Hello. I have a very specific situation I would like to fix:
I have a DSi XL V1.4U (haven't updated ever in over 10 years) and an R4iTT V1.6 (the oldest kind possible) that worked with no problem for all those years.
Now, I also have a 3DS XL (old) with CFW but that's irrelevant. The R4 worked for both for forever, but a few years ago, I decided I wanted to play DS games in both at the same time, without having to worry about the only R4 I had, so I discovered Unlaunch and Twilight Menu++, and installed both no problem on the DSi. After a short time I stopped doing that and stopped using both DSs altogether, since some of the buttons in my 3DS don't work anymore and the DSi's Twilight Menu stopped working properly (turns out I was dumb and it was only the Micro SD adapter, once I changed it, worked flawlessly).
Fast forward to now, I decided I want to replay so many more DS games, gave up on 3DS ones (DS games are better anyway) and the first one on my list was Bowser's Inside Story. It crashed on the save, and after research and trying every possible way to play it through nds-bootstrap (including kinder-bueno's xdelta patch) it didn't work. If it didn't crash when starting a new game, it did with the classic bowser yeet or later whenever I tried to load a game after that. Then I went back to try to fix the R4 which has none of the compatibility issues nds-bootstrap has, but I'm trying to figure out how to get it work properly. That's why I'm here, I want to play M&L: BiS badly but I figured it'd be better if I could get the R4iTT to work again so I don't have to deal with similar issues with other games.
I updated the R4iTT's kernel and soon figured out no matter what I tried, it worked only on my 3DS and not on my DSi (in which I'd been using my R4iTT for over a decade) including multiple older kernels and even YSMenu, only working on 3DS:
(First 2 are my 3DS working perfectly, the last 2 are my DSi, I entered the Launcher through Unlaunch and from there normally).
So my problem is that very one, I tried all that and still my DSi can't read them. At first I thought it was because the DSi was too outdated (v1.4 is too old) but I discarded it since it's not even reading the card from there, and I think it's more the way I'm launching it.
I've spent like 3 or 4 days in this, downloading kernels, testing and testing YSMenu and Twilight for the flashcart, updating the old Twilight Menu I had and trying so much more stuff with it, but what I've come to notice is, whenever I put something on the R4's Micro SD, no matter how insignificant, the LOADING smiley SD (the one on the first image above) will still show, but on the DSi that doesn't even happen anymore, it goes straight to the white screen on the right, making me think it's not the R4iTT itself but the way Unlaunch or some other change I made changed the way it's loading it. I also tried launching the R4 straight from Unlaunch but nothing happened either.
Now more than ever, I'm thinking either there's no solution (I've exhausted most I know, that's why I'm here) or it's way simpler that I think, on how Unlaunch or something else makes the R4 be able to load properly on the DSi. That's why I'm here asking for help on how it's supposed to be opened properly, since all the info is there and the DSi just freezes whenever I open the R4. Appreciate the help.
I have a DSi XL V1.4U (haven't updated ever in over 10 years) and an R4iTT V1.6 (the oldest kind possible) that worked with no problem for all those years.
Now, I also have a 3DS XL (old) with CFW but that's irrelevant. The R4 worked for both for forever, but a few years ago, I decided I wanted to play DS games in both at the same time, without having to worry about the only R4 I had, so I discovered Unlaunch and Twilight Menu++, and installed both no problem on the DSi. After a short time I stopped doing that and stopped using both DSs altogether, since some of the buttons in my 3DS don't work anymore and the DSi's Twilight Menu stopped working properly (turns out I was dumb and it was only the Micro SD adapter, once I changed it, worked flawlessly).
Fast forward to now, I decided I want to replay so many more DS games, gave up on 3DS ones (DS games are better anyway) and the first one on my list was Bowser's Inside Story. It crashed on the save, and after research and trying every possible way to play it through nds-bootstrap (including kinder-bueno's xdelta patch) it didn't work. If it didn't crash when starting a new game, it did with the classic bowser yeet or later whenever I tried to load a game after that. Then I went back to try to fix the R4 which has none of the compatibility issues nds-bootstrap has, but I'm trying to figure out how to get it work properly. That's why I'm here, I want to play M&L: BiS badly but I figured it'd be better if I could get the R4iTT to work again so I don't have to deal with similar issues with other games.
I updated the R4iTT's kernel and soon figured out no matter what I tried, it worked only on my 3DS and not on my DSi (in which I'd been using my R4iTT for over a decade) including multiple older kernels and even YSMenu, only working on 3DS:
(First 2 are my 3DS working perfectly, the last 2 are my DSi, I entered the Launcher through Unlaunch and from there normally).
So my problem is that very one, I tried all that and still my DSi can't read them. At first I thought it was because the DSi was too outdated (v1.4 is too old) but I discarded it since it's not even reading the card from there, and I think it's more the way I'm launching it.
I've spent like 3 or 4 days in this, downloading kernels, testing and testing YSMenu and Twilight for the flashcart, updating the old Twilight Menu I had and trying so much more stuff with it, but what I've come to notice is, whenever I put something on the R4's Micro SD, no matter how insignificant, the LOADING smiley SD (the one on the first image above) will still show, but on the DSi that doesn't even happen anymore, it goes straight to the white screen on the right, making me think it's not the R4iTT itself but the way Unlaunch or some other change I made changed the way it's loading it. I also tried launching the R4 straight from Unlaunch but nothing happened either.
Now more than ever, I'm thinking either there's no solution (I've exhausted most I know, that's why I'm here) or it's way simpler that I think, on how Unlaunch or something else makes the R4 be able to load properly on the DSi. That's why I'm here asking for help on how it's supposed to be opened properly, since all the info is there and the DSi just freezes whenever I open the R4. Appreciate the help.