Hacking G6DS Real Not Saving Games?

[DingoBC]

Hey guys, I just got one of these Real cards from consolesource the other day. It was working fine, I updated the system folder to 2.2, put roms in the nds folder and played for a bit. But however, I noticed that my games weren't saving anything. It would say saving in the game itself, but upon reboot and going back into a game, all of my progress was gone.

I went through several troubleshooting steps, formatted, copied the original system folder from the cd, then the new system folder after that, no luck. From what I understand on reboot, you get a saving progress bar which pushes your saves into .0, .1 and .2 but I never got that on any of my roms.

There was one temp fix I did find however, if I used a softreset on a game, it would indeed saving my progress while going back into the file browser. But the softreset did not work on all of my games (Tetris for example)

I've since contacted consolesource for a replacement because I fear it's the actual card, but has anyone else run into this issue yet?

Thanks again.

 

[DingoBC]

I forgot to mention, mine is the 16gb model.

 

[4saken]

The capacitor could be dead (explains why saves are not restored on boot)

 

[dr_jones]

I've just received a 16G version and got EXACTLY the same problem (saves work fine with soft reset - but with hard reset I get nothing!) - will be receiving a replacement next week so we'll see if it's any better!

 

[ScottC2105]

Just tested my card I received yesterday. It seems to be fine with hard resets.

I turn it off and then straight back on and it processes the data

.

 

[swiitness]

Mine does not save with hard resets either.

 

[Sumobot]

Just tested my card I received yesterday. It seems to be fine with hard resets.

I turn it off and then straight back on and it processes the data

.

I keep doing this very thing but, the game save data doesn't seem to ever process. Whenever I go right back to the game I just saved from after a hard reset ... nothing.

I just got my card yesterday from realhotstuff.com and I have the 16Gigabit version of the card. I'd like to know where everyone elses came from, perhaps a bad batch?

 

[PanzerWF]

Wow, sounds like a pretty huge problem. I hope the G6 Flash team fixes it in their next firmware upgrade which I hope'll be very soon. So far on buying a flash cart, the G6 has disappointed me with homebrew issues and this whole soft resetting to save.

 

[swiitness]

Despite some of the problems I am having for my G6 DS Real 16g, I would still say that this is a very good product.

Don't get me wrong the soft-rest function is perfectly fine. If they can fix the hard reset problem in the next firmware along with the other problems being faced, the G6 DS Real has potential to become an excellent product.

 

[ScottC2105]

I just tested the game Trauma Center - Under The Knife using hard reset and it seems fine.

I got mine from a brand new batch that arrived at the store Monday 6th. At first it hung a bit but after a format (hold start while the card boots) it is as stable as a rock and a lot faster too.

You may wanna try a format, it may or may not solve your problem, who knows

!!

 

[Sumobot]

Tried reformatting and with two different "systems" or firmwares. Both the version that came on the packaged CD (version) and the latest from G6's website (2.2 en).

Something else to note to folks who might have an idea what the heck is happening. When I do a soft reset after data would be saved to a normal game I see the following before TouchPod allows me to use it:

Processing data ... keep power on

However whenever I do a hard reset (turning the power off and then quickly back on) I don't see any such message after data should have been saved in the above scenario. It just opens the TouchPod and allows me to use it.

Now excuse me if I'm assuming here but, 'Processing data ... keep power on' means that its dumping the data from what remains on the DS to the card. But since I don't see that infamous message when doing a hard reset I'm assuming that the data is lost. Can anyone else confirm my theory that upon a hard reset they see "Processing data ... keep power on" it would help me determine if its a problem (physically) with the G6 Real, or the software that I have running on it.

 

[swiitness]

I can confirm that its a problem with the G6 Real as I'm sure the people that are able to hard-reset save are all using the same firmware (the latest).

I'm led to believe that there has been a bad batch of G6 DS Reals as there are quite a few among us who are experiencing these problems.

 

[neveras]

I think you should also note that from the looks of it this is a problem with the 16g problem, I have yet to hear a problem or have one with the 8g model of the same card.

 

[Sumobot]

I just can't give up yet.

Alright mates take a look at some new developments I've recently discovered. Maybe my capacitor isn't all dead because, I was able to make a hard reset and I got my special little message saying Processing data ... keep power on. This is how.

I inserted the card into the burner and then into my USB port and did nothing to it for about 3 hours thinking it might've been my DS as the culprit. And volia the USB port seemed to do the charging trick! (or at least it held a charge long enough for a pretty quick hard reset).

Maybe there is a beating heart in my G6 after all. Anyone else still got a shoddy card that would like to repeat my test to see if it works for them?

 

[dr_jones]

Maybe there is a beating heart in my G6 after all. Anyone else still got a shoddy card that would like to repeat my test to see if it works for them?

I'll give this a try tongiht if I get a chance - otherwise it's in the mail tomorrow and I'll await a replacement.

though I 'thought' it charged from the DS Slot 1 port rather thant the burner?

Have you been able to leave it for any length of time after its out of the 'burner' yet - did it keep its charge or was it only able to maintain charge for a short period of time.

 

[Sumobot]

In terms of getting saves to roll over from hard resets, that 3 hours of charging only got me about 2 minutes to make the save. However I have come to the conclusion that in terms of the capacitor its not really meant to be a long term storage option anyhow. Something that could be in my G6DSL could only hold a max of about 2 minutes anyway.

Which raises some final questions in terms of narrowing things down quite a bit.
1. ) My DS console isn't charging the chip while I'm playing (most likely) = no power
2. ) The firmware doesn't (or isn't) know to keep enough power to the capacitor (somewhat likely)
3. ) The DS console isn't outputting enough power to the chip to keep it charged (quite unlikely) = not enough power
4. ) The firmware doesn't store the data properly in the right spot to keep data where it needs to be while the unit isn't being powered. (pretty likely)

The problem with 1, 3 is that its most likely due to a faulty card and will likely be fixed by a replacement. The problems with 2, 4 are with the firmware or the 'system' as G6 calls it.

Checking out most of the code in the system doesn't lead me to believe that things are totally fudged is 2, 4 are the case. I should be able to come up with some sort of solution.

..again tho, I just got the card literally days ago.

 

[dr_jones]

Hmm - 2 minutes to save is not too good - I guess really only useful if you've a ROM that the soft reset won't work on for some reason.

Firmware related issues 'seem' unlikely as not all the cards using the latest (v2.2) display the problem or so I understand.

Danny (of g6flash.com) seems to think it's most likely a hardware problem and has offered to test/fix the card for me if I send it back to him - however due to him being in Hong Kong I'll probably just get the local reseller to sort it. He's also confirmed that the card will charge in both the USB burner and Slot-1 - which is pretty cool.

Saying all this you can't be sure until there's proof either way - so I for one would be very interested to see if you can come up with a fix!

 

[dr_jones]

Well - tried charging mine via USB last night left a good 3+ hrs - still no good - same problem so it's gone in the post this morning for replacement.

Lets hope the replacement is fully functional - if it's not I'm tempted to just go for a M3 DS Simply instead - which I didn't really want to do as reading all the reviews I could it seems that feature wise the G6 is richer and build quality wise slightly better (quality control aside!) - Also storage wise I don't really anticipate needing any more than 2GB on the DS....

 

[dr_jones]

if it's not I'm tempted to just go for a M3 DS Simply instead

hmm or maybe not - the M3 DS Simply seems to have it's own set of problems.....

 

[dr_jones]

All sorted now! - was indeed a hardware fault - replacement saves on hard reset no problems and will hold data in excess of a couple of hours.

As an aside the boot using icon option now functions where as it did not before!