Loading stability and crashing issues

[JCnator]

Loading stability and crashing issues [RESOLVED]

Well, for the fourth time within 2 months (clocking around 200 hours of gameplay), my game suddenly decided to crash on me during the loading screen once again, before a yellow train or blue boat icon even appear for confirming the game is actually loading the next area. Sometimes, the screen stays black all the time before I completely shut down. The other times forced my Japanese 3DS to reboot due when a failsafe was triggered.
When you consider that my game failed to initiate the loading sequence at least twice a month, that is already worrying, especially if you have done a lot of progress before it happened. Oh, and for some arbitrary reason, you're unable to save on the island.

I have exactly no idea why it is occuring at this rate, yet I think this might be due of a stability problem when the game is about to load the next area, especially considering the way the game is programmed is pretty complex.
Maybe it's the way the game loads an area is poorly programmed.
Maybe the digital version is somehow less reliable than a physical copy of the same game, but I don't really know because I didn't own a physical copy.
Or could be it due of my Lexar's 4GB SDHC card that was included on my North American 3DS giving me trouble?



If you guys happen to own a copy of Animal Crossing New Leaf (or Tobidase Doubutsu no Mori), how many times did the game crashes on you? What SD card are you using? Are you using a physical or digital copy of the game? How long did you played the game? Well, describe as much as you can what you were doing before the game crashed. I also posted this thread on another Animal Crossing forum I regularly visit, in case you noticed it.




EDIT: My issue's resolved since I performed a System Transfer to my newest JPN 3DS. Believe it or not, it was my old defective 3DS that caused me countless of crashes on New Leaf.

 

[Haihappen]

Have you contacted Nintendo about the problem?

 

[JCnator]

Nope. Because I imported the Japanese version of both my 3DS and ACNL, I would have to call at Nintendo of Japan's Consumer Service. And my insufficient (at the moment) Japanese skill wouldn't help me either.

 

[Zen]

Not sure what it is about, really. So far all the problems in this game such as yours tend to be with the digital distribution. I haven't seen/read a problem with the physical version just yet.

I'm attributing it to the SD card for now. If it was the game, it would be more widespread and possibly on the physical carts as well.

 

[JCnator]

So far, it seems like it's due of my SDHC card being less reliable than I expected. I now decided to switch from my Lexar 4GB SDHC card to Toshiba's 2GB SD card that was included on the original Japanese 3DS. I'll play it for at least 2 more months to see how many times the game would crash afterward, and then switch to my 16GB SDHC card and play the game for 2 more months. Once I'm done on testing the SD cards, I'll stick with the one that is the most reliable.

 

[ZedameX]

Someone was having a crashing issue (was fine at first but as time went on the frequency increased) till they copied all the data off then reformatted their SD card into the to whatever file format that the 3DS likes the most (FAT32?), tho I'm pretty sure 99.9% of SD cards are formatted as such.

Neither of my two games have crashed yet, digital copies, both on included SD cards.

 

[Mz_D]

For the 8 weeks I've been playing I've never had a crash on my copy. I also have a FAT SD card.

I think there was a bit of a scandal earlier in December about some copies of the game having a saving issue. I hope your copy isn't one of those and it's just an SD card thing.

 

[JCnator]

Well, my 4GB SDHC card has always been formatted in FAT32, and can't be formatted to FAT16 (or FAT according to Windows XP), because it exceeds the limitations set by the older FAT. Of course, my Japanese 3DS supports it, but my downloaded version ACNL tend to crash at least twice per month (and perhaps even more often if I had the game running on my 16GB SD card). So, FAT16 appears to be a bit more reliable in "theory" for the 3DS system.

The 2GB SD card that are bundled with standard 3DS systems are usually formatted in FAT16. That's where I now moved my Japanese 3DS files on there, and I'm yet to see if it improve the reliability. I wonder if the 3DS XL systems solved the problem with FAT32-based SD cards...

 

[Mint]

Lexar you say? The SD card I was using when I lost two of my towns to corrupted saved data was a Lexar 32GB SDHC card.

 

[JCnator]

I went back to my original 2GB SD card formatted by FAT16 (FAT in Windows XP). And you guessed it right, my town crashed once again! And that's while the yellow train icon was there and then froze for a bit, before an error message appears. As I searched over the Internet, it seems that FAT32 is a bit more reliable than FAT16, even though Nintendo of America states otherwise.

Guess I'll have to create a backup from the 2GB SD card, and then reformat it to FAT32. I'll see how this may resolve my trouble...
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January 15th 2013


Wow, just wow... My town crashed for the sixth time today, 3 days after I formatted that SD card into FAT32. When it happened, I was playing online with two other players in my town with the "Best Friends" function activated and my town has quite a lot of bushes, flowers, trees, and whatnot. Actually, it occured a bit after the screen faded out with a message telling that someone is about to quit my town.
When I booted the game again, I still met Resetti. Yep, powering off during online gameplay will still call the angry mole (or makes Shizue commenting on that if you haven't built the RSC), as opposed to the previous Animal Crossing outings. I wonder if disconnecting by flicking the wireless switch off is possible, but I'm fairly certain that you'll be sent back to your train station without too much fuss.

Most of the other towns I visited are usually less jam-packed than I do. It might be due of the complexity of my town for raising the crash rate over time. Or perhaps my Japanese 3DS struggled to maintain the data transfer between itself and the SD card.
I never had any trouble involving SD cards on my North American 3DS systems I ever owned. I never had a game downloaded on a SD card that ever managed to crash at least once. Seems like that my digital copy of ACNL in my JPN 3DS is my only 3DS game that develop such a nasty habit of crashing over time.

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January 18th 2013


My 7th crash has just occurred, 3 days after the previous one. Today, there was a lot of loading screens in my town, and the game decided to screw me again when I was trying to enter R. Parkers. Apparently, the more often I load an area, the more likely it's going to crash.

In case you were wondering if I do get an error message, this is what it looks like almost every time my game decides to crash (in Japanese).

Spoiler

I'm not skilled enough in Japanese to understand the kanjis, but I can tell it's very similar to what Link's Awakening DX freeze glitch would trigger. I'm going to assume that the problem doesn't come from my SD cards. I got them since August-October 2012, and they are supposed to be in perfect condition. Either my downloaded game is allergic to multiple loads or my Japanese 3DS must be somehow defective. Have you tried to load an area a lot of times until the game crashed on you?