"Unable to read game data"

[Tomoe Hotaru]

and it was the same on different systems? hm..
How do the contacts of the cartridge look? If there is no visible damage I would really look into other ways to read cartridges or if someone offers a service to transfer save files. I mean the town is on there but the system can?t read it, maybe there are tools for backing up your save file?
At least you can guess what the issue is now, so that limits the research. If its a hardware failure then I guess other people must have had this issue too (maybe not necessarily with NL)

 

[Nunnafinga]

It could be that the motherboard on the game cartridge went bad.If this is the case,the save data is still there but the cartridge itself is unplayable.This happened to one of my cartridges a couple of years ago.I bought a digital copy from Nintendo and was able to transfer my save data from the bad cartridge to the digital copy.I can't say for sure if this is the problem but it's a possibility.

 

[stitchmaker]

Main town from 2013 was popping out of the 3DS and than had problems with saving and leaving the home screen.
I bought a WELCOME Amiibo Cartridge and placed it in the old 3DS. Started it up and it has the option to import town. Picked that and it looked for a digital copy. Said no to that. It than gave me instructions to remove the WELCOME amiibo cartridge and place the old ACNL cartridge in. In 2 minutes everything moved and than it asked me to put the WELCOME amiibo cartridge back in again. A minute later and it was completed.

I did lose all the showcase house but everything stayed the same. I'm not sure if it will work for you but it might save your town.

You could call Nintendo for help. My very old 3DSXL was having problems reading games. Said they weren't there but when I loaded them they worked. It turns out it was the SD card. With Nintendo help I replaced it and everything works fine now.

 

[Reginald Fairfield]

Is calling Nintendo customer support an option?

 

[Tomoe Hotaru]

It could be that the motherboard on the game cartridge went bad.If this is the case,the save data is still there but the cartridge itself is unplayable.This happened to one of my cartridges a couple of years ago.I bought a digital copy from Nintendo and was able to transfer my save data from the bad cartridge to the digital copy.I can't say for sure if this is the problem but it's a possibility.

That?s really interesting, thanks for sharing!

Main town from 2013 was popping out of the 3DS and than had problems with saving and leaving the home screen.
I bought a WELCOME Amiibo Cartridge and placed it in the old 3DS. Started it up and it has the option to import town. Picked that and it looked for a digital copy. Said no to that. It than gave me instructions to remove the WELCOME amiibo cartridge and place the old ACNL cartridge in. In 2 minutes everything moved and than it asked me to put the WELCOME amiibo cartridge back in again. A minute later and it was completed.

I did lose all the showcase house but everything stayed the same. I'm not sure if it will work for you but it might save your town.

You could call Nintendo for help. My very old 3DSXL was having problems reading games. Said they weren't there but when I loaded them they worked. It turns out it was the SD card. With Nintendo help I replaced it and everything works fine now.

Thanks for sharing! (I?m way too interested in the outcome of this as a bystander ^^II but hey the topic is important to every 3ds owner really...)
May I ask what happened to the old cartridge? Does it still have your save file and do you guess it would be still playable if the cartridge wasnt damaged?
When/How do you get the option to import your save (if you know)? Just when you put in the cartridge first or should it also work as long as you don?t have a town on there?

At this rate (if the save file stays on the old cartridge but you can duplicate it to the new one) I might look into getting a welcome amiibo copy and transfer my town onto it for some extra safety. If you have the option to import the save to the WA cartridge as long as you don?t have a town on it, I could just delete the copy of my town from time to time to "update" it.
Though that would probably enable easy cheating so nintendo probably made it so the old save data is deleted in the process...

 

[stitchmaker]

The import town is on the load screen. It's where you pick a new town and it's the last thing on the list. I used a new welcome amiibo cartridge and didn't have a town on it. Once you transfer the town the import your town doesn't show up on the new cartridge.

The old cartridge gets erased after it moves. I never tried using the old cartridge since it had problems and no point in making a town if I lost things later. I've moved other older digital towns to the Welcome Amiibo cartridge. With the spare digital towns that got erased I made new weeding/perfect fruit towns. It's a place that I can get signatures done and catch bugs/fish when needed.

Yes Nintendo support is very helpful. They said if I had problems or was worried about transferring old 3DSXL to a NEW 3DSXL give them a call back. They said they would do step by step instructions until I had the transfer completed.

 

[Tomoe Hotaru]

Thanks for answering all my questions!
Too bad the original gets deleted but I had imagined so since it would be an easy way to duplicate items.
Also nice that you found a way to make use of all the extra copies^^ a weeding town is something everyone needs considering that most people have the beautiful town enabled and don?t even get any weeds. I?m working on the flower set right now and it?s annoying to see my town overrun with all these weeds for months....I really hope they find a solution for this in the switch game

 

[Chem]

So if I'm interpreting all of this correctly, I can buy a copy of ACNL off the E-shop, and I'll have the option to transfer my town?

 

[Tomoe Hotaru]

Yes, based on the other comments you can either get a digital copy or the welcome amiibo cartridge (not the old). Those will give you the option to transfer your savegame. However, we can?t tell you if this will work with your damaged cartridge because the system needs to be able to read the data to import it.

