Pokemon Ranch Save Help Needed (Details within)

[minervamagicka]

 hey there pals, allow me to explain my situation;

I recently found my original Wii that I got as a kid. I had a copy of My Pokemon Ranch and transferred oodles of mons from my copies of Diamond and Pearl, everything from shinies to mythicals. Now, unfortunately, it has been many years and those game carts are lost to the wind, I have no idea where they might be, so they are now stuck at the Ranch. I got a second-hand copy of Pearl recently for the nostalgia (and to use the event exploit) but just recently made the connection that I might be able to save those pokemon stuck in limbo at the Ranch and transfer them up to USUM.

I found this thread which seemed to do what I wanted, and followed it to the letter with the new copy of Pearl as the trainer I want all the pokemon to be associated with (Our wii is already homebrewed, we're a custom track mario kart wii kinda family) but after installing the edited save with Savegame Manager GX from our SD card (Literally just opening Savegame Manager GX, seeing the MPR logo, hitting 'install' to Wii and closing the tool), My Pokemon Ranch crashes the entire system once it hits the white-and-red 'saving' screen on the initial load, freezing on it. Needless to say, it was alarming and I'm not sure where I went wrong? I waited around 10 minutes to see if it was just processing but that seemed like a stretch and it needs the Wii to be rebooted in order to get functionality back.

Anyone willing to lend a hand? I still have the savedata.bin backup so I'm hopeful I can restore the save to it's original state, which obviously doesn't solve the problem of the pokemon still being associated to the wrong trainer. I don't know if it's an issue with the editor I used or how I installed it using Savegame Manager GX so if anyone has any diagnostic ideas or just suggestions in general I'm open to anything at this rate, lol. I've got around 390-400 pokemon in there but I'm positive it's likely not a volume issue. I know I could probably just action replay my new Pearl trainer to match the original Diamond/Pearl trainers of old, but that's a solution I'd like to avoid for now as I wouldn't be able to get an AR in the timeframe I have with the Wii before I have to head home and leave it behind for a few more months.

Any help is seriously appreciated, I've got such limited knowledge when it comes to the save data and machinations of Gen 4, especially the Wii-related peripherals! Tysm in advanced, smart people.

[Guest]

First off, make sure you never lose your original untouched savedata.bin

I guess you could try again, and make sure the file doesn't get corrupted when transferring it over to your SD card.

I can't directly help, but as a last resort, another option would be to use RNG manipulation to get the ID and SID combo you need on Pearl. Depending on how much time you have right now, this may be viable.

[minervamagicka]

RNG manipulation is actually a pretty good idea, I may try that later if this doesn't work since I've got the ID(s) I'd need to get so thank you for that idea! There's definitely a chance the data got corrupted somehow too so I may try a fresh SD card and see how that goes (Or just keep trying with this one and be extra careful). I assume the formatting of the SD wouldn't matter, right? It's formatted to FAT32 atm.

[Guest]

I've never messed with that kind of thing, I have no idea what could cause Ranch to behave that way. If the save file had been corrupted, I'd imagine that the game would complain, instead of just crashing, because there are checksums.

Also, what does the folder look like, on your SD card, when you're restoring the save data? If it's anything like the 3DS and Wii U, make sure only the savedata.bin is in there, without any extra files.

[minervamagicka]

I did get a complaint when I accidentally used the un-hashed version of the savedata.bin where it got mad and told me an error code, but not sure if that's an upgrade or a downgrade to it almost loading then hard-crashing, lol. I'll try the savedata.bin on it's own when I start trying again and see if that causes any difference.

[Guest]

If I'm not wrong, when you extract the save data, it extracts it into a folder, and when you re-import edited save data, it imports everything in that folder. So you have to make sure that only savedata.bin is in there, because it doesn't pick out the correct file(s) automatically.

Hopefully the original clean save file will import fine, otherwise you might have a problem. :s

At the very least though, you're able to extract all the Pokémon from the save file to .pkm, so there's always the opportunity of adding those into a save file with PKHeX eventually.

[minervamagicka]

Yeah, that's definitely a saving grace. I guess they aren't that special so I won't be crushed if they're lost to the void, but, y'know... Nostalgia lol.

Savegame Manager GX didn't seem to know what to do with just a savedata.bin on it's own, so I'm not sure if that's going to help. Homebrew Browser is throwing a fit with an unrelated error as well which isn't helping. I'll try the process again and see what happens.

[Guest]

I've not used Savegame Manager GX, does it not create a folder that's all numbers, and within it, the contents of the game's save data? I'd assume you could then just import save file the same way you exported, and select that numbered folder.

I guess I should probably install Ranch and check for myself...

[minervamagicka]

That's what it does, yeah, then when I load the SD card back into the console Savegame Manager GX detects that it's a Ranch save file right on launch and it asks me to install, etc, and it's when I go to launch that the error I described begins. Finding documentation for the app is hard so it might just come down to incompetence on my end, lol, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm using it wrong.

The other Savegame Manager on the Homebrew Browser is refusing to work so I suppose this is what I'm stuck with using for the time being, ah well. 

[minervamagicka]

Interesting side-development -- We use the same SD card to deliver CTGP (Custom Mario Kart Wii tracks) to our Wii. We decided to take a break from trying the Ranch saves by playing some of the tracks and CTGP wouldn't load either, citing something wrong with the SD card/our files. Hmmmmmmmmm...

Gonna reformat and see what could be up. Might just be the hardware after all, lol.

[Guest]

So wait, do you have SGM GX installed directly on the menu, or you're loading it through homebrew channel?

[minervamagicka]

Loading it through Homebrew Channel.

[Guest]

Yeah, I guess try and see if you can at least restore the original save file, once you've changed SD cards, and see if it works better then, if the SD card ended up being the culprit.

[minervamagicka]

Restored it perfectly fine to the backup using the same SD and SGM GX, Pokemon Ranch opens like nothing ever happened. I can only assume the program that does the save editing was doing something now, but at least it's loading correctly again. I'll try the method with a 'clean' copy of savedata.bin and see what happens.

 

EDIT (Just to not double post): Tried a different program to edit the Pokemon Ranch save file and tried  changing just one pokemon to my new Pearl trainer. Installed it and bam, the crash happens. Not really sure what's to blame now, my SD card seems okay and SGM GX seems okay too. This is just weird.

Edited October 24, 2019 by minervamagicka