Corrupted Cartridge Fixer Release

[silop113]

since the 3ds runs the error correction function every time a cardridge is inserted, how long do you need to keep in in the console to fully complete? wanna prevent my cards to even get to a point where a tool like this is needed

 

[skawo]

It runs it only _once_ when inserted. Keeping the game in the system might not actually do anything unless data is actually accessed.

 

[silop113]

It runs it only _once_ when inserted. Keeping the game in the system might not actually do anything unless data is actually accessed.

hm, so what would you reccomend to keep the games in shape?

 

[skawo]

Run Verify using this tool or regular GodMode9.

 

[Rubbish1285]

M

 

[skawo]

Depending on the level of corruption, it can indeed take a very long time to get anywhere.

 

[Rubbish1285]

Depending on the level of corruption, it can indeed take a very long time to get anywhere.

Yeah it's been 3 hours and it's at 15%. Is there any way I could auto press the Y button? It stays on a block forever, unless I skip it. Thanks

 

[skawo]

Well, er, not in the current version. You could put something on the button I guess?
Thing is, auto-skipping blocks isn't gonna get you very far :c

 

[Rubbish1285]

Well, er, not in the current version. You could put something on the button I guess?
Thing is, auto-skipping blocks isn't gonna get you very far :c

Well, if I leave it to do it's work, it sometimes gets stuck on ONE picky block that doesn't wanna get fixed, and it gets stuck on that one for hours if left unsupervised, causing this to take longer. Anyway, my progress is 82% with ~20000000 refreshes after ~27 hours.

I have a idea for how auto skip would work: A option that lets you Auto Skip finicky blocks after a set amount of minutes (5 is preferred). You could enable or disable the option. The 5 minute timer would start after 500 failed attempts were made trying to fix that block. It would help for people who leave this running by itself, because it will not be roadblocked.

 

[silop113]

Run Verify using this tool or regular GodMode9.

sorry, to make sure you mean the NCSD image options -> verify file?

 

[skawo]

Yep.

 

[Rubbish1285]

Sadly my Kirby Planet Robobot cartridge didn't get fixed, but I did see some improvements. The 3D icon in the home menu now shows up! But the system still says "Game cartridge cannot be read". I built a .cia file of the game, and instead of insta crashing like it used to, it loads up the menu! But that is short lived because it crashes when you boot up any game/mode. My game was super corrupted, but now it's just corrupted. This is a great tool and it works pretty well. (First attempt: 20 million refreshes, Second attempt: ??? refreshes. It got stuck on a lot of blocks)

 

[linuxares]

Sadly my Kirby Planet Robobot cartridge didn't get fixed, but I did see some improvements. The 3D icon in the home menu now shows up! But the system still says "Game cartridge cannot be read". I built a .cia file of the game, and instead of insta crashing like it used to, it loads up the menu! But that is short lived because it crashes when you boot up any game/mode. My game was super corrupted, but now it's just corrupted. This is a great tool and it works pretty well. (First attempt: 20 million refreshes, Second attempt: ??? refreshes. It got stuck on a lot of blocks)

Do you have Isopropyl alcohol? Maybe use it on the contacts of the game and maybe use a light abrasive like Magic Eraser?

 

[Rubbish1285]

Do you have Isopropyl alcohol? Maybe use it on the contacts of the game and maybe use a light abrasive like Magic Eraser?

I did try alcohol (91%) a few times, but I could try magic eraser. I don't think it'll do anything, bc the game is super corrupted. This is a problem to games like Pokemon Omega Ruby where the internals of the cartridge had failed, causing the game unplayable.

 

[linuxares]

I did try alcohol (91%) a few times, but I could try magic eraser. I don't think it'll do anything, bc the game is super corrupted. This is a problem to games like Pokemon Omega Ruby where the internals of the cartridge had failed, causing the game unplayable.

aww shame, oh well.

 

[skawo]

Sadly my Kirby Planet Robobot cartridge didn't get fixed, but I did see some improvements. The 3D icon in the home menu now shows up! But the system still says "Game cartridge cannot be read". I built a .cia file of the game, and instead of insta crashing like it used to, it loads up the menu! But that is short lived because it crashes when you boot up any game/mode. My game was super corrupted, but now it's just corrupted. This is a great tool and it works pretty well. (First attempt: 20 million refreshes, Second attempt: ??? refreshes. It got stuck on a lot of blocks)

This is where you would run it while holding Y a few times and see if the number of unfixable blocks is decreasing or not.

If not, then, yeah, it's toast.

 

[MMX64]

This utility is a godsend. My copy of Kirby Planet Robobot would either give a read error or crash on the "Nintendo 3DS" splashscreen. Now it seems to be completely functional from what I've played of it. I also have a copy of Pokemon Alpha Sapphire, which seemed to play fine, but failed verification and had some corrupt sectors.

I do have one concern though. While my Copies of Robobot and Alpha Sapphire pass verification consistently and show no unusual refresh behavior when fixing errors, the total hash of each game is unstable and do not align with their known hashes. For example, calculating SHA-1 hashes back to back for Robobot, I get one starting with C716, followed by one starting with 44D3 (neither match known good hashes from what I've seen). There seems to not be any pattern whenever I check the hashes, and I've scrubbed the card for errors countless times to no avail. While the game works fine, the inconsistent hashes seem to imply that there is still something wrong that isn't being picked up for whatever reason.

Is this expected behavior for "healed" game cards? Or should I keep digging to resolve this? I've considered using the "select" mode to force refresh every sector, but both games are far from unusable so I'm hesitant to do so.

 

[skawo]

Try calculating the hash checksum in regular Godmode9, the one in this might be borked for all I know.

If that still persists there, uh, not sure. I guess you could try to dump the filesystem and compare it to a good one?

 

[MMX64]

I tried the hash feature from a vanilla gm9 install and it's still giving the same result, so that doesn't seem to be the issue.

I then dumped my copy of KPR twice and then used a CLI utility to compare both to each other as well as to a copy with the correct hash. The comparisons with the good copy show that all corrupt data across both dumps only occur in where these bytes are FF in the good ROM. Considering that the lead-out on untrimmed ROMs are all FFs, this seems to imply that no game data is affected, rather the blank space on the card. Knowing the game is in perfect shape is great, although it is odd how these sectors consistently dodge detection despite changing with each read. I have yet to do this with my copy of AS but im guessing it's a similar issue with bad lead-out sectors getting missed.

While it would be nice to fix these sectors and have a correct hash value, considering that no game data is being affected, I'm not going to hold my breath over it and enjoy what I've got. Maybe if there was a way to force refresh specific sections of a card this could be fixed? I'm assuming lead-out validity is checked but for all I know it isn't.

EDIT: Just checked my copy of Alpha Sapphire and it's the same thing. The NAND is corrupt, just outside of the game's filesystem.

 

[Deleted member 702243]

it could be a problem for alpha sapphire, since some of the nand past the actual game data is used for save data. if it's just corruption then it's fine, because clearing the save data or rewriting it will solve that, but if the chip is actually failing and those addresses are stuck, it could potentially cause problems later on

although, if you're able to save and reload a save without it complaining that the save file is corrupted, you might be fine