Help requested with Omega Ruby .sav-file

[jorikdeporik]

Hi everyone, I've recently dusted of my 3DS and started playing a digital copy of Omega Ruby. About 15 hours in, I was unpleasantly suprised by the 'Your save data is corrupted'-screen whilst booting up - can't recall anything weird happening during the last save. I've been trying to see how far I could get in recovering the file, and what gives me hope is that it does load in PKSM on the 3DS itself, showing the correct data (Dex, boxes, badges, etc.). However: trying to open it on my computer in PKHex gives the following error:

I've now kinda reached the edges of my own capabilities/know-how in these matters, I think  So if anyone could take a look at the file and see what could be wrong, that would be greatly appreciated!

00000001.sav

[Dybala]

Do you have a copy of the old one? The "sav" file is obviously too big.

[jorikdeporik]

34 minutes ago, Dybala said:

Do you have a copy of the old one? The "sav" file is obviously too big.

What do you mean by "old one"? The sav-file is the one I found in the designated folder on the SD-card - it's my first time working with these kind of files, didn't know what the expected file size had to be. Attached in this reply is the main-file PKSM created as a backup, is that any help? Already big thanks for looking into this by the way!

main

[Dybala]

3 hours ago, jorikdeporik said:

您说的“旧文件”是什么意思？sav文件是我在SD卡上的指定文件夹中找到的-我第一次处理此类文件，不知道预期的文件大小应该是多少。此回复中附有作为备份创建主文件 PKSM，这有帮助吗？顺便说一句，非常感谢您对此事的关注！

國際 472千字节 · 3 次下载

The file format is correct, and by comparing it to some normal "main" and "control variables" your file is not seriously damaged, but I don't know how to fix it, and can only hope that your "pksm/backup" has more backups in it and is undamaged.

Since "pksm" recognises the "main" file, it probably means that the data recognised by "pksm" has not yet been corrupted.

[jorikdeporik]

Hmm, that's a pity, since I've only discovered PKSM and the options for back-up in general after the initial corruption  I have a hunch that maybe it's got something to do with the internal clock: when I started the game, I noticed the 3DS was set to some twenty years in the future. I've corrected this in the settings and started a new save, but I still see that the sav-file has a "last edited" data somewhere in 2047 - not sure if this has any effect on the corruption though.

 

Thanks for your help anyway, and maybe someone else would be willing to take a look. Otherwise I'm afraid I'll just have to accept the loss and start a fresh save - including my newly-discoverd back-up tooling.

[jorikdeporik]

@Kaphotics, I see your name popping up a lot in other topics where people have similar problems - would you be willing to take a look? Would be greatly appreciated! 

[Kaphotics]

Raw files on the SD card are encrypted per-console and have their own file-structure. Hence why the size/filename is different.

You need to use homebrew to access the "main" save file. You should never manually manipulate/use the files on the SD card.

[jorikdeporik]

21 minutes ago, Kaphotics said:

Raw files on the SD card are encrypted per-console and have their own file-structure. Hence why the size/filename is different.

You need to use homebrew to access the "main" save file. You should never manually manipulate/use the files on the SD card.

Thanks, that's now clear to me! And I've located the main-file, attached. @Dybala looked into that file, and saw it didn't appear to be seriously damaged, but couldn't find/fix the problem why it isn't recognized by the game anymore (it does load in PKSM). Would you be willing to take a look for a second opinion? 

main

[Kaphotics]

If the checksums are valid in PKHeX, then it's likely you manually manipulated/restored an old file on the SD card directly. If you delete your save data and recreate it (on the 3DS), then restore your old save file (with homebrew) then it should work. 

The console has tamper protection, hence why you can't restore backups without homebrew.

[jorikdeporik]

1 hour ago, Kaphotics said:

If the checksums are valid in PKHeX, then it's likely you manually manipulated/restored an old file on the SD card directly. If you delete your save data and recreate it (on the 3DS), then restore your old save file (with homebrew) then it should work. 

The console has tamper protection, hence why you can't restore backups without homebrew.

I'm gonna try that this evening, but I'm not sure that's it: the main-file loads in PKSM, but not in PKHeX (same error as when I tried to load the sav-file). And I got the message that my save data was corrupted before I did anything on the SD card. But thanks for you help anyway, and maybe it will work nonetheless! I can probably use Checkpoint best to restore the file then, after creating clean save data? Sorry for all the questions, quite new at this 

[Kaphotics]

PKHeX checks for more things than PKSM to give early warning of corruption, rather than just loading if the size is correct. 

Your save file's footer is invalid. Use a hex editor to copy the last 0x200 bytes from another working save file and replace your save file's last 0x200 bytes with it. Then, open and export with PKHeX.

More specifically, offset 0x75E00 is expected to be "BEEF", while yours is 0 (uninitialized).

[Dybala]

1 小时前，Kaphotics 说：

PKHeX检查的内容比PKSM多，以便提前发出损坏警告，而不仅仅是在大小正确时加载。 

您的保存文件的页面脚注无效。使用十六进制编辑器从另一个正常工作的保存文件复制最后 0x200 个字节，并用它替换您的保存文件的最后 0x200 个字节。然后，使用 PKHeX 打开并导出。

更具体地说，偏移量 0x75E00 预计为“BEEF”，而您的偏移量为 0（未初始化）。

I see, thank you very much for the method, can I ask about the Pokémon archive data structure on the Internet there is no relevant guide!

main

[Kaphotics]

PKHeX is open source, read the source code or step through with a debugger if you must understand how it works. There's way too much to describe to waste time writing guides and wikis for every single file format and interaction.

X/Y's format is described here, for both the raw save archive and main:

https://projectpokemon.org/home/docs/gen-6/xy-save-structure-r82/

[jorikdeporik]

10 hours ago, Dybala said:

I see, thank you very much for the method, can I ask about the Pokémon archive data structure on the Internet there is no relevant guide!

main 472 kB · 2 downloads

Hi @Dybala, is this attached file including the fix suggested by @Kaphotics?  Then I'll try this evening! Otherwise I'll try to fix it myself with a hex editor.

[Dybala]

5 hours ago, jorikdeporik said:

Hi @Dybala, is this attached file including the fix suggested by @Kaphotics?  Then I'll try this evening! Otherwise I'll try to fix it myself with a hex editor.

You can open this "main" with "pkhex" to see if this is your archive.The "main" is what I changed based on a suggestion from "Kaphotics".

[jorikdeporik]

It's working again! Loaded in PKHeX, and the exported save was recognised correctly on the 3DS itself again. Thanks a million for the help, @Dybala and @Kaphotics!