Ive received my Ezflash 4 yesterday and I am facing the same issue with Mother 3 as well. Game is stuck after gameboy player logo. Seems like a bad batch to me. Kinda bumped out .
Hacking EZ-Flash IV Mother 3 hangs after "Game boy player" logo - NOR damaged?
- Thread starter oneWonders
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Thanks for your input Hanoirocks. Yeah, it's just as I thought, it's a dodgy batch/revision. I'm not sure whether a firmware update could fix this or whether it's just a bad batch of NOR chips. If it's the latter, then there's a whole load of these going to be bin jobs.
Last edited by Gyron_Oldvic,
Ok an update.
I contacted the seller and they said that the supplier are taking longer to ship the latest batch and when they get it they'll let me know. I'll then return mine and try one of those.
Sunder - I didn't order from that seller, but one from the UK
In more interesting news, I posted on the main official ez flash iv product page about it: http://www.ezflash.cn/product/ez-flash-iv/#comment-3307617021
(If links to that site are not allowed for some reason let me know and i'll remove it).
They claim that it works for them on revision 0217 with Chinese fan translation.
I tried it myself on my 0217 revision (you can too if you like, unpatched checksum is 480c0866ff500609db2a37897cda7bb8 and save patched 5552815787e5983af6b40253e34e9d55 ) and it had exactly the same problem / crash.
Assuming they were telling the truth, I would guess that this makes it more likely to be a NOR issue rather than the revision change causing the problem. What do you think?
Edit-
Gyron, which forums did you mean? https://ezflash.sosuke.com/ ?
Seems pretty dead to me but registration seems to work.
Perhaps you gave it an email address that you had already used to register somewhere else or maybe it is in your spam folder.
Weird how their HTTPS certificate isn't valid.
Anyway, feel free to post about this stuff there if you want to.
The more publicity they get about this the more they might actually try and solve it (or stop putting out bad NOR chips).
I contacted the seller and they said that the supplier are taking longer to ship the latest batch and when they get it they'll let me know. I'll then return mine and try one of those.
Sunder - I didn't order from that seller, but one from the UK
In more interesting news, I posted on the main official ez flash iv product page about it: http://www.ezflash.cn/product/ez-flash-iv/#comment-3307617021
(If links to that site are not allowed for some reason let me know and i'll remove it).
They claim that it works for them on revision 0217 with Chinese fan translation.
I tried it myself on my 0217 revision (you can too if you like, unpatched checksum is 480c0866ff500609db2a37897cda7bb8 and save patched 5552815787e5983af6b40253e34e9d55 ) and it had exactly the same problem / crash.
Assuming they were telling the truth, I would guess that this makes it more likely to be a NOR issue rather than the revision change causing the problem. What do you think?
Edit-
Gyron, which forums did you mean? https://ezflash.sosuke.com/ ?
Seems pretty dead to me but registration seems to work.
Perhaps you gave it an email address that you had already used to register somewhere else or maybe it is in your spam folder.
Weird how their HTTPS certificate isn't valid.
Anyway, feel free to post about this stuff there if you want to.
The more publicity they get about this the more they might actually try and solve it (or stop putting out bad NOR chips).
Last edited by oneWonders,
The guy I know got his from a UK Reseller on Ebay. I personally don't believe it is any Reseller's fault regarding this particular issue (a seller of a single unit might knowingly sell you a dud, but a Reseller probably wouldn't want the agro). No, I'm pretty sure the blame here lies entirely at the door of the EZ-Flash group due to some serious lack of quality control.
