Hacking Gateway 3DS Can Rollback Save files?

[Virosa]

After changing sdcard and "rehacking" i load up megami tensei 4 and my save file is a old save file, missing 20 hours of progress, back to level 15 when i was in higher 20s, what gives?

The state of that save is about 2 days old, but i hadnt "rehacked" even once since i started the game(a week ago) and i been playing and switching to other games too.

How did that happen? I closed Shin Megami Tensei half a dozen time or so between level 15 level and 20s. How did the current save file get lost? Nevermind that i saved the game about 40 times in that time span o.o;

 

[Deleted member 333767]

When you swapped your SD cards, did you copy all your .SAV files from the old one to the new one? I can't see how that could be possible unless your 3DS ran out of battery or you popped the gateway card out whilst playing the game. Thats the only 2 ways I've ever lost save data before.

It's always good practice to exit the game using HOME -> X button -> A button to allow your 3DS time to transfer the save from the onboard chip in GW to your SD card.

Even though i can directly press the power button and home button to exit my games and still have the save transfer, some people report they can not do this.

 

[Typhin]

After changing sdcard and "rehacking" i load up megami tensei 4 and my save file is a old save file, missing 20 hours of progress, back to level 15 when i was in higher 20s, what gives?

The state of that save is about 2 days old, but i hadnt "rehacked" even once since i started the game(a week ago) and i been playing and switching to other games too.

How did that happen? I closed Shin Megami Tensei half a dozen time or so between level 15 level and 20s. How did the current save file get lost? Nevermind that i saved the game about 40 times in that time span o.o;

The Gateway card saves to internal memory while you're playing the game. But it only has internal memory for one game at a time. When you use Select to choose a game, the card will check to see if it's the last game played (I'm not sure how long it "remembers" the last game, so certain things can probably cause it to "forget" or otherwise lose data). If it's not the last game played, it will initialize the save area and then load the .sav file from the SD card.

In order to get Gateway to write the .sav file to the SD card, you must allow it to close the software. The usual way to close it is to go to the Home Menu and select "Close Software". Powering off the system with the power button may or may not work, it depends on whether the system has time to write the file. So, holding the power button long enough to force a power-off would probably cause it to fail. If that file doesn't get written, then the next time you go to play, you'll likely load up an older file and lose progress.

I've lost progress when games freeze up (1001 Spikes, generally), but kept progress when the system's battery ran out of power.

It's also possible that when you were changing SD cards, you copied an older .sav file to the new SD card. I don't know the exact steps you did for everything, so I can't say for certain.

 

[Virosa]

I did not change the 3DS's sd card, i changed the cart's sd cart from a 8gb to a 64gb. (Ergo i popped out the cart)

I guess that what i did was save the game, then not close the software, i just swapped the minisd card in the cart. That caused the 3DS to go "meh, restart firmware". When i lost my data i only suspected the game was too lazy to ACTUALLY save your game on file. Thanks for confirming.

My fault for assuming the save system would properly actually save everytime.

Damn it. Well i guess its not as bad as losing 140hours of MHU and now i know i need to actually close to software to actually save, thats annoying X_x

Thanks Typhin(<3 Your Ava) and Jao Chu.

 

[DarkKaine]

Use CIA's. They don't have this limitation

 

[Virosa]

Hmm i do have a 64gb mini, i could slot it with the adapter maybe and keep tons of stuff installed. I'll have to check how to convert .3ds to .cia. Thanks for the suggestion DarkKaine.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

I did not change the 3DS's sd card, i changed the cart's sd cart from a 8gb to a 64gb. (Ergo i popped out the cart)

I guess that what i did was save the game, then not close the software, i just swapped the minisd card in the cart. That caused the 3DS to go "meh, restart firmware". When i lost my data i only suspected the game was too lazy to ACTUALLY save your game on file. Thanks for confirming.

My fault for assuming the save system would properly actually save everytime.

Damn it. Well i guess its not as bad as losing 140hours of MHU and now i know i need to actually close to software to actually save, thats annoying X_x

Thanks Typhin(<3 Your Ava) and Jao Chu.

Well to be honest ejecting a game cart while the game is running is a bad idea regardless of whether it's a Gateway or a retail cart.
Having to close the software shouldn't be annoying as if you use it normally you wouldn't be ejecting the card with a game running anyway, and in any other case it will save correctly.

 

[Virosa]

Well to be honest ejecting a game cart while the game is running is a bad idea regardless of whether it's a Gateway or a retail cart.
Having to close the software shouldn't be annoying as if you use it normally you wouldn't be ejecting the card with a game running anyway, and in any other case it will save correctly.

Being rough with your hardware and expecting a completed save to be actually stored are not particularly new concepts. Thats what the omnipresent message "Saving, do not turn your system off." always meant. Until now, apparently.