Help with corrupted Pokemon Sun save file

[Nabillio]

I've been playing Pokemon Sun on my homebrew'd 3ds. It's been working without problems the entire time except today I am suddenly greeted with a message saying that my "save file is corrupted". I haven't used any cheats or done any save file editing so I have no idea what the reason could be.

I unfortunately don't have any backup files before the corruption.. but when I try backing up the corrupted file now using checkpoint it crashes the 3ds in progress, bjt somehow still manages to create the main.sav file. There's no problem with backing up other games though.

I have tried using this backed up sav file on pkhex but it doesn't open it because of the corruption.

Through some research I stumbled upon this SaveFile Tool Fix program created by theSLAYER in these forums. It recognizes that backup file as SM file but it doesn't allow me to click on Standard Fix button... not sure why.

So my question is: Is the save file lost forever, or is there a way to salvage it still? Only thing I can think of is hex editing, but I have no idea where to start.

 

Any help would be really appreciated!

[theSLAYER]

Hey, upload said save here. Would look at in in due time, thanks

[Nabillio]

Hey, thanks alot!

Here's the file

main

[theSLAYER]

32 minutes ago, Nabillio said:

Hey, thanks alot!

Here's the file

main 431.5 kB · 0 downloads

how did you extract this file? It's completely a garbled mess, which shouldn't be the case.

[Nabillio]

All I did was use checkpoint to back it up and then moved it from my SD card to the PC. But like I said during the backup process the 3ds crashes everytime I backup the game but upon restart the backup file is still somehow made.

This is what it says when backing up

[theSLAYER]

5 hours ago, Nabillio said:

All I did was use checkpoint to back it up and then moved it from my SD card to the PC. But like I said during the backup process the 3ds crashes everytime I backup the game but upon restart the backup file is still somehow made.

This is what it says when backing up

I’m guessing that Checkpoint either couldn’t decrypt it in time, or maybe the decryption led to the crash, so in effect the file just looks like a garbled mess.

Try using JKSM to extract the save, and see how it goes.

[Nabillio]

Okay I'll give JKSM a try.

Though due to my current situation I can't access my 3ds until the weekend... So I'll update then.

[Nabillio]

Hey! @theSLAYER

I extracted the save with JKSM, it worked fine, didn't crash. Now atleast PkHex recognises it and I can see all my pokemon there. So I guess the file isn't completely corrupted.

I still have problems using the SaveFileFixTool, all the options are unclickable for some reason.

I'll send the file, hopefully you'll be able to figure out the problem. Highly appreciate the help!

main

[theSLAYER]

If PKHeX can read the save just fine, I'll like to think nothing is wrong with the save.

Restore this file to your game with JKSM. When you're importing the save, make sure it is named main (with no extensions, with nothing else in the name), and also make sure it's the only file in the folder.

If it still doesn't work then we've got to do something else.

[Nabillio]

Hey, I tried your suggestion... and it kinda worked but not really. The game starts now and I see my save file but the play time says 0:00. When I continue it plays the music but the screen is completely black and I can't close the game, have to shut down the 3ds.

Other data like name, pokedex, z-stones, mystery gifts seems to be correct.

Any other solutions?

main

[Nabillio]

Hey @theSLAYER

Have you had the time to check the file yet? Just wondering if you've managed to find any solutions?

I understand if you're busy, no need to hurry.

Thanks!

[Nabillio]

Bump

 

I've tried messing around with pkhex trying to fix this file. Still having the same problem. I went through all the details, compared the data between other non-corrupted files, changed block data etc. but nothing seems to be working.

Most of the data is correct. For some reason 'adventure time' as well as 'last save date' were reset. The checksum at first was invalid (was showing error in regions 10 & 15) but after putting a random adventure time and last save date it is valid again. Also the data for festival plaza and pokebeans is reset. I've also tried confirming if the map position could be faulty, I've tried changing the coordinates without any success.

I'm not sure what else could I do. I'd appreciate it if you could check to see if you find anything? Thanks!