So it's looking like the NOR chips then rather than the revision, although we can associate these dodgy NOR's with at least a certain batch of the '0217's'. Would be nice if someone with an '0217' could confirm they have Mother 3 working. So far (apart from the EZ employee) we've only seen failures. There's likely thousands of this batch on the market/been sold, and if the issue wasn't so obscure we'd probably see more posts on here regarding it. It all seems to depend on whether the buyer decides to play Mother 3 or not. I think Mother 3 uses every byte of 32MB which could be something to do with it, although it could just be that other 32MB games crash somewhere else. I'll have a look at some other games from the 32MB library, see if I can get any more to fail. FAST6191 posted a list of them here a few years ago:
https://gbatemp.net/threads/buying-a-gba-flash-cart-in-2013.341203/page-18#post-4756995
There is one thing for sure, their Quality Control Department needs overhauling (if it exists). The first batch of the EZ-IV Micro SD versions were technically sound, but if you needed to change the battery it was easy knock the SMD Tantalum Capacitor off the PCB if you weren't careful when sliding open/shut the casing (destroying the ability to save, at least until you soldered it back on the board). They fixed this in subsequent versions with a revised casing with a little notch cut out, hence avoiding contact with the component when sliding it open or shut. Then came the versions (two that I know of) where it was easy to accidentally wipe the firmware if you pressed 'R' on boot regardless of whether the "ezfla_up.bin" update file is on the microSD or not. This pretty much rendered a soft-reset combo which included the 'R' button as useless, as it wiped part of the kernel every time you did a reset. This mean't owners of these revisions likely having to leave a copy of the firmware on the root of the Micro SD just in case they accidentally caught 'R' on boot. Plus, if you already had a reset-patched game collection, it would also mean re-patching the entire collection not to use 'R' for the reset combo. Basically, a real pain in the arse. These revisions were the reason I compiled a different 'patch.bin' for Kuwanger's sleep/reset prog, so you could use 'L+Start+A+B' for soft-reset. This issue is fixed in the '0217' revision, but a new problem has materialized, as we know.
Admittedly, apart from this faulty NOR problem, the other issues on previous revisions are just inconveniences, but it doesn't exactly instill you with confidence. As a general rule, subsequent product revisions tend to improve, not regress. Makes you wonder if they're cutting corners or sourcing cheaper components from batch to batch.
The guy I know who owns this '0217' says he's not too bothered about the NOR, but I've told him to contact the Seller anyway. If a Reseller gets enough disputes/returns about the same issue, they would no doubt raise it with the supplier.
OT: Yeah, their forum. I can't get in on my old login, and any attempt to re-register just results in no activation email. Checked the spam folder too. Pretty strange. I might try from a different IP.
Last edited by Gyron_Oldvic,
I got mine for this seller too. Feedback the issue to him and he said that a couple of guys reported the same issues with NOR/Mother 3 as well. Hopefully to get a replacement or a refund.
I got the same issue, UK.... talk to supplier he said fix is on way , chinese works apparantly...
480c0866ff500609db2a37897cda7bb8 2377_Mother_3(C)1.0(ManyoTeam+AirTeam).gba
Those with problem can you try this?
Also I'm thinking if the Chinese does work we can vbindiff the differences across from chinese to eng/jap... of course I'm a n00b in gba hacking and would require some assistance to exactly where the boot sectors are for the game logo screen crash..
Thanks , reply via email [email protected] for a rapid response in this matter.
480c0866ff500609db2a37897cda7bb8 2377_Mother_3(C)1.0(ManyoTeam+AirTeam).gba
Those with problem can you try this?
Also I'm thinking if the Chinese does work we can vbindiff the differences across from chinese to eng/jap... of course I'm a n00b in gba hacking and would require some assistance to exactly where the boot sectors are for the game logo screen crash..
Thanks , reply via email [email protected] for a rapid response in this matter.
The Chinese versions is merely a fantranslation romhack of the Japanese version and it also doesn't work, at least for me.
In fact, the post you replied to on the EZ Flash IV page and starman forums were both mine.
The manufacturer 'claims' the Chinese version works but it doesn't for me.
If they are telling the truth then it means loads of people's NOR memory is fucked.
If they are lying to save face then perhaps it could be fixed with new firmware.
I would be happier if it was that they were lying to be honest as at least that is something that could be fixed and it isn't the hardware that is faulty. But then it would be better for them publicly to be honest and say it doesn't work for them too.
If it is a load of cheap faulty NOR chips then that is rather worrying.
Out of interest, can you pm me which ebay seller you bought it from? I don't want to advertise sellers because strictly speaking I am not sure if ebay allow the sale of flashcarts and i don't want to cause an issue. I wonder if it is the same as who i purchased from.
If people want to get to the bottom of this then they best thing is to contact the manufacturer themselves - you can just post through discuss to make it show on their own page.
If you want to test the Chinese rom hack fan translation yourselves, then check earthbound central, 10th of march 2010. I won't link to it because for some strange reason it doesn't seem to be available as a patch but a prepatched rom.
--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------
Just thinking, it would be useful if there was a gba rom programmed that you could write to NOR and then running it would perform a test of your NOR memory, in that it knows what contents should have been "written" and checks all of the NOR memory to see if it is correct.
Unfortunately, I don't know anything about programming the GBA nor anyone who does.
