Homebrew Discussion POLL Which SD format do you use and did you encounter any issues?

[ssssss13]

Since this thread might be a bit outdated https://gbatemp.net/threads/poll-fat32-vs-exfat-issue-discussion.514801/ I think we could use a new one @lordelan was the OP of that post so you can share your thoughts here.

 

[lordelan]

Since this thread might be a bit outdated https://gbatemp.net/threads/poll-fat32-vs-exfat-issue-discussion.514801/ I think we could use a new one @lordelan was the OP of that post so you can share your thoughts here.

Look, I don't want to offend anyone, but such polls are pointless! Skilled devs like m4xw explained multiple times that it's a fact (!) that using exFAT for mSD cards while using homebrews and stuff is definitely bad and it doesn't matter how many people claim they did not run into any issues so far. They were just lucky.
I promise you: More people did (just read through the whole f*cking RetroArch thread and when you done, take on the RetroNX libnx thread as well).

Thus I consider it even dangerous for new people to look at such polls and think "Oh, exFAT seems to be fine for X users, so it's fine for me."

Instead of continuing this "neverending discussion" and poll nonsense someone (with more technical explanation skills than me) should create a PSA on that topic and that one should be on the gbatemp front page for 365 days so even the last human being sees it.

 

[JonJaded]

I took a night to dump everything off my exfat 128gb sd card to a spare laptop, formatted it to fat32 and put everything back on it did wonders.

There's no reason not to be using fat32, with all the tools and homebrew to make the 4gb file limit near invisible.

 

[ssssss13]

Look, I don't want to offend anyone, but such polls are pointless! Skilled devs like m4xw explained multiple times that it's a fact (!) that using exFAT for mSD cards while using homebrews and stuff is definitely bad and it doesn't matter how many people claim they did not run into any issues so far. They were just lucky.
I promise you: More people did (just read through the whole f*cking RetroArch thread and when you done, take on the RetroNX libnx thread as well).

Thus I consider it even dangerous for new people to look at such polls and think "Oh, exFAT seems to be fine for X users, so it's fine for me."

Instead of continuing this "neverending discussion" and poll nonsense someone (with more technical explanation skills than me) should create a PSA on that topic and that one should be on the gbatemp front page for 365 days so even the last human being sees it.

You are right but its a falacy saying that a dev stated that exfat gives problems...last august. I mean, switch scene evolved a lot. Maybe some problems that we had back then are fixed now. I do use FAT32, but i think there is no harm in getting more updated info.

 

[hippy dave]

You are right but its a falacy saying that a dev stated that exfat gives problems...last august. I mean, switch scene evolved a lot. Maybe some problems that we had back then are fixed now. I do use FAT32, but i think there is no harm in getting more updated info.

Nothing has changed regarding this issue.

The only ways it would be fixed are:

1) Nintendo fixing their driver. Unlikely as it works fine for them and they're not going to fix it for homebrew.

2) CFW using its own working driver instead of Nintendo's. This has been discussed at length, the cleanest way would be complete reimplementation of the fs sysmodule, conclusion being that that would be really nice to have but is such a large undertaking that it's not likely in the foreseeable future. Just patching out the exfat driver calls in fs with working ones is hypothetically possible but messy and complex.

Either option for 2) is a massive amount of work when there's already a fully functional option of just using fat32.

 

[Jakeeenator]

When I originally modded my switch I used exfat and I had issues running Super Mario Odyssey. The action menu always crashed my system. I changed over to Fat32 and have had 0 issues since.

 

[lordelan]

You are right but its a falacy saying that a dev stated that exfat gives problems...last august. I mean, switch scene evolved a lot. Maybe some problems that we had back then are fixed now. I do use FAT32, but i think there is no harm in getting more updated info.

@hippy dave gave like the perfect answer on this.
That issue is still there and I dare to claim it will be forever.
Why would any of the talented enough devs (SciresM, m4xw, few others) waste (!) any time in implementing something for exFAT just for a few people ignoring all the warnings for months?
That won't happen.

I'm not angry and mad at anyone still using exFAT. I'm not even mad at those people claiming that they didn't have any issues yet. Fine for them, really (they were just lucky though).
But as written above I find it dangerous that these reports appear to newbies like "so exFAT will be fine then" because it's not. Sure they can be lucky as well for weeks or months (even years) but it is adviced to use FAT32 instead and there's a reason for that advice.
Everyone who doesn't listen and run into data corruption: You have been warned. I can't stress that sentence enough.
At least it's annoying for ppl like m4xw when end users report bugs with RetroArch and in the end it turns out exFAT was the reason for that bug/crash.

 

[PRAGMA]

Literally only people having issues with exfat are noob plebs new to gbatemp, I havent seen any "devs" commenting on exfat issues and if I dare say, everyone is just saying exfat is bad because the next guy on the train said so.
Please stop spreading "exfat bad" when you dont know if its actually credible.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

P.S. one thing I will say, is if a file has the characters ' and , in its filename at the same time, it can actually cause the file to not be visible to FS sysmodule at all, this issue I first reported it to Goldleaf's github issues, its very possible something like this is the cause of such "corruptions" which also ive never seen people get "corruptions" so stop saying that too

 

[lordelan]

Literally only people having issues with exfat are noob plebs new to gbatemp, I havent seen any "devs" commenting on exfat issues and if I dare say, everyone is just saying exfat is bad because the next guy on the train said so.
Please stop spreading "exfat bad" when you dont know if its actually credible.

