New Animal Crossing: New Horizons Glitch That Locks Inventory

[Marc]

There's a new glitch in Animal Crossing: New Horizons that's caused when someone gives you a hacked wrapped gift item. When you open it, it'll lock your inventory and if your game auto-saves, your save file is basically screwed.

There's talk about how Nintendo won't patch it because it involves p2p hacked items.

So yea, don't open wrapped gifts from people you don't trust atm.

 

[Deepak]

If you do get a gift, unwrap it instantly. If it happens to be glitched, exit out the game before auto save kicks in.

 

[28142]

I wouldn't really call this a glitch, mostly because.. this sounds like it's working as intended? When you unwrap an item, the game would be going through multiple checks with that item to know what it is, do you have it, what item is it, etc etc etc. It'll pull from the graphics table and all sorts. If those checks fail and it can't recognise the item, let alone be able to pull the graphics for the item, it will break the inventory because well, what will it display?

Nintendo might not patch this/be really slow about it because they'd rather go after the source and not the victims. Nintendo have the worst policy on glitches/hacking honestly. A harmless glitch which makes the game more fun, doesn't break anything and it's not something a casual player would do? Patch it out instantly. A hacking exploit which will break games? Nah, that's fine.

 

[Mizunil]

I've heard that some people re-wrap the item and drop it off on a NMT island to discard it.
But this hasn't worked for everyone, some people aren't able to re-wrap the item at all, I guess it varies?
Only open bagged items from trusted people for now

 

[Marc]

I've heard that some people re-wrap the item and drop it off on a NMT island to discard it.
B

@Sky oh game developer gwad, what do you have to say about this?

 

[28142]

@Sky oh game developer gwad, what do you have to say about this?

Re-wrapping could be possible, but you're just passing the issue along to other things which could break more things. The mystery islands do get wiped when you leave so that could be a good way of doing it, but could have some side effects.

 

[Marc]

but could have some side effects.

What kind of side effects do you think it'll have?

 

[28142]

What kind of side effects do you think it'll have?

Corruption, crashes, all sorts. Not fully versed on what the glitch is exactly, nor how the internal mechanics work so. Messing with anything hacked though is never a good idea, especially not in a game like this with multiple mechanics, lists and moving parts

 

[Jisenku]

I wouldn't really call this a glitch, mostly because.. this sounds like it's working as intended? When you unwrap an item, the game would be going through multiple checks with that item to know what it is, do you have it, what item is it, etc etc etc. It'll pull from the graphics table and all sorts. If those checks fail and it can't recognise the item, let alone be able to pull the graphics for the item, it will break the inventory because well, what will it display?

Nintendo might not patch this/be really slow about it because they'd rather go after the source and not the victims. Nintendo have the worst policy on glitches/hacking honestly. A harmless glitch which makes the game more fun, doesn't break anything and it's not something a casual player would do? Patch it out instantly. A hacking exploit which will break games? Nah, that's fine.

Couldn't Nintendo create a patch where instead of locking the inventory if the checks fail, the item would just be deemed null, and nothing would appear? I mean, that wouldn't cause anything to break. The only time that the patch would need to be used is for that situation alone, and all it would be is a simple update to the check protocol. For example (psudocode):

Instead of this:

Item check

Item deemed invalid

Error

Why not this:

Item check

Item deemed invalid

Invalid item protocol: Destroy item

Protocol sucess

 

[28142]

Couldn't Nintendo create a patch where instead of locking the inventory if the checks fail, the item would just be deemed null, and nothing would appear? I mean, that wouldn't cause anything to break. The only time that the patch would need to be used is for that situation alone, and all it would be is a simple update to the check protocol. For example (psudocode):

Instead of this:

Item check

Item deemed invalid

Error

Why not this:

Item check

Item deemed invalid

Invalid item protocol: Destroy item

Protocol sucess

Because nintendo has the mindset of "if our games work as intended, why would we change something that we didn't cause?". But honestly, with most of the glitches and crashes with nintendo games, starting to wonder if they actually put any checks or ANY failsafes in their games anymore.

Missingno is a good example of an unknown item having a handling. It breaks the game if you mess with it too much, sure, but it's still a placeholder item.

 

[Jisenku]

Because nintendo has the mindset of "if our games work as intended, why would we change something that we didn't cause?". But honestly, with most of the glitches and crashes with nintendo games, starting to wonder if they actually put any checks or ANY failsafes in their games anymore.

Missingno is a good example of an unknown item having a handling. It breaks the game if you mess with it too much, sure, but it's still a placeholder item.

Huh... that's strange... Makes me not want a Nintendo Switch anymore

 

[28142]

Huh... that's strange... Makes me not want a Nintendo Switch anymore

Not to mention the opposite where nintendo have another policy, if there's any unintended glitches/mechanics in their games, regardless of what the glitch does or how much it makes the game better or whatever, they will patch it out ASAP and 90+% of the time make the game worse. (See: Super mario odyssey, mario maker 2, etc). Also nintendo taking down glitch videos of first party games (See: Spiffing Brit's animal crossing video being taken down within hours.) because of "copyright" (not, "how to exploit to break people's experiences of the game/hacking videos, but actual "hey, here's something not intended but it's fun to mess around with on your own in this SINGLEPLAYER GAME" videos)

 

[Jisenku]

Not to mention the opposite where nintendo have another policy, if there's any unintended glitches/mechanics in their games, regardless of what the glitch does or how much it makes the game better or whatever, they will patch it out ASAP and 90+% of the time make the game worse. (See: Super mario odyssey, mario maker 2, etc). Also nintendo taking down glitch videos of first party games (See: Spiffing Brit's animal crossing video being taken down within hours.) because of "copyright" (not, "how to exploit to break people's experiences of the game/hacking videos, but actual "hey, here's something not intended but it's fun to mess around with on your own in this SINGLEPLAYER GAME" videos)

Ouch

Dang it... I don't want an Oculus any more or a Switch... and I just don't like Xbox that much... so PS & PC VR are my best options... lol

 

[28142]

Ouch

Dang it... I don't want an Oculus any more or a Switch... and I just don't like Xbox that much... so PS & PC VR are my best options... lol

well, PC VR is literally the best choice, and playstations are very good. Xbox you can also get like, all the games on PC now, even if they're "xbox exclusive". Switch, nintendo just needs to get their head out of the sand and stop looking at just the money. With the switch mostly, they've totally lost sight of the player base and it's sad tbh.

 

[Jisenku]

well, PC VR is literally the best choice, and playstations are very good. Xbox you can also get like, all the games on PC now, even if they're "xbox exclusive". Switch, nintendo just needs to get their head out of the sand and stop looking at just the money. With the switch mostly, they've totally lost sight of the player base and it's sad tbh.

Yeah but I don't have a good PC... so that leaves me to build my own PC and deal with that

 

[Jisenku]

Was this issue ever fixed?