Hacking GBA Backup Tool won't inject my Pokémon Emerald save file

[BarrelRoll34]

Hello,

I recently acquired an authentic Pokémon Emerlad cartridge and I've been trying to inject an old save file I was playing on emulator. The thing is when I inject the save file and load the game, the save doesn't appear and forces me to make a new game.

So for the context:
- I am using a weird bootleg R4 called R4i Gold Christmas Edition. The GBA Backup Tool works fine on it and I've been able to dump my save files from Pokémon Sapphire and Emerald. The latters are correctly read by PkHex.
- When I dump the original save file from the cartridge and I make an edit on it with PkHex, the reinjection will also fail. I've been able to recover the original save file, the injection works with it, so my setup seems to work.
- The rom I was previously playing on is the original game in the same language as my cartridge (French).
- I have changed the battery of my cartridge. So there's maybe some RTC incompatibilty or some other weird phenomenon.

I tried to manipulate the RTC with PkHex to make it the same as the original dumped save but it didn't solve the problem. Well if a slight edit on the original save file makes the the injection fail, it seems RTC is not in the equation but we never know... For the record, I put my save files in the post in case someone wants to try some things or to check them.

I am quite lost now. If anyone has a clue on what's going on or had the same issue and solved it, I would be happy to hear your advices. Thanks !

 

[cluesagi]

I was able to get the save working on my GBA Everdrive flashcart. I'm not sure if this will help, but try injecting this save.
Are you 100% sure it's an authentic cartridge?

 

[BarrelRoll34]

I was able to get the save working on my GBA Everdrive flashcart. I'm not sure if this will help, but try injecting this save.
Are you 100% sure it's an authentic cartridge?

100% sure it’s an authentic one yes.

Were you able to make it work on a rom or on a real cartridge by injecting the save as I was trying ? Because yeah there’s no problem with the save file by itself, it also works on VBA, it’s really the injection process that seems to fail…

I’ll try those saves tomorrow, thanks for the help

 

[cluesagi]

Were you able to make it work on a rom or on a real cartridge by injecting the save as I was trying ?

I don't have a French copy of Emerald so I can't try it on a real cartridge, but the Everdrive should work identically to a real cartridge. It actually didn't work at first, but when I adjusted the French Emerald rom's settings and tried again it did work. Then I saved in-game on my GBA and that's the save I sent to you.

 

[BarrelRoll34]

I don't have a French copy of Emerald so I can't try it on a real cartridge, but the Everdrive should work identically to a real cartridge. It actually didn't work at first, but when I adjusted the French Emerald rom's settings and tried again it did work. Then I saved in-game on my GBA and that's the save I sent to you.

Sooo the injection didn't work with your save... It is very weird that I am still able to inject the original save file though, I will continue my investigations...

Edit: Well I tried a simple thing: copying the save file that worked with the tool and trying to inject it with exactly the same file name and format, and it didn't work. The tool only works with the damn untouched original file. I'm starting to believe the issue comes from my flashcart that is unable to properly write on my cartridge. WHat the hell

Edit 2: HAHAHA I WAS ABLE TO MAKE IT WORK !! So I figured out that the way my flashcart was dumping and restoring save files was pretty unstable because it's a bootleg R4. In order to inject a new save file, the way I found to make the slightest touch to the original dumped file was to open it with an hex editor, copy the hex code from the file that I wanted the save and paste it on the code of the original dump, and then directly save the file by overwriting the original. I inject this newly coded file and it worked. What a surprise