Cartridge got knocked out mid-play. What do I do?

[NicoShaytan]

After I put it back in and started up the game, I realized it had just turned 9 and I had lost the blue hydrangea start I had bought, so I save and quit to turn back the time.

It tool five terrifying minutes to save. Is there anything I should do to make sure this doesn't happen again, or not often? I don't want my game to corrupt!!

I haven't been time traveling, my dream town isn't all that popular, and this has never happened before... I've heard you should take out your cartridge and SD card and leave the 3DS off for a while, so I'm doing that now. Anyone know if this will work, or if I should do something else?

ETA: For anyone who was actually concerned, my save file is fine. I would still like to know, though, if there is a way to avoid corruption beyond saving correctly (not hitting the power button or ejecting the cartridge while saving). There are some old threads in this forum that say sometimes corruption just happens. I'd like to avoid that.

 

[DJStarstryker]

I haven't been time traveling, my dream town isn't all that popular, and this has never happened before... I've heard you should take out your cartridge and SD card and leave the 3DS off for a while, so I'm doing that now. Anyone know if this will work, or if I should do something else?

The 3DS isn't a toaster. It's basically a little specialized computer. Doing that won't change any corruption or lack thereof just by letting it sit unused for a while.

The best thing to do is reboot the 3DS (turn it off and then turn it back on). Then try reloading your save. If things work OK at that point, you are fine. If you can't load your save, the file probably got corrupted and the best thing to do would be to delete that save and start a new town. If starting a new town doesn't work, then data on the cartridge itself got corrupted and all you could do is buy another copy of the game.

 

[NicoShaytan]

Alright, thanks. I'll put it all together, load the game, and hope for the best.

 

[QueenOpossum]

I'm glad your cart and save are fine.

but quick question: why ETA? the only match i have for that is "estimated time of arrival"...

 

[1milk]

the more you eject the came card and sd card, the more worn those slots will get so i wouldnt take them out every minute.

 

[Suyeon]

An occasional knock from the slots shouldn't render your game unusable - unless you have an unlucky day. I've dropped my 3DS on tile a few times by accident and the game dislodged from the slot (was still in the slot, but a message about the game being removed did occur). I restarted, lost that day's progress (since I don't have Resetti center), but managed to save like normal. Didn't notice any glitches in particular. Just try to be careful in the future. Accidents do happen, and most Nintendo products are Tonka-Tough (or made with Nintendium lmao) to take a good beating. They have to be, given that the intended player demographic is mostly children - IIRC, one of the original brick gameboy's [the grey one] survived a bomb raid from the Gulf War and is still playable.

There's not much you can really do to prevent corruption beyond:
- save before ending your gaming session
- after saving, properly close the software (home button/pad, close the game all together)
- try to avoid drops in the future
- if you're not a hacker, don't start now; try to enjoy the game without altering the code to do things it's not meant to.
- 9/10 corruption can happen through no fault of the user, even if they do things properly. Sometimes updates (firmware or game updates) don't go well, sometimes internet access is unstable and stops a multi-player session... You never really know with these things.

 

[MorningStar]

In my experience, having the game cartridge eject without properly turning off the game or saving it does nothing more than lose you the progress. I'd actually be more concerned about the 3DS than the cartridge becoming damaged, but I've found that those consoles are sturdy little things that can take a pretty good hit... Not that I recommend experimenting with that.

My guess would be that the reason it took so long to save was simply because it was the only time you tried to save after having the game end in a bad way. Hitting HOME and shutting the game off, or shutting the console off, or even having the battery die (which does the same thing as shutting the console off) ends the game naturally; when a console shuts off after battery drainage, it ends all processes. The game getting knocked out isn't like that. It was probably just trying to figure out what happened last time.

On an only somewhat related note, I've occasionally had the game take three to five minutes to save, too. It's jarring at best and terrifying at worst, but generally I find that you'll discover a problem with your save file upon loading up the game with Isabelle, not saving and quitting. You should be okay.