Hacking new 3DS semi-bricked? after uninstalling HomeMenu title and even A9LH can't really restore it

[SkyDX]

Okay so I'm currently facing a strange issue and fear my new 3DS might be beyond saving, any help is greatly appreciated! I'll detail the steps I've been doing since yesterday and maybe someone has an idea what goes horrible wrong here, but first my configuration:

EU new 3DS running 11.0E with A9LH v2 (the one before the SI, no_SI merge happened) and Luma3DS 6.1.2 along with a custom font installed and a 64gb SanDisk Ultra SD card. Now the 3DS was running 100% perfect up until yesterday, this is what happened:

1: I found out about 11.1 being released and wanted to update though I read about custom-fonts stopping the update process so I had to figure out how to restore this first.

2: I updated my Decrypt9 and Hourglass9 payloads to the latest version

3: I took two NAND backups, one with Hourglass9 and one with Decrypt9 and also a CTRNAND backup with Decrypt9

4: I downloaded a clean HomeMenu from 3DNUS and packaged it as .cia and moved it to my SD-card

5: I tried to install it with FBI 2.3 which failed saying the title already exists so I figured I have to delete the title first, I call the title-list and scroll to each and every title but I found no ID with the one matching I downloaded from 3DNUS.

6: Out of frustration I scroll to the list another 3 times and notice a title simply called "HomeMenu" and even though it had a different ID I thought I would try and delete it thinking "Hey I have three NAND backups and A9LH, what's the worst that can happen?" Holy didn't I know...

7: After the HomeMenu title was deleted I was still unable to install the .cia I downloaded from 3DNUS saying it already exists so I obviously deleted the wrong title as I guessed... so I go back to the HomeMenu which still worked and the point and turned the 3DS off.

8: Booting the 3DS again BootAnim9 loads and afterwards I'm met with a black-screen, no WiFi light and no screen backlight which I expected because I deleted the HomeMenu title afterall

9: I turn the 3DS off again, hold START and was greeted with Hourglass9 and restored my NAND backup. After that was done it said "Press START to reboot" I did and was greeted with my HomeMenu again, everything works just as it, I play a round of Smash Bros and turn the 3DS off for more gooling on how to restore my system-font

10: Someone on Temp asks me what FBI version I'm using, I was unsure so I go and turn my 3DS on again, Bootanim9 runs and I have the dreaded black screen with no backlight again, no yellow WiFi light either. I try booting a few more times but nothing.

11: Thinking maybe something messed up I boot Hourglass9 again and restore my backup again. After this is finished I press START again and hey my 3DS is back working!

12: To test if the problem was resolved now I turn the 3DS off and on 3-4 times and it booted each time, thinking everything was good again I was notified that FBI 2.4.2 auto-overrides titles so I launch FBI and update it through the internal-updater. I restart FBI, the version number saying 2.4.2 and I try to install the clean-font .cia again.

13: No dice, FBI still doesn't want to install it, this is its error-code:

Failed to Install CIA File.
Result code: 0xC8E083FC
Level: Status [25]
Summary: Invalid Argument (7)
Module: AM {32}
Desc: Already Exists (1020)

14: Frustrated I turn off my 3DS and let it sit for an hour, then try to boot it again and was shocked, after BootAnim9 I had the black-screen of death again.

15: Now really scared I restore the backup again and it brings me back to the HomeMenu as it did before. I turn the 3DS off and do a full backup of my SD card to my PC.

16: After the backup of my SD I put it back into the 3DS and it booted just fine. I turned it off and on again and was again at the black-screen of death.

17: Thinking my SD-card might be broken I move everything but my Nintendo3DS folder to another SD-card and try to boot, nothing after BootAnim9...

18: I update Luma3DS to version 6.2.3 and still get a black-screen after BootAnim9

19: I restored the NAND backup one more time and could boot normally again, now my 3DS sits before me in sleep-mode and I won't turn it off...

I realize I made a critical-mistake when I uninstalled this "HomeMenu" title in FBI but why does a NAND restore only fix it for a limited time? It makes no sense...