If it were me I might try to get a used welcome amiibo cartridge and try it out. In case that one couldn?t read my savegame I would contact Nintendo customer service, tell them what happened and ask if they could transfer my savefile to the new cartridge if I send them both cartridges. (maybe their repair-team has a way to do that and even if there is no real "warranty" on your old cartridge, the new one should allow you to transfer your game so if it doesn?t work thats definitely a reason to try and contact customer service)

At least it can never hurt to ask so I would try to get nintendo customer service involved if you cant transfer the data. Personally I?d get a physical cartridge because you can buy them used for pretty cheap, you could send it to a spechialist/nintendo if there is someone who can transfer savedata for you and it has resell value unlike a download. But that?s just my opinion and I really dislike to download any game ^^II

 

[Chem]

Yes, based on the other comments you can either get a digital copy or the welcome amiibo cartridge (not the old). Those will give you the option to transfer your savegame. However, we can?t tell you if this will work with your damaged cartridge because the system needs to be able to read the data to import it.

If it were me I might try to get a used welcome amiibo cartridge and try it out. In case that one couldn?t read my savegame I would contact Nintendo customer service, tell them what happened and ask if they could transfer my savefile to the new cartridge if I send them both cartridges. (maybe their repair-team has a way to do that and even if there is no real "warranty" on your old cartridge, the new one should allow you to transfer your game so if it doesn?t work thats definitely a reason to try and contact customer service)

At least it can never hurt to ask so I would try to get nintendo customer service involved if you cant transfer the data. Personally I?d get a physical cartridge because you can buy them used for pretty cheap, you could send it to a spechialist/nintendo if there is someone who can transfer savedata for you and it has resell value unlike a download. But that?s just my opinion and I really dislike to download any game ^^II

What's so special about the Welcome Amiibo version? Is it just the base game with the update, or something more?

Why would there be a transfer option? I'm confused as to why someone outside of a damaged cartridge situation would buy the welcome amiibo version when they already have the game.

 

[xWENDYx]

The old ACNL is not compatible with the new ACNL Welcome Amiibo.
The updated welcome amiibo games will not allow the older version (ACNL) to visit their town.
So if you have the old version ACNL and have not updated it you can not go to any town of the newer Welcome Amiibo version.
If you do not have access to WIFI but wish to upgrade your ACNL game to the new welcome amiibo version you can buy a new cartridge and it will allow you to transfer your town data to it but it will delete the town from the old cartridge in the process.
The advantage of the newer version is to allow the use of the amiibo cards and figurines with your game.

 

[stitchmaker]

What's so special about the Welcome Amiibo version? Is it just the base game with the update, or something more?

Why would there be a transfer option? I'm confused as to why someone outside of a damaged cartridge situation would buy the welcome amiibo version when they already have the game.

Some players bought it because they didn't have room for the update on their SD cards for the older 3DS. The NEW Welcome Amiibo game has the update on it so you don't have to download it. Only time you would need to add the update is if you play an old ACNL copy.

 

[Chem]

I'm going to purchase the game as soon as possible, and I'll send a reply once it comes in.

Thank you all so much for your help. I hope this works.

 

[Tomoe Hotaru]

Wishing you the best of luck, I really hope you can save your town so keep us updated!

 

[Ably.Saucey]

Everything's normal up until the "preparing your town" sequence starts. Then it loads for 'bout a second, and the "unable to read data" message appears. I'm then sent back to the main screen, where I see a new town. If I turn off my game and try again, I see my town again, and the cycle continues.

Your town will load when you update, mine was showing a different town too before I updated, then when I updated it was back to normal.
It just shows a different town before it can get to the data on your cart, you need to load the update, it shouldn't hurt you town.

 

[Chem]

The cartridge just arrived. ~Time to try it out.

 

[Chem]

So I selected import town, and it told me to insert the other cartridge. I did, and nothing happened; Just the usual main menu. So I went back to the Welcome Amiibo cartridge, and it searched for town data. ~The search came up empty.

I then went back to the original cartridge, tried to load my town, and of course it gave me the "unable to read data message", and returned me to the main menu, showing a different town.

I then tried pressing "A", and I was greeted with "Your sava data is corrupted. Delete data now? " Nonononononono

I'm guessing this is even worse than the previous situation. What now?

 

[Fantasia]

You could always try changing out your system's SD card on the off chance that the corrupted data is the small amount stored on that rather than the cartridge itself. Have you tried inserting the cartridge into another device to see if this may be the case? Regardless, I'm so sorry this has happened. I wish there was something I could do. Feel free to PM me if you ever want to rant or reminisce or talk about it. *internet hugs*

Edit: I just saw that you tried it with another SD card ... Errr, I know a guy who is um, can we say a bit dodgy (but as legit as dodgy comes) who hacks stuff for relatively harmless purposes. I've been to his town a few times and he has houses and bridges and bamboo where houses and bridges and bamboo shouldn't be. I know he's able to access and manipulate save data on cartridges somehow, so if you'd like I can shoot off a message to him, and maybe, just maybe he might be able to salvage something from amongst the corrupted data. Even if he says yes though, I would definitely exhaust all your other options first, because though I don't know all that much about hacking, I figure that if he bricks it it'll most likely be gone forever :/

 

[suiriri]

Are the cartrige's contacts okay? You can clean them with a q-tip and some alcohol (prefer the ones with a higher percentage)

You could also check the cartrige's circuit board, but I have no idea if it's possible to open the casing without damaging it permanently.

 

[Tomoe Hotaru]

I would not try any more dangerous things and contact nintendo?s customer service directly. Ask them if there is a way for them to access the data and transfer it to the new cartridge you bought if you send them both. If the answer is negative, try to find people in your area or just anywhere who offer that. I don?t think no one ever had this problem so maybe someone spechializes in it?
At least I would try nintendo first because it?s their product and they should know best. If they can?t help I would seek other professionals. The good thing is that both versions are pysical. No matter where the person is that you choose to help you, you?d just need to package both copies well and send them there.