Why have Pokemon X/Y copies recently started crashing when trying to render certain models?

Question

Booted up X (North American) the other day to do some chain fishing, was poking around in my boxes when my game crashed as I was moving over an Alakazam. After resetting the game, I went back to the PC and tried to hover on Alakazam again. The game crashed. This really freaked, (and continues to freak), me out. Through Pokemon Bank I released the Alakazam, (who did have a different OT but had no criteria that would fit a presumably hacked Pokemon). I haven't tried looking at it on the Pokedex in fear of crashing again, and I haven't noticed it with other models. I have never used a cheating device and this cartridge is old; it's the first Pokemon game I ever bought, back in 2016.

After searching around on the internet, I found this two-year-old Gamefaqs article about someone whose legit copy is crashing immediately after entering the 4th Gym. More importantly, I found this Reddit post from 2024 where someone has the exact same situation as I do, (and even shares a video). What intrigues me is that his copy of the game is digital, which probably rules out the possibility of it being a cartridge issue. Due to the time frame of all of these situations, it seems to be something that's started happening somewhat recently.

---

I am concerned about multiple things. 1: I really don't want to lose this save file; not only is it my first, but it has a 100% complete National Pokedex and Shiny Charm, and I've caught over a dozen shinies on it. I would absolutely hate if it corrupted. 2: Does this have anything to do with the infinite-free-trial of Pokemon Bank? The number on the screen reflecting how many days are left has always been glitched, (for everyone), and I wonder if there are other glitchy aspects of the server/code now that are somehow affecting the games it connects to.

I understand this may be a 3DS hardware issue, but I find this to be extremely relevant to a certain crowd in the Pokemon community, and answers/solutions would be nice. As a side note, are these cartridges meant to last? Like, in all likelihood, will these X/Y/USUM cartridges still work 30 years from now?

Thanks for reading all that!

Comments

I can't answer this because of site rules, but I know about this through personal experience

Download PKSM or something to back up your save file if you're afraid of losing it.

I use PKSM to manage my boxes because it has insane quality of life features, and likewise, once upon a time, one particular Pokemon got corrupted while managing the box in the software. I could not hover over it in the PC without it crashing; just like what you described, except you did it legally. Download something to back up your save (I suggest PKSM since that's what I do, but there's other softwares and even more legit methods I'm not fluent with.) and that way you will always have a copy of the savefile if something were to go wrong.

Anyways, I'm 100% confident your Pokemon got corrupted while moving it around in Pokemon Bank, because the same thing happened to me (but different software). The Pokemon was legal, and I had moved it around before with no issues. Releasing it in my software fixed the problem for me. There shouldn't be any other issues; such is the risk you take with external softwares, legal or not. There's always a chance of corruption.

I hope this puts your mind to ease.

Edit to add: Yes, these cartridges are built to last, unlike the battery = save data in Gens 1 and 2. Everything of course will deteriorate over time, but take good care of it and it should last you a lifetime. Keep the contacts clean, store in safe places away from elements. One day it will perish like everything else, but if you're worried, back up the save file so you can slap it onto another cartridge if it happens.

---

Thanks for your detailed response Ty! I do have to ask, do you think these singular corrupted Pokemon can corrupt an entire save file?

---

not an entire save in these days and ages! it takes a LOT to ruin a game. in very poor wording, it's very easy in Gens 1 and 2, since the data for one thing is often reused to store the data for another thing, but in this day and age it's very unlikely, since the data is mostly usually kept individual. if it were to call upon the corrupted data, that's when the crash would occur (eg. the pokedex entry that was associated to a corrupted pokemon,), but that's avoidable. just a crash, not a deletion of data.
i completely messed up and corrupted my games more times than i can count. i've never lost a save file permanently. HGSS for example keep back-up saves of the last save. When i messed up my HGSS, it reverted to the previous save, and this was prior to using any sketchy softwares. it just randomly happens to me sometimes, lol.

---

Ok, thank you. I'm gonna keep this up because I'd still like to get to the root of the problem as to why this happened and how to prevent it from happening again.

On a side note, before I asked this question I put all of my shinies from my X copy into Bank. Are those Pokemon cooked? Is my Bank cooked or is it just with certain Pokemon that may have been obtained illegally?

---

I just did a PokeRadar hunt and found the shiny in like fifteen minutes. I switched to Barbaracle to False Swipe, the Pokemon goes for Psych Up and the game crashes. What can I do about this???? This has never happened before to me!

---

Rip to the shiny. Honestly sometimes the games just crash randomly too; my gen 5 games are incredibly prone to random crashing and freezes. If it’s not consistent, try not to worry about it. Make sure the contacts on the back of the cartridge are clean. Try not to move around while playing, too. Helps prevent it. What type of crash was it this time? Did the game freeze, or did it say an error occurred and closed the game?

I’m not too sure if I understand your Bank question. It should be fine even if it had an illegal Pokemon in there.

---

I’m looking at a few threads, and each are suggesting random crashes could be also an SD card error. Maybe buy a new SD card and see if that improves? Your save data isn’t tied to the SD card, so you don’t need to worry. Maybe see if that helps

---

It's possible, my SD card is 8 years old and has never been taken out of my 3DS . What kind of stuff would be tied to the SD card, like digital games?

---

Yes, the data for the games and also save file for digital games are on the SD card. I’m not too fluent with the 3DS system settings, but I’m pretty sure you can move the data from the SD card onto the console memory itself, and redownload titles from the Eshop. Might want to verify that from another source other than me, though
Photos would also be saved to the SD card