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Emulator Issues #12290

"Import Wii Save" fails if game has never been played

Added by pokechu22 7 months ago. Updated 6 months ago.

Status:
New
Priority:
Normal
Assignee:
-
% Done:

0%

Operating system:
N/A
Issue type:
Bug
Milestone:
Regression:
No
Relates to usability:
No
Relates to performance:
No
Easy:
No
Relates to maintainability:
No
Regression start:
Fixed in:

Description

What's the problem? Describe what went wrong.

Using Tools → Import Wii Save fails if the game being imported has never been played. A popup titled "Save Import" with the message "Failed to import save files." appears, and "Core\HW\WiiSave.cpp:456 E[CORE]: WiiSave::Copy: Failed to write header" is logged.

What steps will reproduce the problem?

  1. Move the existing Dolphin Emulator folder to some other name (so that a new, empty one is created upon launching dolphin).
  2. Start dolphin.
  3. Select Tools → Import Wii Save.
  4. Select a save file, such as this one for the US version of Super Paper Mario.
  5. Observe that the import fails.

Note that as long as the game has been started, even if creating a save file is declined (e.g. Super Paper Mario prompts for it), the Wii\title\00010000\52385045\content and Wii\title\00010000\52385045\data folders are created and the import works. The import seems to specifically be failing because data is missing; if only Wii\title\00010000\52385045 exists then the import fails but it works once data is created.

Is the issue present in the latest development version?

Yes, 5.0-12716.

Is the issue present in the latest stable version?

No, 5.0 works fine.

If the issue isn't present in the latest stable version, which is the first broken version?

Introduced in 5.0-7972 (PR 6988). Affects both DolphinQt and DolphinWx.

Logs from 5.0-7964:

12:29:692 FileUtil.cpp:206 I[COMMON]: CreateFullPath: path C:/Users/Pokechu22/Documents/Dolphin Emulator/Wii/title/00010000/52385045/data 
12:29:693 FileUtil.cpp:173 I[COMMON]: CreateDir: directory C:/Users/Pokechu22/Documents/Dolphin Emulator/Wii/title/00010000/ 
12:29:694 FileUtil.cpp:173 I[COMMON]: CreateDir: directory C:/Users/Pokechu22/Documents/Dolphin Emulator/Wii/title/00010000/52385045/ 
12:29:695 HW\WiiSave.cpp:156 I[CONSOLE]: Creating file C:/Users/Pokechu22/Documents/Dolphin Emulator/Wii/title/00010000/52385045/data/banner.bin 
12:29:695 FileUtil.cpp:206 I[COMMON]: CreateFullPath: path C:/Users/Pokechu22/Documents/Dolphin Emulator/Wii/title/00010000/52385045/data/wiimario00 
12:29:697 FileUtil.cpp:173 I[COMMON]: CreateDir: directory C:/Users/Pokechu22/Documents/Dolphin Emulator/Wii/title/00010000/52385045/data/ 
12:29:698 HW\WiiSave.cpp:330 I[CONSOLE]: Creating file C:/Users/Pokechu22/Documents/Dolphin Emulator/Wii/title/00010000/52385045/data/wiimario00 
12:29:730 FileUtil.cpp:206 I[COMMON]: CreateFullPath: path C:/Users/Pokechu22/Documents/Dolphin Emulator/Wii/title/00010000/52385045/data/wiimario01 
12:29:732 HW\WiiSave.cpp:330 I[CONSOLE]: Creating file C:/Users/Pokechu22/Documents/Dolphin Emulator/Wii/title/00010000/52385045/data/wiimario01 
12:29:753 FileUtil.cpp:206 I[COMMON]: CreateFullPath: path C:/Users/Pokechu22/Documents/Dolphin Emulator/Wii/title/00010000/52385045/data/wiimario02 
12:29:755 HW\WiiSave.cpp:330 I[CONSOLE]: Creating file C:/Users/Pokechu22/Documents/Dolphin Emulator/Wii/title/00010000/52385045/data/wiimario02 
12:29:781 FileUtil.cpp:206 I[COMMON]: CreateFullPath: path C:/Users/Pokechu22/Documents/Dolphin Emulator/Wii/title/00010000/52385045/data/wiimario03 
12:29:783 HW\WiiSave.cpp:330 I[CONSOLE]: Creating file C:/Users/Pokechu22/Documents/Dolphin Emulator/Wii/title/00010000/52385045/data/wiimario03

Logs from 5.0-7972:

