6th Gen 3DS Locked Up When Saving...?

[UltraXTheMagmaDrapion]

Click here to skip my story and go to the main paragraph.

So I decided that this year, having just graduated from school at the end of November, I would dedicate myself more to the franchise I so passionately adore. I would finally actually make an effort to catch 'em all, and then begin building competitively viable teams with which to compete online. Additionally, Hoenn is my favourite region and Generation 3 my favourite generation. So I got Pokemon Omega Ruby for Xmas (or rather, the Nintendo Store credit to download it with), and began playing. I was reduced to quiet tears, seeing my favourite region reincarnated so beautifully.

I played slowly -- I tediously EV trained each Pokemon I adopted into my team through Super Training, and made certain to have captured every available Pokemon in an area before moving forward. Not that it really matters here, but I was appalled to find the game was so easy. It saddens me that GameFreak puts so much effort into these games, with rich worlds, extra details in remakes like ORAS and complex battle systems with EVs, IVs, natures, metagames and other aspects that perplex most casual players, only to still aim it at an audience that can't even truly appreciate all that and leave the audience that can and does feeling ripped off.

Anyway, I eventually, after having pumped 49 hours into the game, reached the Weather Institute. How in the hell did I take 49 hours and not even make it to the sixth badge in that time? Let's just say I like to explore and take in everything, and also had some bad luck while trying to capture all the Pokemon up to that point. Not to mention the amount of time Super Training took with a 5 Pokemon team. Back on track -- I made my way up to the second floor of the Institute, defeated the two grunts and saved before approaching Tabitha. I saved at the tile before the tile between the two parts of the wall between the player and Tabitha.

At this point, my 3DS locked up. The music continued to loop, but the saving did not finish after a few seconds like it should have and the little rotating circle indicating that it is saving was stationary. I waited a fair while, and still got nothing. The Home button didn't work, nor the soft-reset combo, nor any other buttons. I was forced to hold the power button to escape the situation -- the first time, the screen went black but the music continued to loop. After a short wait to see if this was significant, I tried again and managed to turn the device off.

Needless to say, my save it corrupt. I'm very upset, as it put a lot of time and energy into that save and was quite satisfied with my team. I'm reluctant to delete my corrupt save and start over in case there's anything I can do -- even though there probably isn't. I read online in a few places that when this happened to others, they fixed it by moving the files off of the SD onto a computer, then moving them back, after which it worked again. I can't really see how that would fix the problem from a technical standpoint, but I'm going to try anyway -- I've ordered a card-reader online and am waiting for it arrive sometime in late January so that I can connect my 16 GB SDHC card and try this 'solution'.

Anyway, does anyone have any input? Is the Weather Institute known to potentially corrupt saves? Has this happened to any of you there, or anywhere else? Can anyone confirm this apparent fix? Does anyone know of other possible fixes I can try in the meantime? What do you guys think about anything/everything I've said?

Thanks for reading and responding, all :)

requested by OP:

What I am messaging about, however, is adding an addendum to my OP. For the sake of others with this problem in the future who may turn to the internet for solutions, I would like to document on that thread that the transferral of data from the SD to a PC and then back will not fix it, and that Nintendo is not willing to compensate if contacted. Additionally, my save corrupted twice more after the first time, and I now have a suspicion that it has something to do with closing the lid of the device without exiting the game first -- people should be careful of that.

 

[Volga]

The same thing happened to me with my first copy of Y, but I tried all I could and nothing would fix it.
I even tried to start a new game and anytime I tried to save after that, it would save, and when I start it up again, the save would be corrupt. I had to buy a new copy (it was physical, not digital).

Unfortunately, when a save goes corrupt, there's usually no way to fix it.

I'm assuming that with your post, it's digital, not a physical copy, right?
Wait for your SD card reader to come in, try that, and see if that works. If not, try deleting everything OR related, of your 3DS and SD Card, then re-download it.

 

[UltraXTheMagmaDrapion]

The same thing happened to me with my first copy of Y, but I tried all I could and nothing would fix it.
I even tried to start a new game and anytime I tried to save after that, it would save, and when I start it up again, the save would be corrupt. I had to buy a new copy (it was physical, not digital).

Unfortunately, when a save goes corrupt, there's usually no way to fix it.

I'm assuming that with your post, it's digital, not a physical copy, right?
Wait for your SD card reader to come in, try that, and see if that works. If not, try deleting everything OR related, of your 3DS and SD Card, then re-download it.

Yeah, it's a digital copy.

 

[Pepperton]

I'm extremely sorry about what happened to your save file. Sounds like something you should call up Nintendo/Game Freak about, as you may receive some compensation. Otherwise, there isn't much I can say to help you; Google is a much more intelligent entity than I. I hope you find a way to make up for this lost data, but I'm going to close this. There's a thread for questions here, and use that in the future if you have game-related questions.