Swiftloke
Issue with Smash after deleting ModMoon
I installed Modmoon on my o3DS to use USM-em but it gave me issues (over a minute to load, lag during character select/beginning of fights, enable/disable mods always gave an error, got told everytime I ran it that mods/files couldn't be moved over to SaltySD but Modmoon fixed it itself, etc.). So I disabled mods, and deselected all currently selected titles, then deleted every file/folder I could find related to Modmoon and deleted the app itself via FBI.
However, now whenever I open Smash it still takes a minute to load almost like it's checking for a patch, doesn't find one, and then boots.
Basically, I start the game, the screen goes from dark (black but still on) then the screen shuts off (no ambient light, just off) and my 3D slider indicator shuts off. My wifi indicator light blinks a whole bunch for awhile. Then the screen comes back on (and the 3D slider light), the Smash "Accessing SD" message comes up and the game loads. After that, no issues except it also takes longer than usual to exit back to the home screen.
This continues even after I disable game patching in Luma.
No other games I have do this (I didn't patch any other games). It definitely didn't used to do this and when I compared it next to my N3DS running the same game/ROM, it doesn't do this on that one (takes a few seconds to load as usual). I've also tried re-dumping the game and it still happens.
It's more of a minor annoyance but I'd really like to fix it if possible.
One of the most common misconceptions about ModMoon is that it is directly responsible for loading mods. This is an illusion- ModMoon is a front-end to the code patching abilities provided by Luma3DS and SaltySD. In general, ModMoon is not responsible for any bugs or crashes not in ModMoon itself. It's often hard to tell the difference, because most of the time when users experience crashes it's after ModMoon's jumped to the game's code, with no indication that ModMoon is no longer running.
Anyway, that preamble aside, the behavior you're experiencing is perfectly normal and a side effect of the way ModMoon functions. Smash 3DS runs in extended memory mode, which requires a FIRM launch- in other words, the 3DS reboots the operating system in order to decrease the amount of memory the system uses (disabling background tasks such as the web browser) and give that memory to the application. Certain other titles take advantage of this feature as well, like Pokémon Sun/Moon. (Specifically, Smash uses 80MB mode- the normal mode is 64MB. No o3DS-compatible titles (titles at all? Maybe n3DS-only titles use them, further clarification needed) are known to ask for more than 80MB, although these modes do exist.)
You can see extended memory mode in action through a handful of tests. Open up Smash, and once it's loaded, attempt to open the web browser. You'll find that it won't open. Close Smash, and note the extended wait time to reach the HOME Menu- that's NATIVE_FIRM rebooting back to its normal (64MB) mode. If you open up Smash again, then attempt to open another extended memory mode game (like Su/Mo), you'll find that there is no extended wait time, because the 3DS is already in the requested memory mode.
The reason you're noticing this now is because Halvorsen, another member of the USM team, added a special flag to ModMoon's CIA building flags that asked the OS to launch it in extended memory mode (80MB.) This enables ModMoon to boot directly into Smash, just like the aforementioned example with Smash -> Su/Mo, without a FIRM launch (reboot.) It is certain that the behavior you're describing existed before you ever installed ModMoon, you simply didn't notice it because ModMoon significantly sped up the load times.
Take note that none of the above rebooting behavior exists on N3DS, because it has more physical memory (256MB over the o3DS' 128MB) and therefore can simple give Smash the resources it requests without being forced to free up memory from the OS.
I'm going to leave this issue open for the moment just in case I missed something and there is a bug in ModMoon, but I encourage you to join the USM Discord Server if you want to discuss this further and/or troubleshoot those issues you were having before you uninstalled ModMoon (most of the things you've described are pretty common.)
Cheers!
Thank you for the highly informative and speedy response! That's so weird because it felt so different when booting, I kept feeling like it froze.
With that aside though, your comment "ModMoon significantly sped up the load times" definitely was not what I encountered at all while using it. It took nearly a minute before the "Modmoon magically fixed it, isn't that something" message came up, and then it would linger for a while until it said "you've waited long enough" before it started.
I had initially used the tutorial for USM below but they didn't work (they make no mention of renaming the folder Slot_1). After googling I realized that issue and got it working but that's when I encountered the persistent "enable/disable" errors whenever I switched and the incredibly long load times/'waited long enough' detailed above.
I googled around for a few hours for solutions but as mentioned I just could not get ModMoon to work without these issues. I would, however, love if there was a solution to those issues so I could use USM-em. Any insight there would be helpful.
And I've never used Discord but I will look into that!
Thanks again!
Tutorial Link: https://usm-em.github.io/instructions