Why Your Cheats Keep Crashing (And How to Fix It Without Nuking Your Save File)

If your game ran perfectly fine… until the moment you added “infinite money” and suddenly everything face planted into a crash screen, you’re not alone. In my experience, most cheat crashes come down to three boring but fixable things:

1. the cheat is in the wrong format,
2. the code doesn’t match your exact game version/region, or
3. two cheats are fighting like toddlers in a toy aisle.

The good news: you usually don’t need to reinstall everything or sacrifice your childhood save file to the gaming gods. You just need to troubleshoot like a calm, methodical adult… which is hard, because cheats make us feel powerful and reckless. (Ask me how I know.)

Let’s fix it.

First: Cheats Aren’t Magic. They’re Tiny Memory Gremlins.

A cheat code basically pokes your game’s memory and says, “Hey, your health is 999 now,” or “Congrats, you have 99 Master Balls.” If the emulator (or trainer) doesn’t understand the language that code is written in, it’s like handing someone IKEA instructions in Klingon.

That’s when you get crashes, freezes, or the classic “everything seems fine until I walk through a door and the universe collapses.”

The #1 Crash Culprit: Wrong Cheat Format (AKA “You Picked the Wrong Language”)

There are a few common cheat formats you’ll see floating around:

• Action Replay (super common, especially with GameCube/Wii emulation)
• CodeBreaker (popular for older/handheld era codes)
• GameShark (the ancient scrolls—still around, sometimes converted by emulators)

Here’s the annoying part: the same looking code might be labeled differently depending on where you found it, and emulators aren’t mind readers when it comes to cheat format mismatch fixes. So if you paste an Action Replay code into a CodeBreaker slot, don’t be shocked when your game reacts like you just licked a battery.

Fix: Go into your emulator’s Cheats/Cheat Manager menu and make sure the code type matches the format the code is actually written in.

If you do nothing else from this post, do this.

Different Emulators, Different Personalities (Some Are Drama Queens)

Even with the “right” code, emulators can behave differently.

• GBA emulators (like Visual Boy Advance, mGBA, My Boy) usually support cheats… but they can be picky about type/format.
• Dolphin (GameCube/Wii) generally expects Action Replay codes by default.
• RetroArch is the wild card because it depends on the core you’re using. Cheat support varies a lot by core.

So if a cheat works on your friend’s setup but explodes on yours, it doesn’t automatically mean the code is “bad.” It might just be written for a different emulator (or a different version of the game—more on that in a second).

Do This Before You Touch Another Cheat: The “Don’t Ruin Your Save” Setup

I’m begging you: don’t test cheats on your only save file like you’re defusing a bomb with oven mitts.

Here’s my low drama testing routine:

1. Make three saves (or copies of your save file):

   • Clean (never touched by cheats)
   • Backup (a copy of Clean, just in case)
   • Test (the one you’re willing to mess up)

   Name them something obvious like GameName_Clean, GameName_Backup, GameName_Test.

2. Run the game with NO cheats for 30 minutes.
   If it crashes anyway, congrats: cheats aren’t your problem.

3. Turn on ONE cheat at a time and play 10-15 minutes.
   Do stuff that stresses the game: battles, entering buildings, loading new areas, saving.

4. When you turn a cheat off, save in game, then fully restart the emulator.
   Because “off” doesn’t always mean “undone.” Some cheats change memory in a way that sticks around.

5. If you crash, don’t save.
   Close everything and reload from your last known good save.

This sounds fussy, but it saves you hours of “which code did this???” misery.

Your Crash Timing Is a Clue (Yes, Like a Crime Show)

When it crashes tells you a lot:

• Crashes instantly when you enable the cheat
  Usually: wrong format/type selected. Try switching between CodeBreaker/Action Replay (depending on what your emulator supports).

• Crashes after 5-10 minutes
  Usually: the cheat doesn’t match your exact game version/region, or it triggers when a certain event/area loads.

• Random crashes once you pile on multiple cheats
  Usually: two cheats are writing to the same memory address and your game can’t cope. (Relatable, honestly.)

The Sneaky Problems Everyone Misses

1) Copy/paste “invisible junk”

Some websites include hidden spaces or weird characters in codes. If a code looks right but acts cursed, try deleting the line and typing it manually (or paste into a plain text editor first).

2) Missing “master code”

Some cheat lists require a master code to be enabled first. If you skipped it, other cheats may crash or do nothing.

3) Version/region mismatch (the silent killer)

Cheats are often made for a specific version/region, like USA vs. EU vs. JP ROMs which is why Chronicles working code list depends on that.

And no, “it’s basically the same game” doesn’t count. Memory addresses can change, and cheats are literally memory address instructions.

Also:

• A FireRed cheat won’t work for Emerald (please don’t do this to yourself).
• With ROM hacks, you typically need cheats that match the base game the hack is built on.

When Two Cheats Hate Each Other (And There’s No Therapy)

Sometimes two cheats work perfectly alone, but together? Crash city.

Example: you run Max Stats and Infinite HP and suddenly saving breaks, loading screens freeze, or battles glitch out. That’s usually because both codes are trying to control the same chunk of memory.

Fix options:

• Pick the one you want more and disable the other.
• Look for a combined code that bundles effects into one “cleaner” cheat block.

Stacking a bunch of separate cheats is like plugging six space heaters into one power strip and acting surprised when the lights flicker.

PC Trainer Crashes (WeMod/Cheat Engine): The Quick “Stop the Chaos” Checklist

If you’re using a PC trainer and the game crashes even after you toggle cheats off, run through this list:

1. Turn off overlays (Discord overlay, Xbox Game Bar, NVIDIA Shadowplay, etc.).
   Overlays + trainers both messing with the game can get spicy.

2. Update the trainer and check if the game just patched.
   Game updates break trainers constantly. Not “sometimes.” Constantly.

3. Verify game files (Steam/Epic have built in tools for this).
   It fixes more than it should.

4. Update GPU drivers from NVIDIA/AMD directly.
   Windows Update drivers are… not my favorite.

5. Temporarily disable antivirus to test (then turn it back on immediately).
   Trainers often get flagged, and security tools can interfere. Don’t leave protection off—just test and re-enable.

6. Reset config data (delete the game’s local settings folder in %localappdata% if you know what you’re doing).
   This is the “have you tried turning it off and on again” of game settings.

If everything becomes stable with no cheats, go back to the one cheat at a time testing method. Yes, it’s slow. It’s also the only way to know what’s actually broken.

When to Stop Fighting a Broken Cheat (Because Your Time Is Worth Something)

Sometimes a cheat just… won’t work with your setup. And you don’t need to turn this into a personal quest.

Consider giving up and finding a different code if:

• the cheat hasn’t been updated since a big patch,
• every format/type you try crashes,
• it consistently crashes at the same moment no matter what you do.

And if the game crashes with zero cheats enabled, then your issue probably isn’t cheats at all (could be the ROM, emulator settings, a bad update, drivers… the usual suspects).

One weirdly comforting sign you’re on the right track: the crash becomes repeatable. Same cheat, same moment, every time. That’s not “worse”—that’s information. And information is how you win.

Now go forth, back up your saves like a responsible gremlin, and may your infinite money not cost you infinite frustration.