Hacking I've heard closing a n3DS on 2.1 bricks it... why is this?

duffmmann

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You're only in 2.1 for a few seconds, so I really find it to be a non-issue.

Indeed, when I did the a9lh installation a year and a half or so ago. I had no idea that this was even something that could potentially brick my N3DS. However, I had no reason to close it, and I didn't so I avoided brick entirely. Again, helps that you're at 2.1 very briefly.
 

GBHAKC75

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I didn't say that he shouldn't properly remove it...?

I only said that it's safe with little to no danger.

I don't know about you, but I'm living in 2016...

taking out SD cards on the 3DS has always been completely safe and so has hotswapping USB drives.

... Anyway, lets stop the offtopic here, it's getting ridiculous at this point.
 

chaoskagami

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Just because I said it's usually safe to pull out a card doesn't mean that it's always safe or that people are crazy for not doing it... don't assume.

The effects of this are rare and miniscule.

Ugh, no. No. Let me repeat and drill this into you; removing a drive without safely unmounting is never safe. Whether it's Windows, Linux, or a 3DS. Why do you think the HOME menu bitches at you when you pull it? Why do you think it's mandatory in D9?

I'll drop it here, this is pointless and OT now.
 

Halvorsen

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Ugh, no. No. Let me repeat and drill this into you; removing a drive without safely unmounting is never safe. Whether it's Windows, Linux, or a 3DS. Why do you think the HOME menu bitches at you when you pull it? Why do you think it's mandatory in D9?

I'll drop it here, this is pointless and OT now.
Because the console could be writing to the SD Cards when the user doesn't know it? The Home Menu constantly updates and writes extdata and spotpasses/streetpasses could always come unexpectedly.

It isn't mandatory in D9, just given the nature of the app, the app itself could break.

Also yeah, it really is not that big of a deal
 
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Distrance

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Just because I said it's usually safe to pull out a card doesn't mean that it's always safe or that people are crazy for not doing it... don't assume.


The effects of this are rare and miniscule.

You might not have called me crazy but you might as well have with your "witty" remark of you living in 2016. Like wow, really man? Way to go bashing on someone who doesn't want to take unnecessary risks.

You literally JUST admitted that the 3DS could be constantly writing to the SD card, effectively proving my point that there's a chance of data corruption if you remove it while the console is on.
 
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duffmmann

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Ugh, no. No. Let me repeat and drill this into you; removing a drive without safely unmounting is never safe. Whether it's Windows, Linux, or a 3DS. Why do you think the HOME menu bitches at you when you pull it? Why do you think it's mandatory in D9?

I'll drop it here, this is pointless and OT now.

I guess it comes down to how you define safe. Is it safe if your card comes out completely fine without issue, even though every time you do so that way, you risk potentially losing everything? If you only focus on the successes, then it will seem safe until you fail. It'd be like surfing on a moving car: You very well may be able to do it, and then when you're done get back into the car without issue, yet you also could have fallen off and hurt yourself. It was a very unsafe thing to do, but you got out without a scratch on you, and you're effectively safe after all was said and done. I guess it's this: An unsafe practice that you can come out of without issue so that you feel you were safe. A feeling I'm all too familiar with, I lost a 128gb Micro SD card after removing it from my computer without ejecting, I had been doing it for ages, without issue and thought it was fine, but no, one time it just stopped being recognized altogether, I don't know for sure if that was what ruined the card though, I was also particularly sweaty when I was doing it, and I worried that maybe the moisture on my hands effected the contacts on the card. Don't know for sure, but rest assured, since then I always properly eject my (micro) Sd cards regardless (and ensure I'm completely dry/sweat free).
 
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chaoskagami

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Because the console could be writing to the SD Cards when the user doesn't know it? The Home Menu constantly updates and writes extdata and spotpasses/streetpasses could always come unexpectedly.

It isn't mandatory in D9, just given the nature of the app, the app itself could break.

Also yeah, it really is not that big of a deal

Actually, it is mandatory in D9, since FatFS does not correctly redetect SD upon unsafe removal. At best, it works. At worst, you get inexplicable failures.

You might not have called me crazy but you might as well have with your "witty" remark of you living in 2016. Like wow, really man? Way to go bashing on someone who doesn't want to take unnecessary risks.

Trust me, you're in the right here.
 

Distrance

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Yes, you are. You go in Decrypt9 or Hourglass9 and you press a button to suspend the console and dismount the SD card. You're crazy to turn it off. And unplugging a USB like that has not corrupted anything since windows 98.:rolleyes:

So all those times my USB sticks have mysteriously started to become corrupted and Windows no longer being able to discover them has just been a funny coincidence, despite me having always grabbed my USB sticks without first unmounting them from Windows? Suuure, believe what you will, but there's a reason the unmount option exists in Windows too. Sometimes when I try to unmount; it says I can't. Why? Because it's in use even if seemingly it isn't. if I then just took the USB out I would in fact, risk a chance of corruption. The longer you do it, the likelier it is that eventually it'll be unusable. When talking about installing A9LH - a procedure that can BRICK your console if your SD card is even slightly corrupted then why on earth would you NOT shut down the console first?

Your first comment also makes no sense, because this whole thread is about 2.1 and installing A9LH, you do not have Hourglass at that stage, and you will not be in Decrypt9 to install A9LH, so I literally see no reason why you even mentioned those two. You're literally saying that going to Decrypt9 just to unmount SD card, then closing Decrypt9 to proceed with A9LH is a better way of doing it than simply shutting down the console, despite the fact that shutting down the console even on a N3DS at 2.1 poses no risk whatsoever. You can do it however you want, but there's nothing "crazy" about shutting off your console.
 
