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Tech Help

Berry Glitch Fix - Page 1

Berry Glitch Fix

Posted by: Cryptic_Lynx
Date: 2015-02-06 15:07:55
Hey, I need some help with fixing the berry glitch.

So just a bit ago, maybe a few weeks, my brother decided he was tired of having "the battery run dry" in his Pokemon Ruby game and opened up the cartridge and replaced it himself. Game worked fine.
Just today, he said that the berries failed to grow, but with no warning upon startup. I attached my link cable to both gameboys and went through the directions of fixing it.
One thing that confused us was that when we did the step where you boot up Pokemon Ruby with Start and Select held down, nothing happened. Both gameboys just sat there without changing screens or saying that it was fixed.
Could this be a problem with the new battery mimicking the Berry Glitch, or has it actually been fixed and we don't know it?

Re: Berry Glitch Fix

Posted by: SatoMew
Date: 2015-02-06 15:36:10
You have to press START + SELECT when the GBA with Ruby or Sapphire itself is booting, not the game. You should hear a sound and the screen should display "GAME BOY" without "Nintendo" below it. At this point, the GBA with FireRed, LeafGreen, or Emerald should send the patch to the GBA with Ruby or Sapphire and display a message of success.

Remember that the FireRed/LeafGreen/Emerald game must be player 1 while the Ruby/Sapphire game must be player 2.

Re: Berry Glitch Fix

Posted by: Cryptic_Lynx
Date: 2015-02-08 13:32:52
How can I tell if I'm player one? Also, what screen am I supposed to hold Select and Start at? When I hold them down when the "GAME BOY" screen pops up, it makes a beeping noise and the "Nintendo" disappears, but it just sits there unless I press A. If I do that, it boots up like nothing happened.

Re: Berry Glitch Fix

Posted by: Stackout
Date: 2015-02-08 13:46:40
I'll quote a relevant post about this.


The Berry Program Update does nothing to help with cartridges in which the battery has been replaced. These games exhibit the same symptoms as the Berry glitch, but it is caused by the RTC being reset rather than the date conversion bug. If the save file timestamp is greater than the RTC value and the date is not in 2001, then the Berry Program Update will be Unable to update the Berry Program. If the RTC date is in 2001 (the battery was replaced between 1 and 2 years ago), the update will only change the date to 2002-01-02, which will still not fix the issue. For time-based events to resume after the cartridge battery is replaced, another method is needed to adjust the RTC, such as the tool on Furlocks Forest. The in-game clock adjustment function which can be activated through Mystery Events might also be able to help, but I havent investigated that possibility.

Re: Berry Glitch Fix

Posted by: SatoMew
Date: 2015-02-08 13:56:27

How can I tell if I'm player one? Also, what screen am I supposed to hold Select and Start at? When I hold them down when the "GAME BOY" screen pops up, it makes a beeping noise and the "Nintendo" disappears, but it just sits there unless I press A. If I do that, it boots up like nothing happened.


Does your link cable have something like P1, P2, etc. or A, B, etc. on its connectors? If so, you're player 1 if the GBA with the FireRed, LeafGreen, or Emerald game is using the P1/A connector of the link cable. The GBA with the Ruby or Sapphire game, to be player 2, must be using the P2/B connector.

I think the patch is sent automatically when you press START and SELECT. The "player 1" GBA tells you to boot "player 2" GBA by pressing the buttons; you do this and the patch should be sent. Does the GBA sending the patch even say if the patch was successfully sent?


I'll quote a relevant post about this.


The Berry Program Update does nothing to help with cartridges in which the battery has been replaced. These games exhibit the same symptoms as the Berry glitch, but it is caused by the RTC being reset rather than the date conversion bug. If the save file timestamp is greater than the RTC value and the date is not in 2001, then the Berry Program Update will be Unable to update the Berry Program. If the RTC date is in 2001 (the battery was replaced between 1 and 2 years ago), the update will only change the date to 2002-01-02, which will still not fix the issue. For time-based events to resume after the cartridge battery is replaced, another method is needed to adjust the RTC, such as the tool on Furlocks Forest. The in-game clock adjustment function which can be activated through Mystery Events might also be able to help, but I havent investigated that possibility.



Interesting, I didn't know this.

Re: Berry Glitch Fix

Posted by: Cryptic_Lynx
Date: 2015-02-08 16:03:03
Dang.

So, the cable wasn't in correctly, but like that quote says, it was "unable to update the berry program".

Re: Berry Glitch Fix

Posted by: Kain
Date: 2015-02-13 19:09:51
Hi everyone, have an idea.
I have a Pokemon sapphire cart that has the same problem that describes Cryptic_Lynx, the game has it's battery run dry and I'm about to replace it, but before i do that, I've investigated if it works as easy as should be… and no… After a long goggling i found this article  so once again i returned to lurk this forum, but not anymore because i just joined ;)

One comment on that tread calls my attetion:



Thing is, I don't have the hardware to extract and send save data from and to retail cartridges.


You can use a phat DS/DS lite with a flashcart and the GBA Backup Tool homebrew.


The recommendation  that Wack0 do is using a DS (lite or fat/first ones) to dump save data, which you can potentially use to do the synchronization of RTC data via cheats on an emulator and dump your save data on cartridge again. The cons i see on this method is that you must to know the specific addresses for setting a cheat code that moves your RTC near the 2000/01/01 date (After a year you should do the berry program update again). The pros on this solution are that you make a backup on the process, so, if something went wrong you can still restore your backup. The cons are that you must have some knowledge on the RTC address on your save file.

On the other hand this article speaks of one solution that uses a GBA flashcard and a process that i found very questionable: swapping cartridge for flashcard on the fly while console is on. which potentialy would corrupt/kill your save file, (and no one want's that for his 998 hours pokemon save :o) once you take the risk you can easily change the clock via RTCread program. The pros on this method is that you have an easy tool to do the RTC clock setting directly on your cartridge. The con as i have pointed it out is that you potentially risk your save file.

That article also does an interesting "slashed" comment: but I'm sure I could port it to the DS if necessary. I'm not a programer but i think that doing an application for a DS flashcard could be a better viable solution, one that combines the ability of the GBA backup tool to write and synchronize the save on the  Pokemon cartridge and the easiness of the RTCread program, without the risks of losing data. but i fear this part of the article is slashed for a reason, because as far my search i haven't seen such application for NDS.

In my opinion, first method is much more viable but my programing knowledge is not that good, but if someone can do such homebrew for the DS it could be a much better option for everyone.