Hacking Sky3DS crashing issue

[WulfyStylez]

I picked up a Sky3DS a few days ago and I've been having a really strange issue. At random points in games, streaming audio (background/menu music, etc) will cut out. Then, whenever I try to do something, the game will crash out. It's like the system is failing to communicate with the cart or something - though after rebooting the cart works just fine even without reinserting it.

I'm using untrimmed dumps of my own games, and I've had this issue on multiple SD cards (my main one's a genuine Samsung one, the rest are all genuine too.)

My next step's to tear the cart down and take some macro photos to check soldering. Before I do that though, does anyone know why this could be happening?

 

[Kugz]

I have been having this issue as of late too. I'm using cheap (but genuine) microSD cards but I'm going to get a Class 10 on Friday. I googled it when it happened and a lot of threads appear saying that the fix for it is to get a faster SD card and that fixes it.

 

[Bu2d85]

I was had the same thing for a few weeks. I noticed that when I opened the writer not all of my games would show and when played most would lock up mid game.

My solution was to run in compatiblity mode with xp sp3. Also make sure that you click the verify block on the top right before writing games. It triples if not quaduples the write time but after doing this I have not had any problems.

 

[WulfyStylez]

I have been having this issue as of late too. I'm using cheap (but genuine) microSD cards but I'm going to get a Class 10 on Friday. I googled it when it happened and a lot of threads appear saying that the fix for it is to get a faster SD card and that fixes it.

That'd make sense for slower cards, but it still doesn't seem quite right for me. My card benchmarks at like 47mb read and 17mb/s write. I imagine that'd probably be enough?

 

[Kugz]

I was had the same thing for a few weeks. I noticed that when I opened the writer not all of my games would show and when played most would lock up mid game.

My solution was to run in compatiblity mode with xp sp3. Also make sure that you click the verify block on the top right before writing games. It triples if not quaduples the write time but after doing this I have not had any problems.

Hmmm, that might be worth a shot. I didn't try the verify thing and there's a new template out. Might give that a go tonight. I've been playing Smash Bros, Theatrhythm and stuff that aren't long sessions until I pinpointed the issue.

Thanks Bu2d85!

 

[Judas18]

Oh I thought that was just a problem with my rom, I've been getting a similar problem it seems.

 

[WulfyStylez]

It happens in some very particular spots in games for me. In Theatrhythm Curtain Call it'll happen if you leave it on the party menu or try to start a song. On Bravely Default it'll happen when exiting a cutscene with the king at the very beginning of the game.

 

[Kugz]

It happens in some very particular spots in games for me. In Theatrhythm Curtain Call it'll happen if you leave it on the party menu or try to start a song. On Bravely Default it'll happen when exiting a cutscene with the king at the very beginning of the game.

Hmmm. It happened to me on Bravely Default at that moment too. After you rescue the girl at the beginning?

Could be the actual ROM or could be due to not using the 'verify' function. I'll wipe my microSD and chuck only default on and try to get to that point again.

Edit: Formatted microSD, re-wrote Bravely Default rom to it and just passed that point in the game. I'll see how much longer this goes.

Edit 2: Eep, game froze shortly after. Well this sucks.

 

[Bu2d85]

After you write the game close the disk writer tool and then open it again. How much free space does it say you have on your card? Every time I had problems with my games it said 0MB free space when I should have had about 4GB.

Also you said that you used the verify but did you run in compatibility mode with xp sp3?

I personally believe it's an issue with the way it formats the sd card.

[Edit] I was going back and reading my older posts. The auto correct on my phone makes me sound dumb.

 

[WulfyStylez]

I fixed this issue with a new and obscenely fast SD card. Here's some ATTO comparisons between my card that didn't and my card that did work. You need a really fast card for Sky3DS.

And here is the card that I fixed this with, for anyone having similar issues in the future.

 

[MidLevelCrisis]

Hmm, just got my Sky and also having crash or even loading issues with most games i try, and save data corruption errors. been playing with the settings and now trying compati xp mode plus verify, and will buy a fast sd tomorrow. I was starting to think i had a faulty sky card. Will backed saves work when restored to the same rom on a different sd? or should i back up the entire card/rom

been using a class 10Lexor 16Gig card till now, which i thought would be fast and stable enough.

* edit* lol, just tried a brandless 4G class 4 card, and everything that crashed b4 works...

 

[zergslayer69]

Curious, anybody having issues using a sandisk ultra? (Thinking of buying a sky)

 

[sparrowreal]

Hmm, just got my Sky and also having crash or even loading issues with most games i try, and save data corruption errors. been playing with the settings and now trying compati xp mode plus verify, and will buy a fast sd tomorrow. I was starting to think i had a faulty sky card. Will backed saves work when restored to the same rom on a different sd? or should i back up the entire card/rom

been using a class 10Lexor 16Gig card till now, which i thought would be fast and stable enough.

* edit* lol, just tried a brandless 4G class 4 card, and everything that crashed b4 works...

wtf so the issue is random as fuck. I have 2 kingston 16 gb class 10 ready, but Ill have my good old 4 gb class 4 ready just in case lol

 

[MidLevelCrisis]

wtf so the issue is random as fuck. I have 2 kingston 16 gb class 10 ready, but Ill have my good old 4 gb class 4 ready just in case lol

well, not necceserely random, I did use different settings, and am still testing with other cards now, I'm surprised there isn't already a compilation thread of problematic cards / settings, or did these problems just recently pop up with a new discwriter update?

 

[sparrowreal]

well, not necceserely random, I did use different settings, and am still testing with other cards now, I'm surprised there isn't already a compilation thread of problematic cards / settings, or did these problems just recently pop up with a new discwriter update?

Well Ill try my cards tomorrow when my sky arrives, and post here the results, Ive read some people having issues since the beginning of some games like bravely default or Zelda. I have 2 kingston class 10, a sandisk class 10, and a couple of class 4 of 4 and 8gb

 

[MidLevelCrisis]

hmm, my other card seems to work fine now too... so im thinking its the discwriter settings, also my backup saves transferred between two cards and loaded just fine.. now the only thing I want to know is if trimming your roms with tokyoTrim as any impact on their stability.

 

[sparrowreal]

hmm, my other card seems to work fine now too... so im thinking its the discwriter settings, also my backup saves transferred between two cards and loaded just fine.. now the only thing I want to know is if trimming your roms with tokyoTrim as any impact on their stability.

Thats another possibility that the issue lies on discwriter version or settings, maybe some games work better with different versions?

 

[MidLevelCrisis]

oh, cheered too soon, stil some random crashes only with yoshi's new island until now though. will try later with a "better" sd card

 

[WulfyStylez]

Curious, anybody having issues using a sandisk ultra? (Thinking of buying a sky)

Sandisk Ultra are garbage and perform really poorly, go extreme or equivalent.

 

[MidLevelCrisis]

found this in some sky3ds problem solving page

There are two ways mostly can solve the problems:
1. If you use the latest template and diskwriter, if those don’t work, use the first diskwriter + template from the official site, cuz there are known issues with recent templates.
2. Just judging from past similar problems about this but with Gateway 3DS carts, the memory card issue has been an issue multiple times with Gateway, and it has been proved that memory SD card is the only problems in the end, then work greatly .
The Sandisk cards seem to give people less trouble, and according to many players experience, Sandisk microSD have pretty good compatibility when works for Sky3DS card.

they actually reccomend sandisk, weird