[Solved] The Memory Stick Used To Start This Game Is Not Inserted

[atakubo]

I start to play MHP3rd, used my savestate and when I try to save my game manually, I got this "The Memory Stick Duo~B10 Used To Start This Game Is Not Inserted. Please insert the memory stick Duo~B10 Used To Start This game". How can I fix it? Someone from the other thread says that happen because savestate makes the emulator doesn't recognise the memory stick.

Sorry for my english

[qilun56757]

Is the cheat enabled?

[Raimoo]

You will have to keep using save state if u save the game through save state. There is no way you will ever save a game that is save in a save state

[grief3r]

yeah that's the problem with ss is that they sometimes change some features of games

[LunaMoo]

It doesn't change anything;p quite the opposite, it stores whole memory unchanged and those games uses completely useless protection to avoid saving over different save. It basically saves in pair, one pair is saved on memory stick the other one is kept in game memory hence in savestate, if we load a savestate done before saving game normally for the last time, the pair doesn't match and the game cannot save this is totally user fault mixed with stupidness of game, not ppsspp issue or ss fault.
MH games are extra retarded over this because they require existing save before allowing to save, so cannot just delete the existing save to fix it as in few other games which does use same kind of protection.


It's very stupid problem but not without hope if somebody wants to bother saving his save instead of simply load the game normally loosing few hours of gameplay.

As I said, the WHOLE SAVE is stored within game memory so it's inside savestate and proper original save can be recreated fully from it without last 16 bytes, which first I thought to be some kind of hash, but it actually never seem to change between saves so I guess that's some kind of random ID and those bytes can be left as they were. In MHp3rd HD(normal version will most likely differ) the save is stored in 0x12AE200 bytes from memory load address and takes 0x121000 bytes. Just dump that from game memory to first 0x121000 bytes of existing save file and unmatched pair of saves will be matched next time you try saving. This could work in all MH games, through obviously the offset for the address and the size of save will differ.

[grief3r]

so when you load a savedata it temporarily stores that in memory and changes accordingly, then it transfers the memory back to the save data when you save the game?

so that means you can delete the save data while running a game and nothing will happen except losing the ability to save,

also is the save state encrypted or not, and how do you decrypt an encrypted psp save data?,

one more question how to you determine the beginning and end address of the save in the psp memory?

[LunaMoo]

Calling it temporary is pretty wrong, since the save is stored all the time in game memory from the time it is created for the first time, it changes during next save or autosave, but it's always there;p.

Yeah you only lose ability to save, through the "only" might be an issue for those which had this problem on older versions of ppsspp as savestate compatibility was added not so long ago, it also can break in the future if something troublesome get's implemented;p. But most bothersome is that since savestates are keeping whole memory, they keep all potential corruption as well, so the longer you play without restarting and reloading the game from normal save, the more chance your game will get broken.

PPSSPP can save both encrypted and decrypted save games, in fact learning this was the thing that made me find the save in game memory, as in memory it's decrypted and ppsspp by default encrypt saves(so they can work on real psp). To determine the beginning address in game memory when already in problem, you can start a new game or load the old one, then save normally again while having save encryption disabled in ppsspp(by changing "EncryptSave = True" in ppsspp.ini to False) then just open that decrypted save in any hex editor, copy x first bytes and I just use aob scan in cheat engine for the rest, but you could also dump memory to hdd or create new savestate and decompress it to grab that memory dump, the method doesn't really matter, I use cheat engine cause I'm using it for most things as it's much faster than normal hex editors and way more functional;p, end address is obviously the beginning + save lenght;p, in MHp3rdHD it's also -0x10, as last 16 bytes of save are just some ID of some sort as I mentioned which doesn't seem to be stored in game memory anywhere, just inside the save. It's worth just comparing the end of real save and save stored in memory to be sure as it might differ for other MH games.

Anyway the issue exist only cause people abuse the savestates without consideration that game might work as MH does;p, also in most other games which have similar protection(Lord of Arcana/Apocalypse for example) deleting the initial save will allow to save properly again, so it's really rare problem and all this information fairy useless, doubt many other games would work in such awkward way.

[grief3r]

i dumped the ram, but how do i know which are the bytes that are stored all the time?

also when i set encrypt save to [off], i view the 0000.0 file and it looks exactly the same as before

[LunaMoo]

Removed my whole post, since I now made cheats for all of the popular MH games which completely synchronize saves, if you still suffer from this, just use cw cheats from posts below depending on your game version:
-MH Freedom Unite [EU],
-MH Freedom Unite [US],
-MH portable 2ndG,
-MH portable 3rd,
-MH portable 3rd HD.

If you don't know how to use cw cheats, read first post in this thread, you can also ask there in case of extra problems.

[grief3r]

(12-16-2013 10:10 AM)LunaMoo Wrote:  proper original save can be recreated fully from it without last 16 bytes,

setting EncryptSave = False did not create an unencrypted savedata, so i don't have a .bin file for my game(metal gear solid peace walker), so how do i unencrypt it then?

if you have the game could you just tell me the start and end adress of the savedata(in psp memory),

also once you load the .bin in ppsspp you have to encrypt it back if you want to play it on psp?


in short, i cannot create my savedata because save decryption is not working or maybe im doing something wrong

[LunaMoo]

It probably is unencrypted, the file doesn't change extenshion or anything between being decrypted and encrypted, the contents are just not being encrypted when saved with encryption turned off.
Most of your threads seem to be related to cheating games, so I'll say it as cleary as I can, save game editing is most bothersome and inefficient way of cheating, nobody does that nowadays unless the game stores it's data in stupidly easy to understand way or it is the only option like a console without homebrew or cheating tools and that's not the case of multiplatform emulators. The save while being decrypted will still have it's own format to understand, most of the time it's also compressed and secured by a hash or two to avoid loading corrupted data, it's nothing to be easily edited. It's much quicker to edit stuff directly in memory than wasting time trying to understand the file structure.
Decrypting MH save was only usefull to find it in game memory to restore it, MGS game would rather not store it like that to begin with, as it's pure waste of memory which more advanced games that stand on the edge of the console limitations cannot do and MGS series is known for that, that's also why many cheats to those games must use pointers as all it's data is dynamically allocated and moved around to fit limited space.

Anyway that's an oftop, unrelated to inability to normally save in MH game after abusing save states. Each game is different and almost nothing can be universally explained.
Long story, I found that MH save is stored in memory as by checking memory differences between saving I noticed a huge chunk of data being changed which was really close in size to actual save game, found it last time similar thread was made, but since I couldn't really confirm back then that this chunk of data actually is save as it didn't looked at all as the save in memstick I couldn't help back then;p. Just recently I found out that I can turn off decryption and this time such problem arised I used that bit of knowledge with previous findings to confirm that chunk of data was save which can be extracted to fix the irritating issue or even restore corrupted save if it fails saving by some strange bug as long as we still have savestate which has it stored. The guide I left above should hopefully make it possible if not easy for anyone with this problem to restore save paired with ss, but this applies only to MH.

[grief3r]

yeah i actually noticed something similar in MPO+, except that not the whole save was in the dump (just the last few 0x1000 bytes or so),
it also corrupted both my peace walker and metal gear data when i tried to load unencrypted data

[atakubo]

I'm sorry, the ppsspp keep closing suddenly when I play before I could save my game manually so I have to use savestate to not to lose all the progress, I don't use any cheats, and thanks a lot for your help!! I'll try it

[Konjack]

me too,I don't use any cheats or anything. when i try to savestate,and then i can't save on the game.the problem is memory stick duo.

[atakubo]

I've attached the process but when I activate the script it still doesn't do anything