I won't stop spreading it as it is bad. You should stop spreading that it's not.
Also I'm not referring to any next guy on the train.

Since there's no good write up in english (as it seems), here is the really good german write up by @Brawl345 that he did for the german website wiidatabase.de and since I'm too lazy to translate the whole thing I fired up the best translation engine (deepl.com) to do so:

Here is a general warning against using the file system exFAT for microSD cards of the Nintendo Switch, as the problem still doesn't seem to be too well known. Using exFAT leads to data loss!
Introduction
microSD cards over 32 GB (SDXC) are delivered as standard with the exFAT file system. exFAT was developed by Microsoft and therefore everyone who uses this file system has to pay license fees - unfortunately exFAT is mandatory in the SDXC standard, so companies have no other choice. This is also the reason why Nintendo updates the exFAT support "on-demand" as soon as an exFAT-formatted microSD is inserted - otherwise they would have to pay license fees to Microsoft for every sold switch.
What is it about?
Since the start of the homebrew scene, there has been a warning against using exFAT for microSD cards for the switch, as this would lead to data loss in the long run. The reason is that Nintendo's FAT driver is faulty and constantly changes files and folders, even during simple read operations. The changes are never correctly synchronized with the file system, which means that if an application is shut down or rebooted, the file handlers are lost and then missing from the File Allocation Table. This also happens with FAT32.
Since exFAT does not have a second Backup File Allocation Table unlike FAT32, the data and folders are irretrievably lost.
By the way, official applications (like games) are *normally* always terminated cleanly, which is why the problem hardly occurs here. File handlers are per-application, which is why the whole thing can occur normally in a forced shutdown.
What should I do?
If your microSD card is formatted in exFAT, we recommend that you back up all data and format it with FAT32 (32 KB cluster). Under Windows this is not possible with the Explorer, you have to use guiformat instead. Then simply copy all data back again.
What about data > 4 GB?
This is no problem at all - official data (like games) are always split into 4 GB. For further data:
splitNSP for large NSPs
XCI Cutter for large XCIs
Besides, with FAT32 you save yourself the problem with the annoying archive bit, which prevents Homebrews from reading data.
But I have no problems with exFAT and have been using it for xy years!
If everyone tells you not to run red lights but you have done it all the time and nothing has happened, what would you do?
Especially when it comes to newcomers, I find it irresponsible to express your own unfounded opinion just because you yourself "that never happened, so everyone else is wrong". Unfortunately I had to read too often already - that's why I wrote this article here.
In the linked GitHub-Issue and here you can find many well-known homebrew developers, including CTCaer from Hekate. They are all experts in this field. They don't say that to annoy you! If you don't want to hear, don't complain later.
Why doesn't Atmosphère reimplement the driver correctly?
It's even been talked about, but the FS module is one of the biggest and that would be a lot of work for something that can be easily done by reformatting the SD card.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

 

[ImLEBrAn]

I love having to use 20 different tools to get my shit on my SD card. /s

exFAT of course.

 

[PRAGMA]

I won't stop spreading it as it is bad. You should stop spreading that it's not.
Also I'm not referring to any next guy on the train.

Since there's no good write up in english (as it seems), here is the really good german write up by @Brawl345 that he did for the german website wiidatabase.de and since I'm too lazy to translate the whole thing I fired up the best translation engine (deepl.com) to do so:

You see, thats something people should be making threads about, not shitty polls e.t.c

 

[zxr750j]

I'm running 6.2 on FAT32. I began using CFW before buying a decent sized SD-card,
when I did it asked for the ex-fat update but I chickened out and reformatted it @FAT32.
Until now it ain't broke so I never had to fix it.

I really like the discussion surrounding this shitty poll (confirming me sticking to my current setup)!

 

[lordelan]

You see, thats something people should be making threads about, not shitty polls e.t.c

As you can tell by reading the first post this poll was created when the facts were not out on the table everywhere.
As of today even I call it shitty but I can't remove it. Already reported it a few days ago though.

 

[chaoskagami]

You are right but its a falacy saying that a dev stated that exfat gives problems...last august. I mean, switch scene evolved a lot. Maybe some problems that we had back then are fixed now. I do use FAT32, but i think there is no harm in getting more updated info.

First, that's not what a fallacy is. Saying "they're developers so they're not wrong" would be a fallacy, but these are people with completely reverse engineered versions of the firmware in IDA/Ghidra/whatever confirming that a bug exists which causes file corruption.

And no, they are not fixed.

Either option for 2) is a massive amount of work when there's already a fully functional option of just using fat32.

I'd like to take a moment and interject that even then, FS is still a buggy mess. Using any non-ascii characters causes the driver to puke because the upper and lower layers disagree whether the drive is CP932 or UTF8. There's quite a few reasons to reimplement FS, but I think there's more important things for the developers to focus on right now.

 

[bananapi761]

I use fat32 and still get occasional corruption, but I'm assuming it's because I write to the card frequently, and I also haven't kept a habit of ejecting the card properly. I do have a habit of regular backups though.