Does anyone have a idea what's going on here? I am grateful for anything...

 

[Olmectron]

Maybe your 3DS loading a black screen is a faulty N3DS micro SD card slot, not the card, and it sometimes doesn't read the card when booting, after reading the bin payload.

Sorry, can't think of anything else. I'm as puzzled as you.

 

[wsquan171]

This is really weird. Sorry I can't help, I don't even have a clue to start with. But at least you still have a9lh working. Do you have other nand backups before installing those fonts?


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[uribemaster]

You should try changing the theme and see if it does anything out of the ordinary or maybe use no theme and see? Also, Can you possibly try to reinstall the custom font cia that you had before. It could be freezing because it is trying to load the custom font and it can't anymore. Just throwing ideas in

 

[SkyDX]

First of all thanks for trying to help everyone I really appreciate it!

Maybe your 3DS loading a black screen is a faulty N3DS micro SD card slot, not the card, and it sometimes doesn't read the card when booting, after reading the bin payload.

Sorry, can't think of anything else. I'm as puzzled as you.

Alright I can see this happening but why would it read everything then and even SHA1 verify my backups perfectly?

This is really weird. Sorry I can't help, I don't even have a clue to start with. But at least you still have a9lh working. Do you have other nand backups before installing those fonts?


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I do, I would lose a few games I installed after I flashed the font but I will keep that as a final resolution :/

You should try changing the theme and see if it does anything out of the ordinary or maybe use no theme and see? Also, Can you possibly try to reinstall the custom font cia that you had before. It could be freezing because it is trying to load the custom font and it can't anymore. Just throwing ideas in

I will try the theme thing though as for the font I could never uninstall it in the first place because FBI won't overwrite it >.<

I do noticed something though, everytime I restore my backup I eventually get a SpotPass notification about Yo-kai Watch Themes, as soon as I get this notification my 3DS won't boot anymore on next reboot, aslong as the notification doesn't appear I'm fine... I'll restore the backup and then disable WiFi to see what happens o.o

 

[Olmectron]

First of all thanks for trying to help everyone I really appreciate it!



Alright I can see this happening but why would it read everything then and even SHA1 verify my backups perfectly?



I do, I would lose a few games I installed after I flashed the font but I will keep that as a final resolution :/



I will try the theme thing though as for the font I could never uninstall it in the first place because FBI won't overwrite it >.<

I do noticed something though, everytime I restore my backup I eventually get a SpotPass notification about Yo-kai Watch Themes, as soon as I get this notification my 3DS won't boot anymore on next reboot, aslong as the notification doesn't appear I'm fine... I'll restore the backup and then disable WiFi to see what happens o.o

You can disable only Spotpass so you don't receive those notifications.

 

[SkyDX]

You can disable only Spotpass so you don't receive those notifications.

Thanks I will try this! But why in all names would a Spotpass Notification basically destroy my firmware? o.o

I would try to update to 11.1 but I still can't get this stock-font back >.<

 

[wsquan171]

Maybe your 3DS loading a black screen is a faulty N3DS micro SD card slot, not the card, and it sometimes doesn't read the card when booting, after reading the bin payload.

Sorry, can't think of anything else. I'm as puzzled as you.

I don't think it's likely that he's having a problematic SD slot, since before restoring a NAND backup D9 needs to read the file in whole to check the hash. As he has successfully restored NAND several times after encountering the problem, I guess his SD slot is fine.

We need to locate the source of the problem. If I'm in your situation I'll try:
1. Format a clean SD card, put only a9 payloads on it. And see if the console boots. If it successfully boots something's wrong with titles you installed on SD, which we can find it out later.
2. Create a EmuNand using a backup you know it has worked. Configure Luma to boot to emunand. If it's successful then probably something is wrong with your NAND chip.


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[Joom]

You should be able to backup your saves at least if it comes to flashing an older dump. Also, does recovery mode do anything useful? Luma will protect A9LH from being removed by it so don't worry.

