Hardware Okay can we actually talk about corruption?

[Treskatae]

Update: Thanks to @The Real Jdbye for providing the solution.

Card was formatted with tegra explorer. Stock Atmosphere launched with hekate in emuMMC. Titles were all placed onto the SD card before being installed by Awoo.

Out of a sample size of 50 titles, all of which were NSZ files obtained from the same source, seven had errors. Of those seven, six were confirmed to be XCI files that had been converted. The seventh title returned a 2155-8007 error, however it still starts and runs perfectly fine. Removing and reinstalling the title from a different source, the error no longer displayed.

My recommendation is to follow the advice Jdbye posted on page two to check for conversions and corruptions.

You should probably also avoid using exFAT. There still seems to be some debate on whether or not exFAT causes corruption, but the evidence seems to suggest that it does. In any case nothing suggests that FAT32 alone will cause corruption, so better safe than sorry.

If you are having this problem as well please check out the poll and select the options that apply to your case. We can all attempt to isolate commonalities.

Threads involving title corruption are frequently dismissed as "your SD card is dead buy a new one." I use five different SD cards. At least two of them had never been used before, were tested as working, formatted to FAT32, and the problem immediately presented itself. Back-ups were placed using nut server and USB. I have also tried installing via network. It seems to be completely random.

Most of the time I will find that out of a dozen, two or three didn't install correctly. Most recently I did a large batch of about twenty, and nearly all of them were corrupt. It happens with every SD card I own.

Are there logs or something so we could possibly take a look at what exactly is happening?
Is that not something the Switch is capable of, or just something nobody has implemented yet?
If not, is it at least possible to generate some error code representing where the failure took place?

For those of you who have never had this issue, how many SD cards have you used? Were any of them exfat? What CFW are you using, and what method did you use to install it?

 

[AXiD86]

Are all the card from the same marketplace? I would check if they are "fake" by using h2test

 

[roarn20]

I'm still using the same one after I switch to a 400gb micro sd card. Haven't had any problems since switching and the card was formatted into fat32 using guiformat. My friend also has a micro sd card that I help set up for him and that one is set up in exfat. Also no problems as of right now. Both of us are using atmosphere and I personally manually downloaded the files from atmosphere and placed it in the sd card, did not use kosmos at all.

If you have been using 5 different sd cards and they all dont work could it be that there is something wrong with your switch reading and writing the sd card? That may be a possibility. But also as AXiD86 said check to see if the sd card is genuine using that program to test it.

 

[studio1b]

sounds to me like fake sd cards

 

[MUDD_BR]

I’m on fat32 since always. Zero problems.

 

[Risingdawn]

Always used exFat, currently have about 4 SDcards that have seen various use between 3 different Switches, 1 from launch.

Never had a single card corrupted, or any data, ever.

 

[RHOPKINS13]

Plenty of talk has already been done about corruption.

1. You should always test any new card using h2testw
2. We know that Horizon's exFat driver is buggy
3. Under "normal" use on a stock Switch, usually exFat is fine
4. One exception is with Pokemon Sword & Shield, which caused corruption on exFat cards even on stock systems
5. All game saves are stored in internal memory, so they're safe from the exFat corruption
6. On a stock Switch, sd cards are only used for storing screenshots and video captures, and downloaded titles that can be easily re-downloaded if corrupted
7. There is no reason to use exFat with the Switch; Games over FAT32's 4GB limit can be split and handled fine by most title installers; SX OS can handle split XCIs as well, or use USB
8. Using exFat with the Switch is inherently risky; Don't do it!
9. If for some reason you absolutely MUST use exFat on your Switch, you can lower your risk of corruption by avoiding homebrew that constantly writes to the card, like Retroarch, and also avoid leaving homebrew by using the Home button (you should properly exit the homebrew using whatever button or method that homebrew has designated)
10. Always keep a good backup of your NAND and SD card's contents
11. MOST IMPORTANTLY: If for whatever reason you find yourself victim to card corruption, and you didn't follow 1, 8, or 10, don't bitch and moan about it. EVERY guide always stresses the importance of having a good backup before doing anything. Start clean and try again.

