DS crashed (= the refresh count, current hash and everything else froze). I tried starting the software again (with and without the Select mode), but the 3DS crashes almost immediately every time. As for the cartridge, it doesn't even boot anymore (I get a message saying that the cartridge cannot be played).
So, what happened? Is there any remaining hope of salvaging my Pokemon Omega Ruby cartridge?
Thank you very much.
In the past few days, I have been using the software to try to repair my copy of Pokemon Omega Ruby. I bought it (complete in box) in March 2015 in a secondhand video game store. Starting in December 2018, whenever I played that cartridge, the game would boot but crash about one minute later.
Here is how the Corrupted Cartridge Fixer software went :
-First, I used the software "normally" (no Select mode). I let it run all day and all night, and it stayed at 0% the entire time. It looked as if there wasn't a single correct "chunk" on the cartridge. Sometimes, I would skip a chunk using the Y button, and other times, the software would be able to fix a chunk on its own. Eventually, I started seeing the "Chunk OK" message more and more often.
-Then, since the software was still at 0% after so many hours, I stopped it and tried again with the Select mode. It looked promising, since there were more and more correct chunks (the software once again never progressed past 0%, though)... until the 3DS crashed (= the refresh count, current hash and everything else froze). I tried starting the software again (with and without the Select mode), but the 3DS crashes almost immediately every time. As for the cartridge, it doesn't even boot anymore (I get a message saying that the cartridge cannot be played).
So, what happened? Is there any remaining hope of salvaging my Pokemon Omega Ruby cartridge?
Thank you very much.
Well, there's no harm in letting it go again, I guess, but I think it's probably toast, unfortunately.
The Pokemon ORAS carts seem to've been manufactured with the worst batch of flash chips, as they seem to be the game most often dying.
The Pokemon ORAS carts seem to've been manufactured with the worst batch of flash chips, as they seem to be the game most often dying.
Thank you for your quick reply! As I mentioned in my previous post, the 3DS now crashes every time I run the software (when I use it on my Pokemon Omega Ruby cartridge, at least).
It's sad to hear that the cartridge is probably toast. Thank you for your help anyway.
Do you think it might have the issue Voultar showcased?
Also, I guess you should add my cartridge to the stats in the first post of this thread?
It's sad to hear that the cartridge is probably toast. Thank you for your help anyway.
Do you think it might have the issue Voultar showcased?
Also, I guess you should add my cartridge to the stats in the first post of this thread?
Thanks very much for this tool. I think we might be on the leading edge of finding out that 3ds cartridges have poor longevity. So it's good we have something that fixes (some of) them.
It didn't work out for my Alpha Sapphire unfortunately, which I had bought at release and is probably part of the same dud batch that of ORAS/Persona Q carts that others have too. The tool did seem to fix a lot on the cartridge (it took 5 hours the first run through and only 1 hr on repeat runthroughs). Running it multiple times seemed to keep decreasing the number of stuck hashes, first kept note around 4500 stuck hashes, now down to around 2500. Still a lot, and of course it's not enough to boot.
On the plus side, a friend sent me their Pokemon X which wasn't booting, and after one run through this program it boots now! Hooray. It does still have around 80 stuck hashes but I'm guessing/hoping those aren't enough to crash the game when I send it back, since I've only tested it for a few minutes/with a few battles.
To confirm: it seems that if the cartridge reads and the tool can correct some hashes, it's probably *not* a bad solder connection/hardware issue right? I had tried the reflow technique on my Alpha Sapphire a couple years ago before (I knew of) this tool, and it didn't help (but maybe I did it wrong, idk).
It didn't work out for my Alpha Sapphire unfortunately, which I had bought at release and is probably part of the same dud batch that of ORAS/Persona Q carts that others have too. The tool did seem to fix a lot on the cartridge (it took 5 hours the first run through and only 1 hr on repeat runthroughs). Running it multiple times seemed to keep decreasing the number of stuck hashes, first kept note around 4500 stuck hashes, now down to around 2500. Still a lot, and of course it's not enough to boot.
On the plus side, a friend sent me their Pokemon X which wasn't booting, and after one run through this program it boots now! Hooray. It does still have around 80 stuck hashes but I'm guessing/hoping those aren't enough to crash the game when I send it back, since I've only tested it for a few minutes/with a few battles.
To confirm: it seems that if the cartridge reads and the tool can correct some hashes, it's probably *not* a bad solder connection/hardware issue right? I had tried the reflow technique on my Alpha Sapphire a couple years ago before (I knew of) this tool, and it didn't help (but maybe I did it wrong, idk).