 

[SkyDX]

I don't think it's likely that he's having a problematic SD slot, since before restoring a NAND backup D9 needs to read the file in whole to check the hash. As he has successfully restored NAND several times after encountering the problem, I guess his SD slot is fine.

We need to locate the source of the problem. If I'm in your situation I'll try:
1. Format a clean SD card, put only a9 payloads on it. And see if the console boots. If it successfully boots something's wrong with titles you installed on SD, which we can find it out later.
2. Create a EmuNand using a backup you know it has worked. Configure Luma to boot to emunand. If it's successful then probably something is wrong with your NAND chip.


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Thanks for this, I tried option one already and it didn't help The second thing is what I will try next but first I want to verify something, I noticed my 3DS reboots fine after restoring the NAND until I get a Spotpass Notification about Yo-kai Watch themes, as soon as this message appears I can't reboot anymore o.o

You should be able to backup your saves at least if it comes to flashing an older dump. Also, does recovery mode do anything useful? Luma will protect A9LH from being removed by it so don't worry.

I already backed up my saves and I haven't tried recovery mode yet, I'm currently trying to verify my Spotpass theory. I'm back in the HomeMenu and immediately went into system settings and disabled SpotPass info and WiFi, now I let the 3DS reboot a few times and will let it sit now as before, let's see what happens!

On another note, does anyone know why FBI 2.4.2 won't override my custom-font with the stock HomeMenu? :/ If I solve this I could try to update to 11.1 and see if that helps

 

[leerz]

if you get 100% boot rate to your bin payloads (d9/etc), something is effed up with your current setup.

if you don't get 100% boot rate with your bin payloads, could be a hardware problem or the backup is borked, on off issues failing issues could be a sign of component problems, usually with capacitors, however, the 3ds doesn't have those leaky caps, it is purely solid caps, so that may be out of the question.



what you can try now is,
get a really really old setup or push the ctrnand backup for 9x, update to latest (set it up with fbi and stuff) and see if this problem persists, you can verify if it was your old setup that was borked.

another test is from your current setup, download the complete 11.x from 3dnus and push those with sysupgrader. idk if that will help


it is also possible that it is a badsector on the failing nand chip.
i had one 3dsxl lying around that doesn't show the home menu, even after I run a recoverymode full update. from 10.3, to 11. still no sugar even if it completed the update.

 

[SkyDX]

if you get 100% boot rate to your bin payloads (d9/etc), something is effed up with your current setup.

if you don't get 100% boot rate with your bin payloads, could be a hardware problem or the backup is borked, on off issues failing issues could be a sign of component problems, usually with capacitors, however, the 3ds doesn't have those leaky caps, it is purely solid caps, so that may be out of the question.



what you can try now is,
get a really really old setup or push the ctrnand backup for 9x, update to latest (set it up with fbi and stuff) and see if this problem persists, you can verify if it was your old setup that was borked.

another test is from your current setup, download the complete 11.x from 3dnus and push those with sysupgrader. idk if that will help


it is also possible that it is a badsector on the failing nand chip.
i had one 3dsxl lying around that doesn't show the home menu, even after I run a recoverymode full update. from 10.3, to 11. still no sugar even if it completed the update.

Thanks for the help!

I do have a 100% bootrate to my payloads, I know this because I use BootAnim9 and I see it every time without fail so it's definitely my firmware that is borked in a way. I could try flashing 11.x with sysUpgrader yes but why is it so hard to replace just the font back to stock? I don't get it, that's the only want to install a clean font and update to 11.1 before I try anything else

And I'm 100% sure now it's the Yokai Watch Spotpass message that kills my system o.o I put my system on the charger now and rebooted multiple times and let it sit in sleep-mode, then rebooted again. No Yokai Watch message and no black screen of death...

 

[leerz]

Thanks for the help!

I do have a 100% bootrate to my payloads, I know this because I use BootAnim9 and I see it every time without fail so it's definitely my firmware that is borked in a way. I could try flashing 11.x with sysUpgrader yes but why is it so hard to replace just the font back to stock? I don't get it, that's the only want to install a clean font and update to 11.1 before I try anything else

And I'm 100% sure now it's the Yokai Watch Spotpass message that kills my system o.o I put my system on the charger now and rebooted multiple times and let it sit in sleep-mode, then rebooted again. No Yokai Watch message and no black screen of death...

