GBA Pokemon Ruby, PKHeX edited file can't be put back in the cartridge

[CiroonBush]

Hi, I've seen this problem posted before, but none of the solution in that post helped me, so here I am.

I recently bought an authentic Italian GBA Pokemon Ruby cartridge with live battery. I wanted to have a shiny mudkip to start my journey, so I tought that Pkhex might be the easiest solution.

 

Just like the other post, these are the steps I've followed until now:

I put the Rubycartridge in the NDS lite slot 2, and there is a R4 in slot 1. With GBA Backup Tool on R4 I backuped the save, took it to my laptop and edited by using PKHeX (the .sav file). Since I only had Mudkip, I only changed his shininess, without touching the bag, events, etc etc. After this, I exported the SAV, pasted it back to the memory card, then restore the edited file from R4 to Rubycartridge. 

I've been editing for a while on pkhex, so I expected it to work.

But this time, it doesn't work on this Ruby game. After I start the game, it says only that "game files have been cancelled" and prompts me to start a new savefile.

I have checked the edited SAV on PKHeX, which all things are still after edited, but somehow this SAV can't be overwritten on the cartridge.

 

Just like the other post, I tried:

1) to use "rtcread" to edit the time to the current time and to 01/01/2000;

2) To restore the .sav that i first exported to my PC (the UNedited one) and that is written on the cartridge just fine;

3) To open the unedited savefile on mGBA on my laptop, in order to get mudkip with cheats, but it doesn't even let me save. Once i save, it just puts me back to the title screen, like I hit A+B+SELECT+START, a softreset.

Any idea on how to fix this? For now I'm shiny hunting the old way, but since I just bought a GameBoy Micro and want to get on with the adventure, I'm a bit impatient

[ERNESTO JG]

On 4/14/2024 at 6:34 AM, CiroonBush said:

Hi, I've seen this problem posted before, but none of the solution in that post helped me, so here I am.

I recently bought an authentic Italian GBA Pokemon Ruby cartridge with live battery. I wanted to have a shiny mudkip to start my journey, so I tought that Pkhex might be the easiest solution.

 

Just like the other post, these are the steps I've followed until now:

I put the Rubycartridge in the NDS lite slot 2, and there is a R4 in slot 1. With GBA Backup Tool on R4 I backuped the save, took it to my laptop and edited by using PKHeX (the .sav file). Since I only had Mudkip, I only changed his shininess, without touching the bag, events, etc etc. After this, I exported the SAV, pasted it back to the memory card, then restore the edited file from R4 to Rubycartridge. 

I've been editing for a while on pkhex, so I expected it to work.

But this time, it doesn't work on this Ruby game. After I start the game, it says only that "game files have been cancelled" and prompts me to start a new savefile.

I have checked the edited SAV on PKHeX, which all things are still after edited, but somehow this SAV can't be overwritten on the cartridge.

 

Just like the other post, I tried:

1) to use "rtcread" to edit the time to the current time and to 01/01/2000;

2) To restore the .sav that i first exported to my PC (the UNedited one) and that is written on the cartridge just fine;

3) To open the unedited savefile on mGBA on my laptop, in order to get mudkip with cheats, but it doesn't even let me save. Once i save, it just puts me back to the title screen, like I hit A+B+SELECT+START, a softreset.

Any idea on how to fix this? For now I'm shiny hunting the old way, but since I just bought a GameBoy Micro and want to get on with the adventure, I'm a bit impatient

If your Pokemon Ruby cartridge is original you should not have any problems restoring your .sav.
Upload photos of your cartridge
If it is a Copy/Bootleg, the .sav is saved in ROM

[CiroonBush]

4 hours ago, ERNESTO JG said:

If your Pokemon Ruby cartridge is original you should not have any problems restoring your .sav.
Upload photos of your cartridge
If it is a Copy/Bootleg, the .sav is saved in ROM

Here are the photos. Please don't tell me it's a bootleg

EDIT: Damn I just saw the white inside the "Pokèmon" writing... def a fake?

Edited April 15 by CiroonBush

[theSLAYER]

It’s missing the “windows” looking icon at the top left on the back of the cart. Yeah it’s fake.

 

Read:

 

[CiroonBush]

5 hours ago, theSLAYER said:

It’s missing the “windows” looking icon at the top left on the back of the cart. Yeah it’s fake.

 

Read:

 

I was trying to follow this tutorial, but once I take my .bin file and I take it to bootleg pokemon gba extractor and injector it says that he doesn't detect any save...?

I got my starter, checked my boxes and saved twice, so I don't know what's the problem... I even tried both version 2.0.2 and 2.0.0 of the extractor/injector

[theSLAYER]

then perhaps your save is saved differently or something.

[theSLAYER]

So summary of the conversation:
1. Definitely bootleg cart
2. Using GBAbackup tool to dump and restore unmodified saves (at that point) works fine [save not stored in ROM]
3. When viewing save in HxD, the save appears to be mutated.
4. With further testing, it appears the game expects to load a mutated save.
5. By using PKHeX on the save first (first partition of save is fine), then copying the block at offset 0x0 to 0xDFFF and paste overwriting to 0x10000, then subsequently restoring the save, the PKHeX edited save was loaded by the repro cart. I imagine the cart reads the save starting from 0x10000 but who knows. [we tried with an unedited save but rearranged to be not-mutated, didn't load]
6. I advised that one either may not be able to beat Elite 4, or could beat them but won't have the HOF records.

In any case, the steps:

Quote

(1) Export save from gba backup tool
(2) Modify the save in PKHeX then export the save
(3) Load the save in HxD
(4) Select Block range 0 to E000 [Control E]
(5) Copy Range
(6) Go to Offset 10000 [Control G]
(7) Paste Overwrite Range there [Control B]
(8) Save the file
(9) Restore modified file into cart.

Issue is now resolved

[dragonkin95]

Pokehex and save editors aren't a good idea from personal experience. Even if you dont make any singificant changes to your save file, opening it in the editor then saving will still change the save file internally. I did this once with an old save file and when i tried to do RNG manipulation with it its internal frame/RNG coordination was changed or something and i could not hit the target frame at all.

If you want a shiny you could RNG manip it on an emulator using a lua script without performing any intrusive changes to the save file. Its pretty easy and fun to do if you know what you are doing and shouldnt take more than 20 minutes.