Hall of Fame Data/Backups

[Cass]

I was messing around on a B2 file using HxD, specifically in the Hall of Fame data block (offset starts @ 74000). After changing some PIDs and species, I booted the file and the changes presented correctly. Then I decided to update the HoF backup data (offset 75800) with the same information, but when I booted the file I was given the "HoF data is corrupted" message. Anyone know why this is? Or why editing the backup specifically caused this to occur? Information on how exactly the save file backups work on DS games is useful/interesting to me.

 

Also, I tried this same thing on a Plat and Emerald save file, and got the same results. That is, edits that were made to the main HoF file were reflected in-game, but the HoF data corrupted once I edited the backup hex data.

[theSLAYER]

You need PKHeX to fix the checksum. You can't just edit the stuff at the offsets, you need to fix the checksums governing the save.

And PKHeX does that. Just load the edited save into PKHeX, then export the save from PKHeX.

[Cass]

Hmm, I tried uploading to and exporting from PKHeX, and the same result occurred in B2 and in Plat (HoF is corrupted). When I tried with Emerald, however, it worked just fine! My only theory is that altering both the main and backup in HxD is to blame, as Gen 3 savs don't have the backup for HoF data.

How is the "backup" portion of the DS save files updated? Using that information, would it make sense to fix the checksum by uploading a file where only the main save has been edited, then performing a save in-game to update the backup and checksums?

[Cass]

Quick update to this:

Gen 4: Updated both Plat and HG using the HoF extractor from this site, and then uploaded/downloaded each file with PKHeX before starting the files in emulator. Platinum updated properly, correcting both the main and backup portions of the .sav and displaying HoF correctly in-game. For the HG file, not only did the edits not display correctly in-game, but the save data corrupted if I attempted to correct the backup portion of the .sav before uploading/downloading with PKHeX.

Gen 5: HoF data still corrupted after correcting the backup in the .sav, then uploading/downloading with PKHeX.