Corrupted Cartridge Fixer Release

[skawo]

...ouch.

 

[klaudiusz219]

Soo
I've tried it with my corrupted Pokemon Alpha Sapphire cart, and before the game wouldn't even start.
Now it gets past the intro, but sadly crashes right before character creation (2:20 on video )

I'll try fixing it a few more times, because after each one try, the intro gets a bit further

Post automatically merged: Aug 23, 2023

I would also like to try importing save file right on cart, to see if maybe it could let me past the intro section, but I can't find any fresh save from the beginning of the game

 

[skawo]

Definitely try running it a few more times, then. Save could help it get through, but it might crash later anyway until the corruption is reversed.

 

[klaudiusz219]

After trying for hours, I’ve noticed that fixer doesnt refresh hashes for almost whole process anymore, expect for three moments:
- when refresh process hits 20%, refresh count almost instantly hit 14.000 refreshes
- in the middle theres another spike of refreshes, counter hits 28.000
- at the end section, around 91% it hits around 82.000, but like i said - the counter doesnt rise anymore in between

and after all of this, I almost got to see character creation (the intro plays about 10 sec longer)

 

[skawo]

Try running it with logging on (Hold Y when selecting the fixer) and post the log (it will be saved to gm9/out)

 

[klaudiusz219]

I can’t upload the file rn, because I don’t have SD Card reader at the moment, but it appears that fixer was unable to fix 179 blocks this time around (I’ll upload the file tommorow)

and whole fixing ended with 55.000 refreshes this time

 

[skawo]

Well, as a last resort, you can try to run it while pressing SELECT.

 

[klaudiusz219]

after a week of normal refreshes, and 10 full refreshes, game finally let me past character creation! it even runs as it should for now!!

Post automatically merged: Aug 24, 2023

Man, im so impressed with your program, like, at first my 3DS’s crashed right after clicking game icon, and now I’’m able to run the game like in the old times

 

[RetroNerdGamer]

A legitimate question here. Is it possible that some of these games need multiple refreshes from the app to fix rather than just 1 or 2?

 

[Kwyjor]

So I guess that means the rumors of Pokemon ORAS having defective solder are not true..? And that one video that fixed it by reflowing was just a coincidence of some sort? Or maybe there's just more than one thing that can go wrong with ORAS carts? How mysterious.

Is it possible that some of these games need multiple refreshes from the app to fix rather than just 1 or 2?

Did you see the last few posts in the thread..?

 

[skawo]

Or maybe there's just more than one thing that can go wrong with ORAS carts? How mysterious.

I imagine that it can be multiple things, yes. This sort of NAND degradation error seems more common, though.

 

[klaudiusz219]

Here to give an update

I’m in Lilycove City, got 6 badges, and encountered only 3 crashes so far (after 9 hours of playtime)

The crash randomly occurs when using Mega Evolution on Pokemon (however most times it works as it should)

Simple reboot fixes the issue

Even if your game seems to be completly borked, be persistent with fixing, it took me whole week of normal refreshes, and then another 10 full cartridge refreshes, and really I couldn’t be any happier with the result! Thanks skawo!

 

[skawo]

You probably should do a few more, then. Eventually it should clear all the crashes out.
Keep running it until the "Verify" fully succeeds.

 

[ghjfdtg]

It's noteworthy that there is nothing like a partial fix. Either it verifies fine and works or you will get crashes. The system will verify each asset the game is loading at runtime. When it hits the ones still corrupt it will crash. So everything but a fix is a failure. You can work around the issue if the corruption is in the RomFS by using LayeredFS replacing the corrupt files.

 

[skawo]

That's untrue. The corrupted part may be data that's unused and thus won't cause problems, or the game may have error handling such that it will continue working even if it tries to use a particular corrupted asset.

 

[ghjfdtg]

The game can't use any corrupted asset because there is a hash tree underneath that will verify the files. If the hash doesn't match it crashes.

 

[skawo]

I'm... not sure that's true. For example, Super Smash Bros. specifically doesn't crash when it encounters corrupt files, and just attempts to load the asset infinitely instead:


^ The above problem was eventually fixed with the tool, but the point is that it's possible for the game to work with corrupted files.

Also, I once got this to happen on my PJB cart:

And, besides, in the end, I feel that "cart was completely dead and now you can play 90% of the game before it crashes" is a worthwhile distinction from "oop no, the fixing completely failed" :s

 

[klaudiusz219]

8 badges, and Kyogre catched - still running just fine

Post automatically merged: Aug 27, 2023

so yeah, I do believe that skawo is right

files could be still partialy broken, but as long as game doesnt use them, they don’t cause crashes

 

[skawo]

Running the game also might be fixing stuff in the background. It keeps refreshing every 10000 reads afterall.

 

[ghjfdtg]

The game can choose to ignore the error but it will crash at some point since the system refuses to read the asset.