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VMU Error

Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2016 8:14 pm
by gylippus
I have an issue reading a vmu file. My son and I are playing Fur Fighters, he loves it and we were making good progress until today, when I turned on the dreamcast and got an error. So here are the details:

1. Fur Fighters loads to the screen that says loading ...
2. It then says "VMU ERROR, not loaded correctly"

It then will not access any vmu. I tried inserting my other vmu but same problem. I tried copying the file from the vmu to another vmu but same problem. I replaced the batteries in the vmu but that did not help. I tried using the vmu with my other games and it worked fine. So, I am stumped. The problem doesn't seem to be the vmu or the dreamcast, and the game loads up. I am totally stumped. Any help would be appreciated and my son will thank you forever. We have to get General Viggo!

Re: VMU Error

Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2016 12:22 pm
by scaryred24
That sounds like an urgent problem to fix ASAP. I don't know how much I can help you since I am not that good with this, but it could be one of these 3 problems.

1) The save data might be corrupted. This can happen in multiple ways, but if it was from a more severe issue like preventing the game to save by obstructing the ability to do so whilst accessing the VMU then it would have been a total loss. Game save data being corrupted can happen because of a bug in the game's coding or by complete random chance (Fallout New Vegas and Star Wars KOTOR id plagued with that).

2) Sometimes the VMU may get it's sort order discombobulated over time like how Windows performance degrades overtime when running from a HDD. That can be remedied with Blue Swirl's VMU Explorer with the defragment option. Make sure you have your save data backed up somewhere safe and you have like 46 blocks free or mre because it could also wreck corrupt over smes which would either result in the need to reformat the whole thing (which can be done either via the BIOS or the VMU Explorer) or the VMU might have seen better days and would just completely fail on you.

3) From how Sega made the Dreamcast, they made it so you shouldn't take out the controller ports as often as you like so it best to to not hot swap the controllers since there is a rare chance that the whole controller board may get fried (you would know because the controllers won't work at all) which may need to be fixed. There is a 5 Ohm 1/2 watt fuse resistor that can get fried which is the biggest culprit of the problem which needs to be replaced. There is also a capacitor which I have no idea what purpose it has and a another resistor for the Dreamcast's internal memory which should be replaced as well just to be on the safe side. While you do that, you might as well replace the battery too with a cell battery holder and a rechargeable CR2035 cell battery because that will end up dying soon and on top of that it would end up making it easier to replace when it does die since you don't need to whip out a soldering iron every time you want to replace the battery. It does however needs to be charged up for like 2-3 hours for it to function properly.


Now once again, I'm not an expert on this since I have no first hand experience with this so anyone else can chime in to help out a newcomer to this forum with some helpful advice on what to do to troubleshoot and to quite possibly fix the problem. Other than that, those are my top 3 guesses why it may be causes some of those issues.

Re: VMU Error

Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2016 1:39 pm
by gylippus
Well, thanks for that explanation. None of that seems easy to fix so that leaves me in a bad place. I did find two other random posts around the internet about people who had the exact same problem. The other person was also playing Fur Fighters and he said after a couple of hours of play he tried to save and the exact thing happened. It makes me wonder if the game itself has a save bug around a certain location.

Re: VMU Error

Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2016 3:05 pm
by scaryred24
I've seen that too. All I could find on game saves being corrupted is that it is far more severe on the PS2 port of the game.

Code: Select all

MEGAGLITCH 2.0 - WARNING: This glitch can cause massive damage to your save file if you are not careful. Sometimes when you start up the game, it will suffer from a huge bug where all three of your in-game saves are corrupted and have 0 tokens, erasing your current progress and making you not have any cheats discovered. Loading up one of the three corrupted files will result in a worse variant of Begin Without the Subway Token where you start a new game with no items or weapons(besides the close range attack), have 5 health as though you had died whilst leaving a level(see above for more info), have no cursor, and, despite not having collected a single token in the game, always have a message on the screen that says "You got all the tokens". Oh, and since you don't start with the pistol, picking up any weapons in the game will remove the close range attack from your list of moves forever, forcing you to start a new file in order to get it back. You can still complete the game normally despite this(all the levels in the game have been unlocked for you to try them, though you can't complete The General's Lair due a bug from previous ports returning via this glitch, and The Bad Place for reasons seen below). Just be careful-sometimes, the game may suffer from part of a similar bug seen above, leaving a flea level after you die may cause some buggy events, and worst of all, entering The Bad Place will trigger an enormous glitch where the end-of-level cut scene will play as soon as the level begins, causing the game to lock up(and it will continue to do this for an infinite amount of times until you delete the file, should the game auto-save).


However I did stumble upon a reddit post pretty much telling you to do the second thing I listed off in my last post.

Code: Select all

https://www.reddit.com/r/dreamcast/comments/2dod46/fur_fighters_vmu_corruption_problem/


I don't know man. That's all I could read up on your problem.


Edit: There are a lot of save data glitches that run rampant on multiple ports. The Dreamcast has like a handful of them that may make or break a game. The PC port has some too, but the worst I have seen form that is only can be recreated with more modern hardware. My PC might be able to achieve all of the game save issues that plagues the PC port. The PS2 had most of them patched except of that one I quoted which pretty much explains why the PS2 wasn't an easy console to program for. There is an IOS port which I haven't looked into, but I assumed it might be graphical, scripted sequence breaking, and some nuisances that has to be dealt with.

Re: VMU Error

Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2016 4:11 pm
by DR TEAMCAST
There's a Dreamcast application called "Dream Explorer"/"VMU Tool" that can defragment the VMU. Which also re-sorts the files so scan time is faster. This probably won't solve your problem, but it may help prevent it from occurring again. If it is a game specific bug it'd also be a good idea to backup the working saves as frequently as possible

Re: VMU Error

Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2016 5:48 pm
by gylippus
Wow, thanks for that post. Hmmm, I know nothing about vmu explorer or how to use it. I have a mac running os 10.10.5. Can I run vmu explorer on my mac? And even if I can, how can I access the information in the vmu to fix it?