But it would certainly be useful in diagnosing these kinds of issues.
In fact, the post you replied to on the EZ Flash IV page and starman forums were both mine.
The manufacturer 'claims' the Chinese version works but it doesn't for me.
If they are telling the truth then it means loads of people's NOR memory is fucked.
If they are lying to save face then perhaps it could be fixed with new firmware.
I would be happier if it was that they were lying to be honest as at least that is something that could be fixed and it isn't the hardware that is faulty. But then it would be better for them publicly to be honest and say it doesn't work for them too.
If it is a load of cheap faulty NOR chips then that is rather worrying.
Out of interest, can you pm me which ebay seller you bought it from? I don't want to advertise sellers because strictly speaking I am not sure if ebay allow the sale of flashcarts and i don't want to cause an issue. I wonder if it is the same as who i purchased from.
If people want to get to the bottom of this then they best thing is to contact the manufacturer themselves - you can just post through discuss to make it show on their own page.
If you want to test the Chinese rom hack fan translation yourselves, then check earthbound central, 10th of march 2010. I won't link to it because for some strange reason it doesn't seem to be available as a patch but a prepatched rom.
--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------
Just thinking, it would be useful if there was a gba rom programmed that you could write to NOR and then running it would perform a test of your NOR memory, in that it knows what contents should have been "written" and checks all of the NOR memory to see if it is correct.
Unfortunately, I don't know anything about programming the GBA nor anyone who does.
But it would certainly be useful in diagnosing these kinds of issues.
Even thought they haven't admitted to it publicly when it's been mentioned on their product page, they are aware of the Mother 3 problem and are working on a new kernel to remedy it.
I have a black MicroSD version, running Gyron's 1.77 Bluenight Skin and Mother 3 Translation works perfectly. I patched it using that alternative EZFlash client, ez-gba if i'm not mistaken. I don't have my GBA with me atm, but I will check my mobo revision as soon as I get home.
Gyron, are you saying that the Chinese fan translation rom hack definitely doesn't work for them either, and that it is definitely a firmware issue? Where did you hear this? 
I just tested with the 2.00 fw with both prepatched and unpatched roms (as that fw apparently allows you to use unpatched roms) and it still doesn't work - exactly the same issue for me there.
The more people that test and contact ez flash and complain the better though.
Thanks!
I just tested with the 2.00 fw with both prepatched and unpatched roms (as that fw apparently allows you to use unpatched roms) and it still doesn't work - exactly the same issue for me there.
The more people that test and contact ez flash and complain the better though.
Thanks!
A re-seller has been in contact with them regarding the Mother 3 issue (presumingly due to complaints/returns). I've read the correspondence from an EZ software guy to the re-seller. The english is a little muddling and they still claim the Chinese translation works, but appear to accept there is a problem and say they will fix it with a new kernel release. I was hopeful it would be fixed with the v2.00 release, but it appears not. Thanks for the report. Someone from the EZ team posted in the "EZ Flash IV 2.0 Kernel Release - No more patching" thread last night. You might want to bring it to his attention.Gyron, are you saying that the Chinese fan translation rom hack definitely doesn't work for them either, and that it is definitely a firmware issue? Where did you hear this?
I just tested with the 2.00 fw with both prepatched and unpatched roms (as that fw apparently allows you to use unpatched roms) and it still doesn't work - exactly the same issue for me there.
The more people that test and contact ez flash and complain the better though.
Thanks!
It's not a clone, it's an EZ IV. 'EXSEK' just put their own sticker on it and charged more $$$.
Unfortunately you have bought one from the faulty NOR batch. This can't be fixed via a kernel update. The EZ Team have since released a new batch on which Mother 3 works again. The unfortunate thing is, this batch is still labelled "0217", so it's hard to tell what you're going to get, unless you get the seller to check Mother 3 for you. You should return it to the seller if Mother 3 is a game you plan on playing. If you want to PM me, I'll link you to where you can get a guaranteed latest batch that Mother 3 works on. I can't link here as we have a sponsor.
You can link shops as you like, having a sponsor doesn't affect that
Gbatemp is cool with that, we even had shop temp with a list of stores
Unless the site you link hosts warez, it's all good
Last edited by migles,
Ok, wasn't sure as the sponsor sells them. Just paste "232004268190" into the Ebay search bar. They're the cheapest around, and the guy that owns Levitech is a decent bloke. They ship worldwide too.
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