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Deleted-401606

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Havent bricked a n3ds thus far. However,why does this cause a MCU brick,Could someone please explain as easy as possible?
 

Ryccardo

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Havent bricked a n3ds thus far. However,why does this cause a MCU brick,Could someone please explain as easy as possible?
Nobody knows for sure - the most accepted theory (not that anyone has seriously discussed this since quite a few months) is that of the operating system sending invalid commands to the mcu (which still has a N3DS firmware) and it taking the issue too personally :)
 

Geezerdorf

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I'm impressed that neither Crystal or Quantumcat have jumped to answer this question. This has been discussed previously a lot, @CeeDee .

It's sort of an MCU Brick. Well, sorta; i prefer to call it "function mismatch"

The reason for the "brick" is caused whenever a bad signal is read/interpreted by the Microprocessor unit on the 3DS.
Old 3DSes and New3DSes have very different chipsets in themselves, and the MCU units also differ on both the way they were programmed when they were produced, and the version of the chip used. Different units have different interpretations for signals and such

Simply put: Firm 2.X doesn't support N3DS' chipset for the MCU unit it was designed (since it's a newer model, it's not contemplated; then again, this is a downgrade, you're not supposed to have access to that firmware with a newer unit anyway); if you manage to send/receive a signal WHENEVER you're in sleep mode (Even receiving notifications, streetpass or spotpass), the system will enter a loop of sending the correspondent LED-signal to the MCU, but the newer model won't "understand" what's sent, return nothing, and repeat this process PERMANENTLY...even if the system is turned off (because it reads the returning LED-signals the moment it's booted up as well, so scratch that one out from your ideas of "unbricking")...until someone gets a way to communicate with the MCU chip directly (way too difficult to get without a lot of specialized tools and knowledge)

I remember some chinese and koreans were trying to do some research job about this to prevent it, but it was last year. And assuming that there isn't any sign of progress of those on any forum, i guess they still haven't got anything.
And for the guys saying that nothing happened to you when you put your N3DSes in sleep mode, YOU WERE LUCKY. Either by accident you didn't have internet open, and streetpass/spotpass activated, but if i were you and were helping another friend to hack their 3DSes, i wouldn't risk it.

Again, as it had been said countless of times, if you REALLY need to suspend your work while in Firmware 2.X, then I would exhort you to rather turn the system off.

(then again, you're almost done; you should go all the way in a simple run if you got that far, but oh well...people has to sleep and such, i guess :rofl2:)

I'm beginning to think this should be put on the FAQ as well...how is it that even when it's been discussed countless of times, there's people that doesn't know about this?
 
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Deleted-401606

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I'm impressed that neither Crystal or Quantumcat have jumped to answer this question. This has been discussed previously a lot, @CeeDee .

It's sort of an MCU Brick. Well, sorta; i prefer to call it "function mismatch"

The reason for the "brick" is caused whenever a bad signal is read/interpreted by the Microprocessor unit on the 3DS.
Old 3DSes and New3DSes have very different chipsets in themselves, and the MCU units also differ on both the way they were programmed when they were produced, and the version of the chip used. Different units have different interpretations for signals and such

Simply put: Firm 2.X doesn't support N3DS' chipset for the MCU unit it was designed (since it's a newer model, it's not contemplated; then again, this is a downgrade, you're not supposed to have access to that firmware with a newer unit anyway); if you manage to send/receive a signal WHENEVER you're in sleep mode (Even receiving notifications, streetpass or spotpass), the system will enter a loop of sending the correspondent LED-signal to the MCU, but the newer model won't "understand" what's sent, return nothing, and repeat this process PERMANENTLY...even if the system is turned off (because it reads the returning LED-signals the moment it's booted up as well, so scratch that one out from your ideas of "unbricking")...until someone gets a way to communicate with the MCU chip directly (way too difficult to get without a lot of specialized tools and knowledge)

I remember some chinese and koreans were trying to do some research job about this to prevent it, but it was last year. And assuming that there isn't any sign of progress of those on any forum, i guess they still haven't got anything.
And for the guys saying that nothing happened to you when you put your N3DSes in sleep mode, YOU WERE LUCKY. Either by accident you didn't have internet open, and streetpass/spotpass activated, but if i were you and were helping another friend to hack their 3DSes, i wouldn't risk it.

Again, as it had been said countless of times, if you REALLY need to suspend your work while in Firmware 2.X, then I would exhort you to rather turn the system off.

(then again, you're almost done; you should go all the way in a simple run if you got that far, but oh well...people has to sleep and such, i guess :rofl2:)

I'm beginning to think this should be put on the FAQ as well...how is it that even when it's been discussed countless of times, there's people that doesn't know about this?

Your explanation helped.A dumb down version stickied would be a nice idea... I was just curious really more than anything.
 

scionae

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I guess it is because 2.1 firmware is not meant to be installed on a N3DS, so the system does not know how to respond when you put it in sleep mode, causing a brick.
But y'know, I'm not a scientist :/
 

The Catboy

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I'm impressed that neither Crystal
I was actually hoping someone would know, otherwise I only have speculation on this one.
My only guess is just the hardware differences. The new3DS was never designed to run 2.1 and 2.1 was never meant to run on the new3DS. It actually used to cause a soft-brick if you didn't mess around with the NAND setup before. So I am guessing the hardware differences basically just prevent the system from waking up because 2.1 can't call out to the hardware needed from the old3DS.
But this is purely speculation on my end.
edit: Actually read the rest of your post. So it appears I might actually be right, lol
 
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cooler9711

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Just my opinion, but I think it's because maybe the n3ds has a better wifi chip/whatever streetpass uses, and the 2.1 firmware doesn't have the right code to be able to deal with it, but thats just me.
 

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