"Failed to Load ARM9" After Flashing DSpico with Latest Firmware
I have an unmodded, stock 2011 3DS. I got my hands on a DSpico recently after my old R4 cartridge kicked the bucket. I purchased a fresh Lexar 32 GB microSD card (tested and verified, formatted in FAT32), and copied over the existing files from the microSD card that came with the DSpico. The version of the firmware preinstalled is unknown.
I loaded my microSD card with ROMs sourced from Vimm's, and everything was working fine with the exception of the DSpico freezing sometimes when I attempt to launch games. This was resolved by exiting to home menu and relaunching (may take a few tries).
Reading through some posts, consensus seemed to agree that updating the firmware would resolve the "freezing while launching" issues. I flashed ver. 1.1.4 from Ansem's website onto the DSpico, and replaced the SD files with the ones provided. Trying to launch Pokemon Platinum now always results in a "Failed to load arm9." error on a black screen.
Investigated existing threads and found one that said downgrading to firmware version 1.1.3 would fix the issue; so I reflashed the DSpico with the "DSpico + NTRBoot" file in Ansem's ver. 1.1.3. Failure to load persists. Also tried deleting, then downloading fresh ROMs (from Vimm's), still no success.
Anyone with more experience that can help me understand the root cause and how to resolve it? Thanks in advance!
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TLDR Summary:
Hardware - Unmodded 3DS
Cartridge - DSPico w/ 32 GB Lexar SD Card validated with ValiDrive and formatted in FAT32
Firmware - Presently WRFUxxed 1.1.3, previously WRFUxxed 1.1.4, and WRFUxxed ver. unknown
Issue - "Failed to load arm9" on certain games (ex: Pokemon Platinum, Mario Hoops 3 on 3) and not others (ex: Mario vs. Donkey Kong - Mini-Land Mayhem!) after flashing DSpico with latest firmware; previously had intermittent issue of freezing upon launching games
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Edit: I have also tried utilizing the DSpico WRFUxxed firmware patcher after sourcing a valid wrfu 0.60 file. Still getting the same error as in the title of this post