I see,

wow that yokai watch message is cumbersome, is it possible that retailer units (non cfw) could fail to boot as well?
seems like one of those character/sms formatting issues.

(or yokai watch used a character that your custom font doesn't recognize so it throws the blackscreen)

 

[XavyrrVaati]

Maybe the notifications center - related part of the home menu was corrupted during the custom font install.

 

[wsquan171]

Maybe the notifications center - related part of the home menu was corrupted during the custom font install.

Yeah, this clears things up. I was planning to try some custom fonts but now I decide to avoid it. Seems it can really cause a lot of trouble and it's hard to fix. It's just a time bomb which you don't know when a notification would set it off.


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[SkyDX]

I'm 1000% sure now, the Yokai Watch message appeared and I couldn't reboot anymore o.o

I see,

wow that yokai watch message is cumbersome, is it possible that retailer units (non cfw) could fail to boot as well?
seems like one of those character/sms formatting issues.

(or yokai watch used a character that your custom font doesn't recognize so it throws the blackscreen)

I don't even think it's that, when I got the Yokai Watch message just now I clicked on it, went into the Notification Center, read it, went back to the HomeMenu and only at the next reboot I would meet the black-screen of death...

Maybe the notifications center - related part of the home menu was corrupted during the custom font install.

But I can even open it, that is all very weird :/

Yeah, this clears things up. I was planning to try some custom fonts but now I decide to avoid it. Seems it can really cause a lot of trouble and it's hard to fix. It's just a time bomb which you don't know when a notification would set it off.


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Well I would like to restore it now, it seems I have to resort to my old backup afterall :/ Because nobody can tell me how exactly I'm supposed to flash a clean HomeMenu :/

I downloaded 0004003000009802.cia via 3DNUS and FBI 2.4.2 doesn't want to install it with this error:

Failed to Install CIA File.
Result code: 0xC8E083FC
Level: Status [25]
Summary: Invalid Argument (7)
Module: AM {32}
Desc: Already Exists (1020)

I don't find any .cia with the ID:

0004003000009802

though but I'm not entirely sure how to handle Title Deletion with FBI v2, can someone please just help me with that? If I can't get rid of my custom-font like that I will eventually go and restore my pre-font backup though I want to use that as a last resort...

After this backup I bought Monster Hunter Generations and self-dumped it to install it as a .cia so when I restore my old backup the system won't recognize the data on the SD anymore which isn't a problem I can just redump my cartridge but the old .cia will still exist on the SD and take up space, I have no idea how to solve that, I suppose I could uninstall it before I do that but there are like 10 Retroarch cores and a few SNES self-injects I installed too so I will have lots to do with cleaning dummy data from my SD if I use the old backup :/

 

[Joom]

Would the ticket for that title prevent the title from being installed? Have you tried running TikSweep?

 

[SkyDX]

Would the ticket for that title prevent the title from being installed? Have you tried running TikSweep?

I have not, I will try this after my test, thanks for the tip :o Although shouldn't the Title exist anyway? I mean it's supposed to be the HomeMenu is it not? o.o

I'm doing a final test for science, I flashed my old pre-font backup now and wait for the Yokai Watch message to appear, if it appears and bricks my system it's not the font, if it doesn't brick my system it is the font and I have atleast finally peace on what caused this big mess

 

[Joom]

I have not, I will try this after my test, thanks for the tip :o Although shouldn't the Title exist anyway? I mean it's supposed to be the HomeMenu is it not? o.o

Oh yeah. I'm incredibly tired and not thinking obviously.

 

[SkyDX]

Oh yeah. I'm incredibly tired and not thinking obviously.

That's alright, thanks for the help anyway!

I'm currently restoring my after-font backup since everything installed that differs between the two will be back in package-form so I will take note of everything and uninstall the differing software, then update my pre-font backup to 11.1 and call it a day