ALL *.GCI files corrupted

[cammelspit]

So out of nowhere while playing Wind Waker it for some reason went nuts and told me the GCI file was corrupted and the size didnt match the header. Now NONE of the GCI files are loading. Wind Waker was OK cuz it just overwrote the old one and now that is fine but now dolphin will not even load my Mario sunshine save at all. Giving me the same error and refuses to load the GCI. Is there a way to ignore this and force it to load because I know beyond a shadow of any doubt that this file is unchanged from when it worked A little over 3 hours ago. I am using 4.0 7717 on Windows 10 Pro. I run a Q9400 Overclocked to 3.61 with a GTX660 graphics card.

Please and thank you for any help!

BTW the mempry card manager won't see the GCI files either invalid size.... In case this helps any.

[LPFaint99]

really need more information
are you using GCI folder or Memory Card ? (Config/Gamecube)
Memorycard manager is only for raw memory cards, individual *.gci files will not load

screenshot of the error would be nice, maybe upload a couple of saves

[cammelspit]

(09-17-2015, 05:21 AM)LPFaint99 Wrote: really need more information
are you using GCI folder or Memory Card ? (Config/Gamecube)
Memorycard manager is only for raw memory cards, individual *.gci files will not load

screenshot of the error would be nice, maybe upload a couple of saves

My apologies I assumed it was evident. I am using GCI folder. since the memory card manager can import GCI files into a memory card image my attempt was to import them into a fresh memory card file and again to no avail. When the initial issue occurred in the top left of the screen where dolphin would normally show stats and such in yellow text the emulator acted as if it were saving every single file. Saves were listed so that is the reason I know there must have been some sort of bug I unwittingly uncovered. ALSO, since I have a rather large number of saves dolphin will only load saves from the GCI folder until a limit is reached? Well, I must have been a few past this limit because a couple, 4-5 GCI files at most, were untouched and still usable. Unfortunately none of these happen to be the one I ACTUALLY care about, of course.   I am not a stranger to some minor HEX editing and such, id there a way to know what the expected size SHOULD be in the header? Because I would go into it and replace with the correct value. I simple dont know enough about gamecube saves or the way dolphin handles them to have a clue where to start. All the saves are not really important except for my WindWaker and StarFox Adventures. I had a state already for WindWaker but for StarFox I do not. I do have all the GCI files themselves and could load them to my dropbox and post a link if that would help.

Edit: Missed u asking for the files so here they are... https://www.dropbox.com/sh/j3aiilr91nm4ht8/AAD600eAkEIQ0yqag5ACoEw7a?dl=0
The untitled PNG is what it says when I try to laod it now but I have no way of knowing how to replicate what happened originally. Any more details please don't hesitate to ask!

[LPFaint99]

I assumed it was GCI folder, but it helps to be specific so no assumptions are needed, I'd hate to give bad advice because of a misunderstanding

the error message is showing that the filesize (0x40) or 64bytes doesn't match the header recorded size (0xE040) or 7blocks + header or ~56kb
The header itself is 64bytes, each block is 0x2000 bytes

you have many saves that are only the headers, I could only speculate what happened to them,
if it an issue with dolphin, it would be tremendously helpful to be able to reproduce it to track down the cause.



Restore backups of the saves if you have them, otherwise you could try file recovery software. Unfortunately, I don't think there is much else that can be done


*edit *
re:too many saves: There shouldn't be an upper limit to the number of saves, it should handle that case

(09-17-2015, 05:41 AM)cammelspit Wrote: When the initial issue occurred in the top left of the screen where dolphin would normally show stats and such in yellow text the emulator acted as if it were saving every single file.

here's the issue, though I'm not sure why it would save all of them.
unfortunately, this is indeed a bug in the gci folder the save blocks aren't loaded until the game actually reads them (just the headers)
whatever caused them all to be saved had the side effect of only writing the headers

My thought is that something the game did rewrote the headers of all the other saves, and there is no sanity check to make sure that the saveblocks have been loaded into memory

[cammelspit]

I, unfortunately, have absolutely no recent backup. I have more or less retired my Wii as a Netflix box in the living room for my 3 year old so the only saves I can get arent even CLOSE to what I have on my dolphin. A real Wii is where I got most of them in the first place, off my memory card I have had for over ten years now. Is there any sort of difference in the GCI file generated by a GameCube GCI manager on real hardware VS what dolphin does that may have revealed a rare use case? I have moved saves back and forth to and from many time in years past.  As far as speculating what the game may have been doing? Well, It was in Wind Waker just after completing the Wind Temple. Long ago before dolphin used GCI folders I periodically would have an image get corrupted or damaged somehow so I had seen the corrupted memory card warning from in WW before. It came up and then a dolphin dialog came up telling me the header of the WW save was the wrong size and asked if I wanted to load it anyways, or maybe if I wanted to overwrite it? I am so sorry I didnt have the wherewithal to stop right there and start video recording. I believe I selected no at first but an endless loop asking the same question kept occurring. All were in reference to the same WW GCI file. I finally just succumbed to the error for fear of losing one save and said yes after that, as I said before, the whole top left was packed with line after line of writing saves and I recognized that each line was from a different game and different save file name. As far as I know the game itself wasn't doing anything untoward or unexpected but I simple so not have the expertise to do any more than detail what happened as thoroughly as I can.

It's not like I haven't lost saves before so I am not too butt hurt here but I guess God hates me and as punishment he wants to forever keep me from FINALLY finishing StarFox adventures.   My biggest concern is to try and help you all track down a seemingly rare problem but alas, I may not be of much more help if I can't figure out a way to replicate it.

Either way, I wholeheartedly appreciate you looking into this in the first place and if I can think of anything or if I can replicate it in any similar way I will be SURE to let you know and I will try to get screenshots and record it if possible.

THANKS!

[AnyOldName3]

And you've tried using something like Recuva?

[cammelspit]

(09-17-2015, 11:19 AM)AnyOldName3 Wrote: And you've tried using something like Recuva?

It's been at least 2 days now so I am quite sure most are gone now... Never really had much luck with software like that but I think I will try, at least for my StarFox save. 

[cammelspit]

Hey guys, it did it again... This time there were no warnings about corrupted memory cards and the WW save saved normally. this time I had only a WW, Mario sunshine and a capcom Vs SNK save. The sunshine did get messed up but the Vs save was left untouched. I had a backup so I didnt lose anything this time. It's strange just yellow text saying my sunshine save has been written and then bam corrupted again. I know this may not be the place but maybe dolphin could implement a save backup feature? keep maybe the last 3 or 4 saves and fall back to the last modified version if there is a problem loading the current one. It's funny, WW is the only game I have seen to something like this and I am sure so many ppl have played this through on dolphin over the years this should have come up before. Either way I just finished WW an hour or so ago so I wont be playing it again for some time but I WILL keep an eye out if any other games do this too. Just thought I would let you all know.

[cammelspit]

Hey, LPFaint99 I would like to personally thank you for not only helping me out with nailing what the issue was but also for spear heading the process to fix it. A more general Thank you to all the dolphin devs for all your work and for the helpful nature you have all shown to me and to this community of hobbyists. Good on ya guys and gals, good on ya!