[Bug] Pokémon FireRed / LeafGreen crashes immediately with ResultFsPermissionDenied

[TuckerWarlock]

Prerequisites

• I am confident that my issue has not been reported already in open OR closed issues.
• I am able to reliably reproduce the issue on the latest stable or canary version.
• I am not using an unofficial build (Flatpak, Emudeck, etc.).
• I am a silly goose and didn't read these boxes.
• I am a silly goose and DID read these boxes.

Description of the issue

Pokémon FireRed Version and Pokémon LeafGreen Version both crash immediately on launch (~1-3 seconds) before reaching the title screen.

Reproduction steps

1. Launch emulator
2. Open game
3. Observe crash

Log file

Ryujinx_1.0.0-dirty+18226decf135ffb4cf465738b7f9e0da4a73f301_2026-05-25_21-39-18.log

OS

macOS 26.5.0

Ryujinx version

1.3.3

Game version

1.0.0

CPU

Apple M4

GPU

Apple M4 (Vulkan v1.2.350, Driver v0.2.2210)

RAM

24 GB

List of applied mods

None

Additional context?

Crash sequence from trace log:

EnsureSaveData → IApplicationFunctions: EnsureSaveData
  → IFileSystemProxy: OpenSaveDataFileSystem
    → ResultFsPermissionDenied (2002-6400)
      → nn::diag::detail::Abort
        → KernelSvc Break
          → GuestBrokeExecutionException

Reproduced on both 1.3.3 stable and Canary 1.3.303.
Both FireRed and LeafGreen exhibit identical crash behavior.

This was reported here: Ryubing/Compatibility#3 and it's been added to the CSV: https://github.com/Ryubing/Compatibility/blob/main/compatibility.csv#L2283-L2284

[sh0inx]

from what i understand, this game's npdm data is malformed in such a way that performs correctly on hardware, but not in ryujinx.

[TuckerWarlock]

I attempted a fix locally just to get the game to run and it was janky, I'm not confident it wouldn't cause incompatibility with other titles or functionality.

1. Save mount failed with PermissionDenied. (Looked related to [Bug] Save fails to load and crashes Pokémon Legends: Z-A #136)

• I adjusted the FS process context handling for application callers.
• If OpenSaveDataFileSystem still returned PermissionDenied, I retried through a privileged proxy and fell back through the save owner / presence group / application ProgramId values.

2. Game then reached audio setup and hit an unimplemented CMIF command. (Which seemed similar to [Bug] SDL3 audio desync in Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream #306)

• I made the relevant AudioDevice commands return success so execution could continue.

3. Result.

• The game got past the save mount failure.
• It then got past the audio failure.
• After that, it loaded and ran.

[sh0inx]

yep

I attempted a fix locally just to get the game to run and it was janky, I'm not confident it wouldn't cause incompatibility with other titles or functionality.

1. Save mount failed with PermissionDenied. (Looked related to [[Bug] Save fails to load and crashes Pokémon Legends: Z-A #136](https://github.com/Ryubing/Issues/issues/136))


* I adjusted the FS process context handling for application callers.

* If `OpenSaveDataFileSystem` still returned `PermissionDenied`, I retried through a privileged proxy and fell back through the save owner / presence group / application ProgramId values.


2. Game then reached audio setup and hit an unimplemented CMIF command. (Which seemed similar to [[Bug] SDL3 audio desync in Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream #306](https://github.com/Ryubing/Issues/issues/306))


* I made the relevant `AudioDevice` commands return success so execution could continue.


3. Result.


* The game got past the save mount failure.

* It then got past the audio failure.

* After that, it loaded and ran.

1. not related
2. not related

we know all of this, and we've implemented the necessary audio changes iirc, we just haven't produced a solution we're happy with