 

[studio1b]

i been running exfat since day 1 and have not had any problems

 

[PatrickD85]

On my superbanned switch I have been using a 400GB Sandisk card for ... well more then 1,5 -2 years or so I guess.
No issues what so ever with just using exfat.
And I have been doing a lot when it comes to; retroarch, checkpoint, nxtmp, various installers, custom themes etc on various CFW's.

 

[Germania]

I am using two microSD cards (Samsung MB-MC64GA/EU EVO Plus, Samsung MB-MC128GA/EU EVO Plus) made by Samsung. They are both formatted in exFat. No problems whatsoever. No corruption. I would never buy any other brand.

 

[Boydy86]

Seen corruption on FAT32, good SD card. Caused by accidentally unplugging USB during USB NSP transfer. Interesting thing is, the Switch progress bar indicated data was still being rammed on to the switch, maybe all 0's? I would have thought these USB loaders sent data in checksum'd chunks? Calls into question the amount of data corruption caused by loose ports wires etc. with no indication during write.

 

[leon315]

The title is misleading: i expected a politic topic filled with people's complains about how corrupted their country

Still using atmosphere+exfat since d1 and never corrupted

 

[ZachyCatGames]

lAll game saves are stored in internal memory, so they're safe from the exFat corruption

Unless you format USER as exfat :shrek

 

[Jayro]

I started with a 32GB Samsung Class 10, and upgraded recently to a 128GB SanDisk Ultra A2, and while my speeds are much better, I've never experienced any kind of corruption from Homebrew, CFW, or OFW. Not even while playing pirated games or using exFAT. (I also never setup any kind of emuNAND either, for those wondering)

 

[Treskatae]

The comments seem to indicate that exFAT is not a significant determinant for corruption.
The poll seems to indicate exFAT is the only determinant.

Is it possible that something in the console's internal memory? I'd like to explore alternatives before restoring my NAND backup, but that's looking like what I'm going to have to try next. After which I will use a tested card, formatted to FAT32, using the most well-regarded installation guide, and manually placing the files myself. If there is no one else that seems to be having the same issue I am, that is the only thing I can think to do.

 

[pop13_13]

.

 

[RHOPKINS13]

The comments seem to indicate that exFAT is not a significant determinant for corruption.
The poll seems to indicate exFAT is the only determinant.

You're misinterpreting your results. There are many factors, and a poll really doesn't suffice for this. A multiple question survey would have been much better.

Is it possible that something in the console's internal memory?

I've never seen any indication of SD card corruption being due to internal memory.

Just thoroughly test your card beforehand, perhaps "low level" format it, and stick with FAT32. It also depends heavily on what you're doing with it, something you've given us very little information about aside from that you're installing games. Are you using EmuNAND? What guide have you used?

Maybe your NSPs/NSZs are corrupt. Or maybe you should try copying them to your SD card from your PC first, and then verify it using md5sum. Maybe you should try using a different homebrew to install them. Not sure what you use but I'm a big fan of Goldleaf.

 

[Ericthegreat]

Always used exFat, currently have about 4 SDcards that have seen various use between 3 different Switches, 1 from launch.

Never had a single card corrupted, or any data, ever.

Always back up if you use exfat, there is corruption happening, it's slow but your saves could get screwed at any time.

Edit: err maybe not saves but your games could get corrupted.

 

[RHOPKINS13]

Always back up if you use exfat, there is corruption happening, it's slow but your saves could get screwed at any time.

Game saves are stored in internal memory. The only way saves on the SD card could get corrupted is if they've been saved using a tool like Checkpoint or EdiZon.

But yes, backup backup backup!

 

[ZachyCatGames]

To anyone who says exfat doesn’t cause corruption:
The SYSTEM eMMC partition is normally formatted as fat32, and doesn’t generally experience any corruption. One time as an experiment, I decided to attempt to format it to exfat (you can format eMMC partitions as exfat and it’ll still boot if you have the exfat package2), literally within seconds of booting the systems a shit ton of stuff was corrupt and the system fataled immediately after rebooting, and I had to recopy all the system NCAs over to get it to boot again (where it then got corrupt again shortly afterwards).