[Sword & Shield] [ATTENTION!] Serious game-breaking bug in eShop versions!

[Mewtwolover]

Before beginning your adventure in the new Galar Region, you'd better take some precautions to avoid a game-breaking bug that's completely corrupting files in Pokémon Sword & Shield. The problem, reported by many players on Twitter and other sources, is related to the auto-save function. If you have downloaded games on you SD card, you might have to redownload them if this bug happens to you — which is incredibly annoying.

Basically, the best way to avoid this problem is to disable autosaves and only save manually. This also seems to only be occurring with the downloadable eShop version of Pokémon Sword & Shield — it's the version most players are able to get a few hours earlier. The bug occurs when the game crashes when attempting to autosave. After the crash, you'll be unable to access files on your SD card.

The Switch system will force you to reformat your SD card to make it usable again. Save files aren't stored on the SD card, but everything else will be lost — video, screenshots, and games you've downloaded or installed will be deleted in the reformat. It's incredibly annoying, and one of the worst Switch bugs I've heard about in recent memory.

Here's hoping Nintendo will step in and fix this bug fast. If you don't have online enabled, it might be a good idea to connect so you can download any patches coming down the pipe in the next few hours / days. Corrupting files is a pretty bad look.

I'd say that better wait until this is fixed before getting the games from eShop.

 

[an illegible mess.]

not surprised, honestly. wouldn't expect anything less from these games.

 

[Fairy]

Not a cute look, Nintendo..

 

[Starry Windy]

Uh oh... this reminds me of the news of that one bug in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, but much worse... It's definitely something Game Freak and co. has to fix, that's for sure.

 

[Sheep]

Thank you for letting me know, since I was about to start playing!! Was going to disable autosave anyway but will remember to do it right away. :x

 

[Nah]

Is there a reason why it's apparently only happening on digital versions of the game?

Still probably safest for everyone to disable autosave for the time being, until the patch comes out.

 

[Ivysaur]

Apparently, from what I've seen in Reddit, this happens to people using an exFAT SD card instead of the usual FAT32, specifically people with homebrew or hacked Switches. So, uh, until more evidence comes up, I wouldn't be too concerned about it.

 

[Iceshadow3317]

Good lord... I have heard of game breaking bugs, this is more of a system breaking bug. And these things are the reasons I continue to buy hard copies.

 

[Starry Windy]

Apparently, from what I've seen in Reddit, this happens to people using an exFAT SD card instead of the usual FAT32, specifically people with homebrew or hacked Switches.

What if someone uses exFAT SD card on non-homebrewed Switch, then? I hope Sword/Shield won't give this problem for them, as well.

 

[pkmin3033]

*pours more fuel onto the fire*

I can see this being patched within a week - they were pretty quick to patch the Lumiose bug back in XY, IIRC.

 

[Ivysaur]

Info here: https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSw...ent/f7k6le6?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x

 

[Mewtwolover]

What if someone uses exFAT SD card on non-homebrewed Switch, then? I hope Sword/Shield won't give this problem for them, as well.

They'll have this problem. It's shame that the ExFAT driver sucks like this because ExFAT is better than old crappy FAT32.

 

[JJ796]

That sounds awful, I guess avoiding this is the only good thing about not being able to afford the game lol
But seriously I hope they fix this quickly for all those who bought the digital version

 

[Sheep]

Recent sources have said this only happens for hacked Switches, AKA a very small minority of players, haven't they? I wouldn't worry too much. Disabling autosave is easy enough for those concerned anyways. Or has that been disproven also?

edit: Just checked the above article and I guess it's not just hacked systems that are affected. Regardless, with autosave off I'm hopeful I'll be fine.

 

[colours]

not gonna lie, this has put me a bit on edge from playing the games until either Nintendo or Game Freak puts out some sort of fix for them. x.x

 

[Nah]

not gonna lie, this has put me a bit on edge from playing the games until either Nintendo or Game Freak puts out some sort of fix for them. x.x

I wouldn't really worry too much about it, since turning autosave off will almost certainly allow you to ignore the issue entirely

 

[Zeiro]

It's a Switch OS issue, not a GF/Pokemon issue. It's been happening for months with Switch games (not just Pokemon, happened with Smash last year, too). It just surfaced again because of the negativity from SwSh and people want to give the games a bad rep. The game data is stored on the system, not the SD card, so if you DO get corrupted, all you need to do is redownload your software. It's actually safer to keep autosaves on because on the very slim chance it does happen you're going to lose a lot less progress if you were to turn it off. If you want to minimise your chances all you need to do is to format your SD card from exFAT to FAT32. Many people should have done more research before jumping ship, screaming that it's "game breaking:...

 

[Imperator161]

It's a Switch OS issue, not a GF/Pokemon issue. It's been happening for months with Switch games (not just Pokemon, happened with Smash last year, too). It just surfaced again because of the negativity from SwSh and people want to give the games a bad rep. The game data is stored on the system, not the SD card, so if you DO get corrupted, all you need to do is redownload your software. It's actually safer to keep autosaves on because on the very slim chance it does happen you're going to lose a lot less progress if you were to turn it off. If you want to minimise your chances all you need to do is to format your SD card from exFAT to FAT32. Many people should have done more research before jumping ship, screaming that it's "game breaking:...

You still lose screenshots/videos, though, as well as certain data, as far as I'm aware (Super Mario Maker 2 courses that aren't updated, for example, according to one discussion I saw). If I were to play the game and have this issue occur, and I've backed up my microSD card to my computer first, would I be able to just copy everything back? Or would I encounter problems? What about things that can't be redownloaded (I think this applies to a few demos, mainly)?

Alternatively, are there any consequences to simply taking my microSD card out of the system before playing SwSh, then putting it back in before playing other games (assuming I turn off the system first, and given that I have a physical copy)? Also, it does seem like some physical copies are being affected; why does the system even need to access (and potentially corrupt) the microSD card in those cases?

And yes, sure, maybe people are emphasizing this more given the negativity surrounding the release. And there are a lot of people playing Pokémon, so even rare issues are likely to be encountered and commented upon. But my impression from what I've reading is that this may be unusually common for these games (like with Pirahna Plant and a couple of other examples; by contrast, I don't recall hearing about this at all with, say, Link's Awakening, despite a lot of other complaints/negativity about things like frame rate and price). I haven't seen anything to definitively refute the idea that SwSh is more likely to trigger exFAT driver issues than other games so far, and there seems to be a lot of misinformation on both sides on places like Reddit, etc. So until definitive evidence comes out one way or the other as to whether SwSh is doing something to trigger this Switch OS issue at a higher rate than other titles, it seems prudent to proceed with some caution.