How can I tell if my internal battery has run dry?

Question

I’m playing Pokemon Ruby on my GBA SP, and I finally caught my Feebas! However, in order to evolve him, I need the necessary pokeblocks. So I planted some Kelpsy berries last night, and played for a few hours after. I got up today and played for a few more hours. When I checked up on my plants, there was no progress! (I had been consistently watering them every few hours I played, watering at least 3 times).
How do I know if my internal battery has run dry? Are there any other indicators besides the start screen message? There isn’t a message when I start the game that tells me it has run dry, so I figured it hadn’t. However, my berries have made no progress at the same time.
I heard about a berry glitch, idk if the internal battery thing is it, or if it’s something completely different.
Is it just my anxiety, do I need to wait a little longer? Or is there really no hope? (I read that Kelpsy berries reach their first stage after 3 hours in gen III)

Comments

https://gbatemp.net/ (GBAtemp) may help with these kinds of questions.

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Have you watched this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYyXjKXIfY0

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@sumwun i did my research, and for all i can tell, the cartridge is authentic. Perfect logo, perfect font, and perfect spacing. My berries never grew, but, fortunately, i was still able to evolve my feebas. hopefully i’m still able to trade and battle frontier?

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Did you look inside the cartridge?

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I think this is either the berry glitch or a very accurate fake cartridge. If I want to answer this question, do I need to include any more possibilities?

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No, the problem is almost certainly caused by the Berry glitch. Though, the question in the title is asking for a different answer. We should probably address both areas.

Answer 1

If your internal battery runs dry, you will get the start screen message before you can start a new game or load a save. Because you said you're not getting that message, it must be one of a few other possibilities.

Berry glitch

The Berry glitch (Japanese: きのみ問題 Berry problem) is a glitch only found in early versions of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire which affects the game's internal calendar. The glitch occurs 366 days after the game is first started, or 366 days after the internal battery is replaced, and causes all calendar-based events to be delayed by 366 days.
The glitch does not affect the evolution of Eevee into Espeon or Umbreon, or the tides in Shoal Cave, because these events are based only on the current time, not the day number.

Replaced battery

Cartridges that have had their battery replaced may also experience similar problems. When the supply of power from the battery is interrupted, the RTC is reset to January 1, 2000. As with the Berry glitch, this reset causes all scheduled calendar-based events to be frozen until the RTC reaches the expected value, which may take many years. This can be solved by starting a new game, or (with additional hardware) by altering the timestamp stored in the save file so it is lower than the RTC value, or by setting the RTC forward so it is greater than the save file timestamp.

Max RTC

While the RTC runs after 2099-12-31 23:59:59, it will be reset to 2000-01-01 00:00:00. This glitch has two situations:
RTC runs after 2099-12-31 23:59:59, while game is turned off.
RTC runs after 2099-12-31 23:59:59, while game is running.
When the game is turned on, the first will be the same as replaced battery glitch. In the second case, the elapsed RTC days saved in the game will generate to a large number, such as 62291 days. The number change relies on the initial RTC saved in the game.
The player can use rtcread to fix the former, but it will eventually change into the second-type RTC glitch. The only way to fix it is to edit the initial RTC and elapsed RTC stored in the save and use rtcread to change the RTC. Editing the initial RTC and elapsed RTC in the save will not synchronously change values relying on the RTC. When running the game, these values will dislocate with the corresponding RTC, such as Mirage Island Values.

source and instructions for fixing the berry glitch

Fake cartridge

Some fake cartridges have perfect-looking labels. The most reliable way to tell them apart is opening the cartridge and looking inside.

source: this thing and experience