Hacking O3DS Issue: BSOD When Swapping Cartridges

[pankyonshii]

hi all. i've been having an issue with my old3ds that i can't seem to solve with what i can find.

tl;dr, o3ds gets BOOTROM 8046 error every time i swap cartridges. ctrtransfer hasn't helped.

i've been having this problem with my 3ds for some time now. my 3ds randomly bsod'd about 3-4 weeks ago. this was the error code i got:

BOOTROM 8046
ERRCODE: 00F800FE
         00000000 00000000
         00000400 00000000

after a few days of trying to boot it randomly, i ended up getting the "unable to mount CTRNAND or load CTRNAND firm" luma3ds (?) error. when this error would show up, i would be able to boot into godmode9. after messing around, i found that my SYSNAND CTRNAND drive (1:\) and some others would delete themselves after a seemingly random amount of time. i forgot to record which drives were deleting themselves, but i'm pretty positive that SYSNAND TWLN (2:\) and SYSNAND TWLP (3:\) were some of them. i don't know what that means, but it explained why my 3ds wouldn't boot.
eventually i was able to get it consistently booting into gm9, and even the home menu, so i decided to try some common solutions.

first, i tried formatting my sd. twice. i checked it with h2test2w, and there were no problems. this didn't help.

second, i tried ctrtransfer type-d9.
this actually seemed to work at first. the first time i tried it, though, gm9 froze when it was doing something related to my dsiware titles. i had to force power off my 3ds. i wasn't too worried about my dsiware, so i just started ctrtransfer again. it worked fine the second time. my dsiware seemed to be causing issues though (i would get a crash), so i deleted them through FBI and it was fixed. i was able to use the 3ds for a few days, but i decided i wanted to change my cartridge.
my 3ds has always had issues with reading carts. i'd always have to blow into the slot to get it to work. so at first, i put the cart in, and it didn't work, but that didn't bug me. however, when i got it to work, the console crashed. i did not record what the crash error was. when i tried to turn it back on, i got the same BOOTROM 8046 error as before. i messed around with it a little, and got 2 bsod errors that i can't find anywhere else. they were:

BOOTROM 8046
ERRCODE: 00F800FF
         DFDFFFFF FFFFFFFF
         00000005 00000000

and:

BOOTROM 8046
ERRCODE: 00F800FF
         DFCFFFFF FFFFFFFF
         00000005 00000000

i haven't been able to reproduce either.
i got it to work for a while after this. every time i switched carts, i'd just hold start, boot into gm9, and reboot from there. it would work fine if i did that. however, about 3 days ago, i didn't do that. it's been bsod'ing since. i haven't gotten the luma3ds error, nor have i been able to boot gm9. i'm pretty confident that this has something to do with swapping carts. a tedious solution would be just dumping my carts to the 3ds as CIAs, but i'd have to wage on it not bsod'ing every time.

does anyone know what's causing this? i haven't found someone with this kind of issue before.

extra info:
my o3ds has been homebrewed for over a year and i haven't experienced anything like this before at all.
i have the latest versions of luma3ds, b9s, and gm9.
i have NAND backups available, but as i am unable to boot to gm9, i can't restore them.
i can't boot into recovery mode.

any and all help appreciated!

 

[zoogie]

Sounds like failing hardware to me (worn out nand mmc). Is this the original 3ds model from 2011?

2nd question, are you exiting the game to home menu before swapping carts, or are you doing this in game?

 

[KleinesSinchen]

It sounds as if the NAND cannot be reached (broken traces or broken solder connections below the NAND) or the chip is failing.

I find it confusing that this happens on swapping carts. My first thought was mechanical stress/movement causing the problem (some loose connection)… but the NAND is not directly under the cart reader.

Repairing this is probably complex and expensive.

 

[pankyonshii]

Sounds like failing hardware to me (worn out nand mmc). Is this the original 3ds model from 2011?

2nd question, are you exiting the game to home menu before swapping carts, or are you doing this in game?

this is an old 3ds xl, says 2011 on the back. it was used before i got it as well.

i am exiting to the home menu and closing the game before i switch. i know not to switch while the game is still in.

It sounds as if the NAND cannot be reached (broken traces or broken solder connections below the NAND) or the chip is failing.

I find it confusing that this happens on swapping carts. My first thought was mechanical stress/movement causing the problem (some loose connection)… but the NAND is not directly under the cart reader.

Repairing this is probably complex and expensive.

i have suspected it could've been a hardware error, but i doubted it for the same reason you've stated; the NAND chip isn't under the card reader. also because ctrtransfer seemed to fix the issue for a good while. if it is a hardware error, though, then it's a shame for sure. i probably won't repair the 3ds if that's the case, and just finally get an n3ds model.