FF3usME "Seek failed" error

This thread is branching of from another post about expanded rom locations for town dialogue pointers. I'm a hex!idiot and assumed I'd have problems, but I actually ran into something that I think may not be my fault, and was wondering if anyone could help me out.

The core problem: I'm trying to modify some dialogue in a rom patched with Dr. Meat's relocalization mod. The mod uses an edited GBA script along with Angelo's Ability name patch, and a slew of bugfixes. Unfortunately, when I try to open the patched rom in FF3usME, it blocks out options to edit anything, and upon trying to 'save' it's throws me an error code, and makes the rom unplayable in Zsnes and other editors.


To be more thorough, here's what I do verbatim:

I apply the headered version of the ips to a clean, headered Final Fantasy III U(V1.0) smc rom, and the message appears telling me that the patch applied successfully. Testing it ingame is perfect. Patch is there and working. I can even open it in FF3SE, so it's still reading it as the correct version of the rom.

Then comes FF3usME. I open up the rom and the only tabs available at the top are

"Open" "Save" and "About". All the other normal tabs are gone. at the bottom the button for "manage expanded rom" is available, so I click that. It opens up the patch and data location window, but the only patch available to apply is the Monster Battle Scripts hack. So I hit apply patch, and then ok. ....now the problem comes up when I try to save it. If I attempt to hit the save button an error code pops up: "Seek failed on C://users ((Rom location on my cpu))"

...So I close it out. Curiouser, when I try to open the rom in FF3SE now, upon trying to load the file....it crashes. No error message, just "has stopped working".

FF3Edit dosen't recognize the rom either. AND it no longer plays on ZSNES.

.....I also can't locate the town dialogue pointers (even with tables) to manually hex edit them in windhex, but I'm about 80% sure that's my own stupidity.

So. ...did I break it good? Is it blown up beyond repair and should I start pestering Madsiur for the GBA tables/rom map instead? Any and all help would be AMAZINGLY appreciated.

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Also, if it helps, here is a spliced image of two screencaps I took in the process. One is of the error code, and the other is the "Manage Expanded Rom" section I was getting in FF3usME:

The only thing besides corruption that I can think of atm that might be denying FF3usME's tabs from being functional, is if the internal name of the ROM has been changed. This is just a fancy wording for the name that pops up usually in the lower left side of the emulator when you first start the game. If it no longer says exactly FINAL FANTASY 3, usme can't recognize it and the tabs will not be selectable. Some hacks will rename this to customize it for their hack you see, although I'm not sure if that's the case here. It's probably not going to be this I'd guess, with the other issues described it sounds more like some kind of corruption. If it is named something else however, than you'd want to change it back at address around C0/FFFF, right before C1/0000 there you'll see the internal ROM name.

FF3Edit is not compatible with FF3usME at all and is famous for corrupting the ROM, it is highly suggested to stay far away from that program these days. I'm wondering if maybe Dr. Meat used it for his hack, which would explain why usme is so messed up now. This very well may be. If it will no longer play on a certain emulator, that IS bad. I'm not sure if this damage is fixable, but I doubt it is - would probably wind up being a huge headache. It is late here though so I'm not thinking at 100% lol, maybe something else will come to mind tomorrow or somebody else will be able to chime in further.

EDIT: That error pic I'm not familiar with, I don't think. Not sure if it's a generic one or something that can be deciphered.

Interestingly enough, the internal rom name IS changed. Saw it right there in the corner of ZSNES (right next to BAD ROM and Checksum: FAIL lol)) So lets see if changing it back might help a bit.

'BAD ROM' and Checksum FAIL seem to be an okay actually, not exactly sure what it means though other than, yes, the ROM has been hacked lol. But yeah, changing that internal ROM name back should give you access to the tabs at least.

Do you realize that without the dialogue editor, if you add one byte to the first dialogue entry, you have to change all pointers? Dr Meat probably usef FF3usME or Atlas at worst.

"Seek failed" is a programing side malfunction, from what I can grasp of it, has to do with size of file or size of data in a value. Someone that's more highspeed and current on programming might understand such things better than me though.

As is with my limited and ever fading programming experiance, I'd almost say the Rom might be larger than it should be (added an extra byte or removed a byte in hex editor by inserting instead of overwrite or backspaced a byte out.) Or the chunk of data it's trying to get to is larger than it expects.

I know I got some errors from a patch I made awhile back that effected dialog. If you added the patch after doing the usME dialog expansion, it would go tilt (not that exact error, and I could have swore it only locked me out of the dialog editor, not all tabs). The point is, have to keep in mind as great as usME is, its pretty straight to the point when it comes to reading, direct adressing of data and such. Which isn't a problem until you combine extra hex editing and such via direct editing or patches with other adjustments.

Seek is a function that goes to an offset before fetching data I think. The offset given as parameter is probably higher than the ROM size but if your ROM is 0x400000 bytes, it can't be that.

SO! Figured it out!

...well...FIXED it. I don't really understand it, so I can't HONESTLY say I "figured it out" ...but it WORKS. lol.

It was the header name. Dr. Meat changed the internal rom name, which made it incompatible with FF3usME. BUT I'm guessing that he made the translation with FF3usME to begin with, because it recognized the rom enough to let me go in and (stupidly) apply the Battle Message hack. ...which, I'm thinking is where the damage set in. It recognized the rom enough to apply the hack to a bank it thought was empty (causing the corruption), and then, when I tried to save it, could no longer locate the file because of the header name difference.

^ This is speculation. I know ZERO things about programing, so this is just a logical guess based on what happend and how it was fixed.

All I did was patch a fresh rom with Dr Meat's hack and then open it up in zsnes to see the edited header name. After I got that, I opened up Windhex and searched for the edited header name, changed it back to "FINAL FANTASY 3 (and like 6 spaces for filler)", saved, and PRESTO. Everything is working smooth as silk. I can even open up the dialogue editer in FF3usMe. BIG thank you to Gi, who was awake enough to point me in the right direction. ^_^

Also, Gi, sorry for leaving you hanging last night! After your last post I had to google like a madman to figure out how to work a hex editor. about an hour later, I had learned about searches, tables, banks, and Listened to Zeemus talk about battle editing, and realized it was all much easier than I thought it would be.

All in all, my issue feels real reminiscent of working the I.T. desk. "...Is it plugged in? ...Did you press the power button?" lol.

Thank you guys!!!

((also, also: Madsiur, I might poke you for those GBA maps/pointers still anyway. I want to break more games, please.)

It's not "Zeemus", it's "Zeemouse".

One mouse, two mouse, zeemouse run!