Emulator

According to Skidau, this does not occur in the PAL version. It appears to be NTSC only.

I tested the NTSC-J version with Dolphin 4.0-2208 just now. It reaches the main menu screen, but the emulator crashes upon entering the name in a new file (probably some sort of memory access violation when saving data).

I'm guessing the same kinds of issues afflict all 3 versions of the game. I wonder why NTSC crashes earlier though.

Moreover, it seemingly depends on the hardware. I've tested the same version of Majora's Mask with the same Dolphin build in different computers. In my personal laptop, it crashes right after exiting the options menu or entering the file name (in other words, trying to save any changes); in the desktop I use in the lab, it says to return to Wii Menu after the spinning N.

Having a savefile already in Dolphin/importing it and not saving works around the issue for a while. Can someone who understands wtf goes on with saving look at this?

Saving on Wii is handled by WII_IPC_HLE_Device_FileIO.cpp etc. You might be able to get a better idea of what's happening by using the Info log level in a debug build, and comparing what happens with/without a save.

This doesn't work on the NTSC version, and I've only been able to get a save for that and the PAL version. The PAL Version works with the save file. I'd love to try this on NTSC-J, but I can't find a save for it.

Oh yeah, I didn't mean to ignore your comment. I'll do exactly as you said and try a debug build.

can you share the save file, it would be nice so i can practice this game more efficiently. cant use n64 emulator since it has slightly different timing/lag, for me both us and jap versions crash when creating a new game :(

I've swapped 00000001.app between the NTSC and PAL version of Majora's Mask (using ShowMiiWads) NTSC seems to boot alright! It runs at 20FPS. It's got the same problem with new save file just like PAL though.