This article has a talk page!This page details bugs of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
Forest Stage Deku Nut Upgrade#
Due to a programming mistake, the Deku Nut upgrade gained from showing the Mask of Truth in the Forest Stage corresponds to the same flag as the Poacher's Saw during the Biggoron's Sword trading sequence. As such, the Deku Nut upgrade becomes permanently unobtainable once you've acquired the Poacher's Saw.
This was fixed in Ocarina of Time 3D.
Dampé Piece of Heart Glitch#
If Dampé manages to dig up the Piece of Heart during his Grave Digging Mini-Game, but instead of collecting the Piece of Heart you leave the area in any way, that Piece of Heart disappears forever, locking you out of 100% completion.
Ocarina of Time 3D, in a very Grezzo move, has the opposite problem - Dampé can dig up the Piece of Heart over and over again, allowing you to obtain more than 20 hearts.
Dodongo Crash#
The game can crash if you try to feed a Dodongo a Bombchu. This happens due to the function that handles the animation for a Dodongo eating a bomb altering a value near the instance of the explosive used. Because instances of the Bombchu actor are shorter than those of Bombs, the function modifies a value beyond the instance of the Bombchu actor. This can cause a number of effects, the most common being crashing the game or preventing actors from spawning. The only place Dodongos are encountered is in one specific room of Dodongo's Cavern which the player would be pretty unlikely to return to after getting Bombchus, which may explain why this was not properly tested.
White Bubble crash#
Attacking a White Bubble with Din's Fire crashes the game. This is caused by a classic "uninitialized variable" bug: The White Bubble tries to render the "burning" flames on itself, but Din's Fire kills the White Bubble instantly, so the actor jumps to its death routine without ever initializing the proper variables for the flames. Since Din's Fire delays killing enemies until the cutscene is over, the game crashes as the actor tries to render the flames and encounters the uninitialized variables.
Master Quest does not have any White Bubbles, so the bug doesn't occur in that version.
Twinrova bug#
The Twinrova actor has an odd bug where the object is not properly unloaded if she is killed while the beam is still shooting out of Link's Mirror Shield.
Triggering this bug basically entails getting Twinrova's health down to the point where the next sword slash will kill her, then accumulating three of her attacks to trigger the Mirror Shield beam, stunning her and slashing her while the beam is still shooting.
This causes the death animation to play (with some massive lag), but she won't actually despawn. Twinrova's death script runs on a timer that expires after 10,000 frames (around 8 minutes), and afterwards she will be revived and battle again. Twinrova will be invisible in this state and move around like she normally would, but her attacks will always spawn from the platform where she first died. Because her health is not refilled, she will die in a single slash, though finding her can be rather difficult. Killing her again spawns a second Heart Container and a second blue warp.
The bug can be repeated ad infinitum to get a lot of Heart Containers and blue warps. Because each blue warp applies a rotation to Link for the warping animation, having a lot of blue warps around causes Link to rotate like in a washing machine (it looks hilarious).
Duplicating Actors#
An actor in the Graveyard that controls the rain and lightning intensity during the Royal Family Gravestone cutscene fails to unload when loading the room with the Shadow Temple door. Alternating between these two rooms by going up and down the stairs to the Shadow Temple will eventually result in various gravestones unloading.
Similarly, the actor behind the six energy beams in the central room of Ganon's Castle remains loaded even when the player leaves the room. As such, a new copy of the beams actor is loaded each time the player subsequently re-enters the center room. The effect only becomes apparent after several repetitions: Once the beam count reaches high enough, other objects will fail to load due to lack of memory. Falling out of bounds or watching a Sage-related Castle cutscene will reload the scene, removing the copies.
Gold Skulltula Glitch#
Gold Skulltulas have a weird property - if their model isn't loaded due to being too far away, their hitbox is kept at coordinates (0,0,0). As such, you can easily kill all Gold Skulltulas in any given overworld area by dropping a Bomb so the explosion hits coordinates (0,0,0).
A handful of maps have coordinates (0,0,0) easily accessible, such as Lon Lon Ranch (in the middle of the ranch), Gerudo Valley (above the bridge), and Kokiri Forest (inside the pillar Fado is standing on).
Infinite Sword Glitch#
Equip any combination of sword and shield (you must equip the Deku Shield when playing as Child Link), find any object that can be interacted with by pressing A, and go near it so the A icon changes to show the given interaction. Now press R to crouch, B to do a stab attack, and while stabbing press A to perform the indicated action.
