Hacking Luma3DS Only on SD Card

[starburst]

I updated the firmware of my North American N3DS (11.6.0-39U) and the versions of Boot9Strap (1.3), Luma3DS (8.1.1) and GodMode9 (1.4.2) during the weekend, and decided to remove Luma3DS and its payloads (GodMode9) from NAND and use them only from the SD Card. Other than not being able to start the console without an SD card, does it affect its usage in any other way?


I am asking this because I have noticed that my copy of Fire Emblem Fates (EUR) is repeatedly having problems reading its DLC, as if it could not find it. And because the European version only includes the base game (the prologue and first five chapters), almost everything is loaded from the DLC and I cannot continue playing. After closing the game and reloading it a couple of times, it finally 'finds' its DLC and I can play.

Once the game loads its DLC, it works as expected, but its being Fire Emblem, I restart often and the issue is easy to come by (the favourite combo of Conquest Hard Classic is L+R+Start [1].)
Needless to say, game patching is enabled within Luma3DS's configuration and the appropriate title ID directories and locale files are present (as they were before the upgrade.)

I guess that the problem is related to fragmentation or I/O error of the SD card itself rather than to Luma3DS, but I preferred to ask, in case some one else were facing a similar issue.



[1] In the right hall of death of Conquest's Chapter 25, the Master of Arms with a 11-16 % hit chance keeps killing my unit. Yes, RNG is that fair.

 

[BL4Z3D247]

The only real advantage I see to having them injected to the NAND is if you're SD card dies you can still boot your console and when you get a new SD card you can copy the files from the NAND to the root of the new SD card without the need of a computer.

Someone else may have better insight as to why it's useful but that's all I can think of. You can't mess your console up if you don't inject them into the NAND, it's just a convenience factor.

 

[starburst]

Thinking that it may be a problem with the SD itself or due to file system fragmentation, I copied the contents of my SD card to a different, just-formatted one, and the issue persists. This is, every other time, when I soft-reset Fire Emblem Fates (EUR) it cannot find its DLC (EUR). I must close the game and load it a couple of times until it finally 'finds' its DLC and allows me to continue my campaign.

My next move will be to reinstall the game and its DLC. But I am really close to finish it (at chapter 26 out of 28) and do want to risk losing my save states.

Has anyone faced a similar issue? I updated several software components yesterday, thus it is difficult to single out the culprit.

 

[Quantumcat]

Removing Luma from your CTR-NAND will have no effect, except that when your SD card dies you'll have an effective brick until you buy a new SD card (at least with Luma on CTR-NAND you could still play cartridge games and DSiWare until you get a new SD card).

 

[starburst]

Thank you both, BL4Z3D247 and Quantumcat. I also thought that removing Luma3DS from CTR-NAND would not be the cause of my current problem with Fire Emblem Fates, but I preferred to ask other users in case I were skipping something basic.