PKHex opening Japanese Crystal save as a corrupted mess

[pokemario0411]

Hello, I tried opening my Japanese Crystal save as I've done many times before without issue, but this time instead of opening my save its showing a corrupted US save with the name "JUI" and a bunch of random illegal Pokemon in a box of only 20 slots. My old saves still open just fine, but any saves I backup now open as this. I backed up the save using a GB operator and never had this issue before, and the save still plays normally on my cartridge and on any emulator. I don't have any other way of backing up GB games so I'm stumped trying to find a fix. Any idea if it's a save file issue or a PKHex issue?

[Kaphotics]

File type detection briefly inspects the data to guess what game/language it belongs to. Seems it passed the English Crystal heuristic and was therefore assumed as such. 

Does this still happen if you save in a different map, after changing boxes to another box in game? 

If that isn't a valid workaround, I can possibly add a branch of code where if it passes both, then it checks the checksums too, but that would be a compromise that impacts manually edited files to no longer being recognizable (if they also end up clashing) hence maybe needing a more detailed detection heuristic.

[Soul DS]

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If that isn't a valid workaround, I can possibly add a branch of code where if it passes both, then it checks the checksums too, but that would be a compromise that impacts manually edited files to no longer being recognizable (if they also end up clashing) hence maybe needing a more detailed detection heuristic.

A bit off-topic but I was wondering, seeing this post and the Black save file being recognised as an HeartGold save file from a few weeks ago in another post, but why isn't there a manual game selection option in PkHex for such cases? Bugs if incorrect types were to be selected/not easily accessible for users? (in addition to ultimately not solving the heuristic issue?)

[pokemario0411]

1 hour ago, Kaphotics said:

File type detection briefly inspects the data to guess what game/language it belongs to. Seems it passed the English Crystal heuristic and was therefore assumed as such. 

Does this still happen if you save in a different map, after changing boxes to another box in game? 

If that isn't a valid workaround, I can possibly add a branch of code where if it passes both, then it checks the checksums too, but that would be a compromise that impacts manually edited files to no longer being recognizable (if they also end up clashing) hence maybe needing a more detailed detection heuristic.

Changing the map didn't work but changing the box worked! Might happen again though so a permanent fix would be appreciated. Thanks for your work as always.

[Kaphotics]

28 minutes ago, Soul DS said:

A bit off-topic but I was wondering, seeing this post and the Black save file being recognised as an HeartGold save file from a few weeks ago in another post, but why isn't there a manual game selection option in PkHex for such cases? Bugs if incorrect types were to be selected/not easily accessible for users? (in addition to ultimately not solving the heuristic issue?)

The double-game savefile issue is moreso an emulator issue, as it will never happen on actual hardware. 

The currently implemented heuristics have been "good enough" for years... I did recently rewrite the save detection logic a couple months ago to have a spot where it can be manually overridden: PKHeX/PKHeX.Core/Saves/Util/SaveUtil.cs at master · kwsch/PKHeX

With a new game releasing in a week, I can try to fit in something. Maybe something like "hold alt when opening a file; if a save is what you loaded, it will open an override UI where you can change the detected type => load".

[Soul DS]

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The double-game savefile issue is moreso an emulator issue, as it will never happen on actual hardware.

Wouldn't have fully suspected that, as I would have more expected the save file being "altered" this way leading to the game itself consider it as corrupted, the more you know.

 

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The currently implemented heuristics have been "good enough" for years...

That's a bit the thing with heuristics, especially in Pokémon where games are made out of a bunch of unique game data varying by save file, it's hard to narrow down elements so that's not that surprising.

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Maybe something like "hold alt when opening a file; if a save is what you loaded, it will open an override UI where you can change the detected type => load".

As long as the command to access it either makes sense or is explained in advance (can be checked by users without discovering the comment on a forum post), it could work.