14:06:196 FileUtil.cpp:206 I[COMMON]: CreateFullPath: path C:/Users/Pokechu22/Documents/Dolphin Emulator/Wii/title/00010000/52385045/data 
14:06:197 FileUtil.cpp:173 I[COMMON]: CreateDir: directory C:/Users/Pokechu22/Documents/Dolphin Emulator/Wii/title/00010000/ 
14:06:199 FileUtil.cpp:173 I[COMMON]: CreateDir: directory C:/Users/Pokechu22/Documents/Dolphin Emulator/Wii/title/00010000/52385045/ 
14:06:200 FileUtil.cpp:401 I[COMMON]: ScanDirectoryTree: directory C:/Users/Pokechu22/Documents/Dolphin Emulator/Wii/title/00010000/52385045/data 
14:06:206 HW\WiiSave.cpp:508 E[CORE]: WiiSave::Copy: Failed to write header

It creates Wii\title\00010000\52385045 only; the data folder does not exist despite the message.

What are your PC specifications?

  • CPU: AMD A6-340M APU with Radeon(tm) Graphics, 1500 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)
  • GPU: AMD Radeon HD 6520G
  • OS: Windows 10 Pro (Insider preview) 10.0.19042.541

History

#1 Updated by Anonymous 6 months ago

I might be wrong on this, but I believe this would be normal behavior as a real wii will not allow you to import save data from a SD card if the related game has not been played.

#2 Updated by pokechu22 6 months ago

JMC mentioned the same thing in #dolphin-dev:

2020-10-01 06:25:09     +JMC47  pokechu22: 12290 is invalid
2020-10-01 06:25:13     +JMC47  that's actually how the Wii works
2020-10-01 06:25:50     pokechu22       This is in Dolphin's UI, not in the Wii Menu.  I vaguely recall that being how it works in the Wii Menu but it's annoying for Dolphin
2020-10-01 06:26:06     +JMC47  yes
2020-10-01 06:26:10     +JMC47  we had to do it in Dolphin's UI
2020-10-01 06:26:16     +JMC47  because if you don't you corrupt the Wii NAND
2020-10-01 06:26:38     +JMC47  leoetlino: ^ you can explain why if you remember
2020-10-01 06:26:40     +JMC47  I don't
2020-10-01 06:44:00     Techjar yeah but doesn't betplay break that rule when copying the save from the temp nand back to the main nand?
2020-10-01 06:50:59     +JMC47  dunno
2020-10-01 06:51:03     +JMC47  probably
2020-10-01 06:51:36     Techjar i mean it doesn't seem to be breaking anything
2020-10-01 06:53:20     +JMC47  It breaks shop access
2020-10-01 06:53:25     +JMC47  and saving in certain games I think?

That said, I'm still not sure if that really means it's impossible to make importing work for Dolphin's UI (which is what I care about; doing it via the system menu shouldn't work if it doesn't work on console). And even if it is, IMO it should give a more explicit message along the lines of "Failed to import save: the game associated with the save has never been played." (Ideally, it would also include the name of the game, but I'm not sure if that's possible; I do think a game name is included in the save file since e.g. the Jodi save file has it changed from Lego Star Wars.) The current way it's failing doesn't make that particularly obvious.

#3 Updated by JMC4789 6 months ago

I mean, we bypass it for netplay, but that's because online services and the actual structure of the NAND doesn't matter that much for a single session like that.

I'm 99% sure we did this on purpose to prevent NAND corruption - games like Dragon Quest X do not function properly with any kind of NAND malfunction.

#4 Updated by Pikachu025 6 months ago

If you remove the check (or try to play Netplay, I guess), does this bug return: https://bugs.dolphin-emu.org/issues/10234 ?

#5 Updated by JosJuice 6 months ago

If I recall correctly, the issue is that save files don't contain a TMD that we can put in the NAND, and when TMDs are missing you can get the kinds of issues JMC is describing. I don't believe this has any relation to the Bolt issue, and I'm not sure if there is any issue with netplay. If there is an issue with netplay, that can probably be solved, but I don't think we can do anything about the save file importing issue that doesn't cause problems other than adding a clearer warning message.

#6 Updated by JMC4789 6 months ago

The missing TMD files result in things like online services in games failing.

I do not think we should be promoting behavior that actively puts the NAND in an impossible state. Even the homebrew save importers on console won't let you do this.

#7 Updated by pokechu22 6 months ago

What actually is responsible for writing the TMD? Does the game itself write it on startup (without actually giving a message about saving data), or does the system menu write it? If the system menu writes it, I assume Dolphin HLEs it when launching Wii games directly, in which case it might be possible to write the save file if the appropriate game is in the games list (but that might be a bit weird to do).

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