Everdrive GBX5 not loading all saves made on EverdriveGB

[Mcheza]

I've just got a new EverdriveGBX5 and a couple game saves aren't working.

I'm using the same SD card that I was using in my EverdriveGB, and all I did was add the GBCSYS folder and copy the SAVE folder out of EDGB and into GBCSYS.

All of the files have a .srm extension, and most of the save games loaded up properly in the GBX5.

I'm having trouble with two games:, F-1 Race and Shantae. Both started without showing my save, and both created a new files in the SAVE folder when I switched to another rom. The folder now looks like this:

SAVE\F-1 Race.srm (the original, 32kb)
SAVE\F-1 Race.SRM (8kb)
SAVE\Shantae.srm (the original, 32kb)
SAVE\Shantae..SRM (8kb (notice the double ..)

Looking on my PC, I can't delete the new 8kb files, in explorer or in the command line, I get errors that the files don't exist. I've run disk check/repair and nothing. I can't even delete the SAVE folder because it says the files that don't exist can't be deleted. I've even reformatted the disk and recopied from a backup to start over and I ended up in the same situation.

As a test, I loaded the rom (without starting) and then manually loaded the original save files into SRAM, and voila, my saves appeared in both games. I also played ahead in each game, and my new progress still gets saved as I switched between games.

I assume the new progress is being saved in these 8kb files, however, I can't open them or back them up. Opening the original files in a hex editor, it's obvious that they're barely using 512 bytes, let alone 8kb or 32 kb. I can verify that the original files aren't being updated as they still match my old backups and do not have the new progress. I can also verify that if I manually save the SRAM to a new file, and open it up in a hex editor, the new file does have the new progress.

Is it possible that there's a bug in the FAT LFN support? The only thing I can think of is that I rename all of my roms to remove all of the romset tags, and both F-1 Race and Shantae are shorter than the old 8+3 filenames.

I want to both continue my in-progress games and both be confident that they'll save properly and that I'll be able to backup the saves.

Tomorrow I'll see if making the names longer helps.

[KRIKzz]

Is it possible that there's a bug in the FAT LFN support? The only thing I can think of is that I rename all of my roms to remove all of the romset tags, and both F-1 Race and Shantae are shorter than the old 8+3 filenames.

Yep, this is LFN bug in FAT core. I found this bug few days ago, probably it exists on most of modern everdirves. Will release fixes for this soon. Bug appears if name length is 8 symbols or shorter and if at same time name contains symbols in upper and lower case. In other words if name is short enough for 8x3 name format, but fat record stored in LFN format

[FeverDrive]

So the solution to this is just to use names longer than 8 characters?

[Great Hierophant]

I have always had the same issue with Shantae in that the save would write as Shantae..srm.  Similarly, on my ED N8, Zelda 2.nes would save as Zelda 2..srm.  The EDs would read and write these saves, but Windows would complain that it could not find the file.  I always thought it was some weird incompatibility with my SD cards, now I know it isn't.

[Mcheza]

So the solution to this is just to use names longer than 8 characters?

At the moment, that seems to be a workaround. If your roms are named according to GoodSet or NoIntro, with the country information, you'll probably never hit this. But it's something to keep in mind for everyone upgrading from a GB to GBX and wanting to use the same card/roms/saves - if the file names are too short, saves won't load automatically and you'll have to manually load them, and even then you'll end up with a new, corrupted save on the disk when you switch games.

I took the time to de-dupe my collection, removing alternatve versions, hacks, and non-English games and also cleaning up the names. Worked fine on my regular EverdriveGB, but the big appeal of the GBX is the fast loading, esp. for a large games like Shantae.

I'm just going to hold off on playing those affected games until the fix is ready. In the meantime I'll have to reformat my card and restore from a backup to get rid of the corrupted files.

I always doule-check my saves, I had similar problems moving from an EZ-Flash IV to a EverdriveGBAX5, the everdrive refused to load my Yoshi's Island save and I ended up having to start over.

[Estil]

How does the old Everdrive GB compare to these new X3/X5/X7 flavors?

[Mcheza]

How does the old Everdrive GB compare to these new X3/X5/X7 flavors?

Loading times are much faster, as advertised. I usually only get to play in short spurts, so not minimizing the time spent loading a new game is great.

At first I wasn't sure about having the button that you squeeze in the cart to go back to the menu - I thought it would be too easy to bump so I turned it off. Then as I started testing my game saves I decided to try it out, and it actually is much nicer than having to cycle the power between games. It might get pressed accidentally if you leave a game running in your pocket or bag, but otherwise I think it takes a firm enough press that I'm not worried.

Haven't had it long enough to judge the power usage, other than to say I don't see the power light turn red as often while loading/saving games.

I also specifically only bought the X5 and not the X7 - while save states might make some games easier, I decided I didn't really need them. As for the RTC, there really are only a couple GB games that use it, and none I want to play hard enough with the RTC features to warrant the extra cost. I've already played Pokemon Crystal a bunhc in the past without an RTC and I didn't feel like I was missing anything critical.

Also I do like to play on a GameBoy Pocket at times, and I was too excited to wait for Krikzz to release a new hardware revision of the X7 that addresses the power issue. The X5 boots fine on my GBP, though sometimes on the first cold boot I have to turn it back off and on again for it to load (giving the power time to warm up). After that first boot, using the button to get back to the menu works fine for me.

Overall I'm very happy with the upgrade, I'll probably put my regular EverdriveGB into a spare GameBoy and take it to work.

[Mcheza]

Is it possible that there's a bug in the FAT LFN support? The only thing I can think of is that I rename all of my roms to remove all of the romset tags, and both F-1 Race and Shantae are shorter than the old 8+3 filenames.

Yep, this is LFN bug in FAT core. I found this bug few days ago, probably it exists on most of modern everdirves. Will release fixes for this soon. Bug appears if name length is 8 symbols or shorter and if at same time name contains symbols in upper and lower case. In other words if name is short enough for 8x3 name format, but fat record stored in LFN format

Any idea when we might see a fix for this? In my collection alone I have 73 GB and 34 GBC roms with 8 or less characters in the name. Not all of them have saves, but it's hard to start a new game knowing I'll have to reformat my SD card to fix the corruption.

[KRIKzz]

Just fixed it

[Mcheza]

Just fixed it

Awesome! I'll have to try it out when I get home from work.

[Mcheza]

It didn't work exactly as expected, but it works!

I now get the following:

ROM	SAVE
F-1 Race.gb	F-1 RaceSRM
Shantae.gbc	Shantae.SRM

Neither game loaded my old save automatically since they were named differently - I had to load them into RAM manually the first time. Otherwise the new files save/load just fine and don't give me errors when trying to make backups on my PC. No more corruption!

Thanks!