A crash *will* happen, guaranteed? Even if the affected bits are part of graphics/music assets?
In any event, I have kept rerunning it in hopes that it goes down. It's down to around 20 stuck hashes, but seems to be plateauing around there with subsequent reruns.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that a bad solder joint would either show up as the cart not loading at all, or showing as all bad.
A crash will happen unless those hashes are in an unused file, the game is made to handle errorneous data, or it's been corrupted in a way that's still technically valid. Example, Smash Bros - apparently the game will just not load certain assets if they're corrupted, but continue to work.
You can try running the 100 refreshes version that's been posted a few pages back. See if that gets those final hashes down.
A crash will happen unless those hashes are in an unused file, the game is made to handle errorneous data, or it's been corrupted in a way that's still technically valid. Example, Smash Bros - apparently the game will just not load certain assets if they're corrupted, but continue to work.
You can try running the 100 refreshes version that's been posted a few pages back. See if that gets those final hashes down.
Gotcha and thanks. My friend had to ship these to me, so I wanted to make sure I wasn't leaving a potential fix on the table with the reflow before I send them back.
We'll be hoping the corruption is in an unused/infrequently used part of the game, like maybe a shiny pokemon or something. I'll also grab a dump of the cartridge, maybe I can convince them to hack their 3ds and install a sd-redirection patch for the corrupted data like you mentioned earlier on in the thread. (I'd sooner have them just install a digital copy, but they value playing off the cartridge...)
I am actually running the 100 refreshes version as we speak! Here's hoping that'll work out. I'll update with whatever I landed on before sending it back.
What was said a bit ago about Pokemon Omega Ruby always dying... What does it mean they had the worst flash chips? Aren't all 3DS games the same?
I think it's hypothesized there was a production fault with the batch of cartridges (well, the onboard NAND) that were made into Pokemon ORAS/Persona Q (released around the same time). Not that they're materially different in design from other 3ds carts.
It's weird that not everyone's copy of Smash Bros seems to be dying, but it was a very popular game and they probably switched production techniques partway through. https://www.3dsdb.com/ has logged several different revisions but there is not nearly enough data to nail down the problems to one of them in particular.
(Still need to try this Fixer on my busted copy of Smash Bros one of these days. I keep hoping more information will surface, I guess.)
(Still need to try this Fixer on my busted copy of Smash Bros one of these days. I keep hoping more information will surface, I guess.)
All assets a game uses are hashed internally and if one doesn't match the game will get an error. Most games just panic triggering a crash. The Pokemon games are no exception as far as i know. Games can also choose to ignore the error and not load assets.
This hash tree is what tools like GodMode9 can and do verify. That's how we can find out if a game has corrupted data.
I see, and thanks for the explanation. Is there any way, without playing exhaustively, to see what type of data is being represented in that area? (They look to be in the same region, lowest unfixable hash was at 0x2386d000, highest at 0x2388b000; US region cartridge of Pokemon X)
I found this old thread which answered some followup questions I was going to ask about the technical side. I'll link to it here incase it helps others with the same.
But one thing not in there, in case anyone knows, Nintendo switched to NAND first with the *DS* right? If so, is there any known reason why those cartridges seem more durable than 3ds ones despite their age?
You can use Godmode9 to dump the filesystem and then binary compare it to a clean one.
After doing so you can even target the refresh fixes to a specific file on its own.
DS carts might just be more durable because they're just smaller. A single file on a 3DS cart may be as big as the entire DS cart chip. It's easier to keep that kind of amount of data coherent.
After doing so you can even target the refresh fixes to a specific file on its own.
DS carts might just be more durable because they're just smaller. A single file on a 3DS cart may be as big as the entire DS cart chip. It's easier to keep that kind of amount of data coherent.
Well I don't believe it. I ran the regular fixer one last time and after that Pokemon X just passed verification (twice). I'm not really sure what's going on, if it's actually fixed or there's an intermittent issue with that block of memory.
And thanks again skawo. I might look into some sort of patch for my own copy of Alpha Sapphire (which is much farther gone).
And thanks again skawo. I might look into some sort of patch for my own copy of Alpha Sapphire (which is much farther gone).
Just wanted to say thanks for this, fixed my basically brand-new copy of Pokemon Y that I had left in the box for years before finally getting around to playing it the other day. It was crashing every 20 minutes or so but after I ran it through this tool twice it works perfectly. Hope others find this post if they're having issues
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