The glitch can alternatively be performed using any object-of-interest or enemy that can be Z-targeted that Navi has tattle dialogue for. Simply have Link stand near the point-of-interest or enemy so that Navi flies over to them and changes color. Then, without Z-targeting it, hold R to crouch, B to do a stab attack, then immediately press Z and C-Up before Link can finish crouch stabbing.
If done correctly, Link will stop mid-stab and a white trail should follow his sword, and the focusing bars on the screen will still be there even though you're not holding Z anymore. This glitch causes the crouch stab hitbox to stay active indefinitely, and allows Link to keep damaging enemies and striking objects by touching them with his sword, and he will also not be able to fall off of any ledges. The camera will also slowly drag behind Link as he moves, taking a moment to get to a normal positioning when he stops.
This glitch also opens up several other glitches that can be useful with speedruns and exploration of the game's world, and will persist in gameplay until Link swings his sword, gets damaged, crouch shields, opens a sliding dungeon door (regular doors don't interrupt it), or leaves the area.
Power Crouch Stab#
Due to a bug or oversight, Link's crouch stab, performed by holding R and pressing B, doesn't have a damage value properly assigned to it. As a result, the attack instead uses both the damage value and attributes of the last swinging attack Link used since entering the current area, or 1 slash damage if Link hasn't swung anything at all.
This has many practical uses, as Link could do a powerful jump attack with the Giant's Knife, then switch to the Master Sword and crouch stab to rapidly deal 8 damage without using up the Giant's Knife's very limited durability. Or Link could swing the Megaton Hammer, then crouch stab with the Master Sword to quickly destroy boulders. It can also naturally combined with the Infinite Sword Glitch by virtue of Link needing to crouch stab to perform it, allowing for incredibly destructive results.
This glitch was fixed in Ocarina of Time 3D, as well as all versions of Majora's Mask outside of the Japanese revisions 1.0 and 1.1.
Infinite Gold Skulltulas#
Go to the tree near the moat in the Castle Courtyard (near where Talon slept before you woke him up) and play the Song of Storms to make a grotto appear. Inside, bomb the wall to the left of your starting view and kill both the regular Skulltula and Gold Skulltula behind it. Target the token and throw your Boomerang at it, and as the Boomerang hits the token walk back into the warp that sends you back to the surface. If done correctly, you'll hear the "got token" fanfare during the fade to white. Check your Quest Status subscreen, and you should have one more token than you had before.
Now, entering the grotto will reveal that despite your having gotten the token, the Gold Skulltula is still there and will leave another token if killed. You can repeat this process as many times as you like, though the gold hue will disappear from the Gold Skulltula count if you have more than 100 tokens.
Ocarina Items (Invisible Ocarina)#
This glitch makes Link play an invisible Ocarina, therefore making it unnecessary to have one in your inventory beforehand.
Bottle Method#
Catch something in a Bottle (bugs or fish are commonly used as they can be caught again if you fail) and make sure you have the Bottle in your hand. Now backflip or jump off a ledge and while you're in the air, press the button with the filled Bottle on, followed by another item that can be pulled out in mid-air (sword, Hookshot, Boomerang, etc.). Once you land, you should be playing the Ocarina, but instead of having the Ocarina in your hand you should have the item that you pulled out. This happens because the game can't play the Bottle-dumping animation, and therefore defaults to the Ocarina animation instead.
The Ocarina will work as intended, so this is just a cool or convenient way to play the Ocarina.
Put Away Method#
This method only works in v1.0.
If you put a Bottle away then empty it on the next frame, you will begin to play an invisible Ocarina.
Bomb Method#
This method only works in v1.1 and later, including Master Quest and 3D.
Pull out a bomb and begin to run around with it in your hands. Let the bomb explode and you should see that your hands will still be up. On the frame that your hands begin to lower, use a cutscene item (Magic Beans, spells, bottled items, etc.) and you will see that you pull out an invisible Ocarina. This method isn't preferred as it's frame-perfect, but can still save time.
Hover Boots Bag#
If you become Adult Link without obtaining the Slingshot, the Hover Boots will be present where the Bullet Bag would be on the Equipment Subscreen. This is impossible to see in normal gameplay since you need the Slingshot to do quite a few things as Child Link prior to pulling the Master Sword.
Deku Stick Texture Bug#
In-game, the Deku Stick model is rendered with a brown-black pattern. However, this is not the intended appearance; it's actually the result of a bug! The game tries to load a 16×16 texture for the Deku Stick model, but the texture itself is only 8×8, so the game ends up loading garbage data corresponding to the data stored after the Deku Stick texture, which is (part of) the texture for Link's hair.
This bug was carried over into Majora's Mask as well, with slightly more interesting results.
