Can't Pick Up Chao from Tiny Chao Garden

[ExtremeDude2]

Does it connect, but refuse to transfer? Have you tried the latest versions of both emus?

[w4r10]

Has anyone been able to solve this? The VBA link works perfectly transferring to and from SADX. The Chao transporter in SA2B recognizes that a GBA is connected, but doesn't show any items or Chao to pick up. I'm having the same issues as the other posters, and went through the same processes.

[Infinite Josh]

I was about to post a picture showing my issue but it's pretty much identical to w4r10's attached picture. Dolphin was 5.0-7038 x64 and VBA-M was v2.0.2 x64 for Windows. Same deal with D. 5.0-6467 and VBA-M 1490, though the latter didn't cut out my PC's audio every time I loaded a rom unlike v2.0.2.

I want to note that I first encountered this exact connection issue in SA2:B with real hardware years ago, using a counterfeit GBA to GC link cable. i.e. The connection to the GBA via a given socket was shown to be established in the SA2:B "Pick up" menu, but none of the items present in the Tiny Chao Garden, including chao would show anywhere in the "Socket" row. Once I eventually bought an official link cable (triangular plug), however, the connection would show all the items as it should, and I could successfully pick up the Chao. Maybe then, a knockoff link cable is what is being emulated by Dolphin and/or VBA-M?

(06-13-2017, 01:58 PM)hackersmak Wrote: Using dolphin and vba-m as well, has anyone figured this out? If not can someone direct me to the AR codes for jewel chao? I've been trying to figure this out for the last couple days without much luck

I successfully used codes from supercheats for "Metallic Brown" and "Metallic Gold", but according to this post, AR codes only affect the chao appearance and not the genes. So to my knowledge chao with "Jewel" or "Metallic" genes can only appear in SA2:B with the help of the Tiny Chao Garden. Without that Pick up function, this means no breeding to make Jewel/Translucent chao. Ever. Not without either:

(1) a properly functioning link between VBA-M and Dolphin (doubtful at this point), or:

(2) an official link cable with GC SA2:B, and SADX or Sonic Advance, a NGC or a very old Wii, SD or GC memory cards, appropriate adaptors, a program to write saves to these devices for use with the hardware, and a lot of free time.

PS: SA2:B's Dolphin wiki page states, under "Tiny Chao Garden", "Getting the chao back in can be problematic, but has worked at least once." Knowing how this could occur would be helpful, as even getting it working 1 in 50 tries could save a lot of trouble. Evidently I've never achieved such a feat of black magic, haha.

[Infinite Josh]

Update: I realized there is another, easier way to get actual Jewel chao into this game for breeding purposes; download someone else's chao garden save file. GCI files will load straight up as long as the GameCube slots corresponding to the folders the files are in are set to "GCI" in Dolphin's configuration. For GCS saves, the Card Manager can be used to either import one into a RAW card file to use with the slot set to "Memory Card", or convert it to a GCI. For whatever reason GameFAQs is the only site I could find on the Lightnet that shares SA2:B saves for GameCube... the garden uploaded by "TheZeldaFan" has the largest collection, while this is still only a fraction possibly half of the full Jewel chao list.