(Source: darkeye)
Rarely-Seen Dialogue#
In Zora's Domain, one of the Zoras in the water near the small island has a rarely-seen message due to an incorrectly-set flag. Its second message, "If you find any clues to Princess Ruto's whereabouts, will you show them to King Zora?", is triggered once you've already shown the letter to the king.
Gerudo Warrior's Changing Dress#
The Japanese and US versions feature a programming bug involving the clothes worn by the Gerudo Warrior, who issues you the Gerudo Membership Card after you have freed all four carpenters. If Link is to enter first person view, the Gerudo Warrior's dress will also render in the color of his tunic, due to the dress not being properly set to render in a single color in that view. A goofy effect can also be achieved by using a Bomb, in which the Gerudo Warrior's dress will flash alongside the Bomb until it explodes.
This was fixed in PAL versions 1.1 onwards, as well as Collector's Edition and Ocarina of Time 3D.
(Source: EonAegis)
Death Mountain Trail Bomb Flower Goron#
The Goron at Death Mountain Trail who tells you about Bomb Flowers is actually supposed to stand in the way of the Bomb Flower, but because of sloppy programming, it isn't doing so.
(Source: Skawo)
Door of Time Skip#
A small gap exists on the left side of Door of Time. This gap allows a skilled player to get past it, and there are many methods discovered. 
Running Man Race Bug#
With a convoluted set of steps, it is possible to "beat" the Running Man in the race to the Lost Woods. To do this:
- Play the game until you become adult.
- Without ever entering Lon Lon Ranch, progress the game until you obtain the Longshot from the Water Temple.
- Use the Longshot to cross the broken bridge in Gerudo Valley, then challenge the Running Man inside the tent to race him to the Lost Woods.
- Instead of going to the Lost Woods, go to Lon Lon Ranch and speak to Ingo for the first time (it doesn't matter if you choose to ride a horse or not).
- Now go to the Lost Woods.
The Running Man will not be there, thus you have technically "beaten" him. The race timer will go on indefinitely and eventually roll over to zero. Trying to talk to the Running Man again will cause him to give the speech normally used if you are in the middle of a trading item quest.
This bug occurs because the message handling code has a hardcoded check for Ingo's speech when you talk to him as an adult for the very first time and sets the entirety of event_inf to zero. The flag that determines the race with the Running Man is in progress is also stored at event_inf, so Ingo's speech clears it, making the game forget about the race and thus not spawning the Running Man when you do arrive at Lost Woods. This is very likely a debug leftover that the developers forgot to remove. Curiously, there is a debug comment right before the offending line that reads "？？？？？？？？？？？？？？？？ z_message.c ？？？？？？？？？？？？？？？？？？\n", indicating a developer might have caught the odd line but didn't change it for whatever reason.
Based on this configuration, it's possible that at one point in development obtaining Epona was mandatory, with the ability to use the Longshot to cross the broken bridge added later.
(Source: Skawo)
Fogged Bug#
At any time after seeing the cutscene of Bongo Bongo escaping the well in Kakariko Village but before obtaining the Nocturne of Shadow, enter Kakariko Village from Hyrule Field, walk forward, then the moment the rain starts to set in run back out towards Hyrule Field. If you did this correctly, the rest of Hyrule will be engulfed in a very strange, colored fog, with various effects depending on the area you are in. Some maps will have no fog, but various objects Z-fighting with each other. A handful of maps can even crash the game with this glitch active (if you trigger the Crash Debugger, it will show a floating point exception i.e. a division by zero).
This occurs because of a peculiarity in how the rain in Kakariko Village is handled. Kakariko Village is the only area in the game to use the heavy rain weather effect, which only occurs after Bongo Bongo has broken out of the well but before the Shadow Temple is completed, and is notably different from e.g. the rain you can spawn by playing the Song of Storms. This weather effect is invoked by a proximity-activated actor that triggers as soon as you set foot in Kakariko Village. The actor has an intentional delay of 5 seconds to invoke the weather (so the rain doesn't set in too quickly and make it look unnatural), which is enough time to quickly run back out into Hyrule Field if coming from that exit, preventing the game from erasing the weather effect as it normally does when you leave Kakariko Village. Because other areas in the game do not contain any weather settings for heavy rain, the game instead interprets unrelated data as weather data, leading to the seemingly random and erratic effects.
Resetting the map in any way (warping, dying, entering a house, grotto or dungeon, playing the Sun's Song in an area where time does not pass) will reset the weather effects and get rid of this bug.
This bug also works when coming from Death Mountain Trail, although the timing is a bit stricter due to the entrance being further away from the weather actor. It was fixed in Ocarina of Time 3D.
(Source: Skawo)