It appears that users are being banned from 3DS online services, en masse. There's no direct cause right now, and seemingly no linking factor. This post is meant as an announcement for users, to be wary, and that GBAtemp will keep you updated as soon as more info rolls in. If you have been banned, please post in the thread below, and we will try to keep tabs on the situation. To be extra sure, it can't hurt to turn off your 3DS's wireless capabilities, so you might as well do that for now.

Edit 1: it appears that e-Shop access isn't restricted if you are banned.

Edit 2: A caller to Nintendo reported that the company said this ban is due to "unauthorized software usage".

Edit 3: @LinkSoraZelda is collecting info. Contact him if you are banned.

Edit 4: Click and fill this out if you were BANNED.

Edit 5:

[11:28:19 PM] Clector: Curiously the page of that error in Nintendo Support website used to have this:Error Code: 002-0102 Situation: You receive the error code 002-0102 when attempting to connect online. What to Do: If you continue to experience this issue, please contact Nintendo by calling 1-800-255-3700. Representatives are available from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., Pacific Time, 7 days a week.
[11:28:44 PM] Clector: Now it says this: What to Do: If you are experiencing this error code, your Nintendo 3DS family system has been banned due to unauthorized system modifications, play of unauthorized versions of one or more games, and/or connecting to the official game servers in violation of our terms of service. This ban is effective immediately and requests to remove the ban will not be processed.

Thanks to @Joom

Edit 6: Aurora Wright is taking another poll here

Edit 7: Not a lot is known but

There are bans happening, they are happening in all regions.
All models in the 3ds family seem to be candidates for banning.
There is no indication they will be anything other than permanent.
A game or DLC may end up being a cause but there is no one game or DLC that ties banned users together.
The cause or causes are as yet unknown, though it does seem to be related to modifications. Reports of unmodified consoles being banned are as yet unproven.
The banning is tied to something you can modify, thus you can unban. Doing it while the causes are unknown is likely only going to burn a working token though.
There are semi public tokens out there, Nintendo knows how to browse a forum as well as you so don't be surprised if they also get banned.
It does not seem to be limited to a given base firmware version, it does not seem to be limited to any one custom firmware type. There is some speculation that older hacking methods are not being hit as hard but nothing to confirm this yet.
The data collection could have happened this morning, or it could have been months in the making.
A simple check to see is checking your friends list, by itself it will not ban you.
Some are turning their wifi off. It is doubtful this will be of much use and being banned does not seem to come with any downsides that wifi being off will not also mimic.
You may have escaped a ban thus far but it could happen at any point. It could be that they stop in the future, it has happened on other consoles, but you would be living in hope rather than any particularly well founded logic.
The bans are done on the side of Nintendo's servers rather than your 3ds so there is also that.

If you hack your devices/games then their online functionality may be troubled. This has been known for decades, Nintendo seems to have finally caught up with that.

Please continue to share information with the thread or the links in previous edits.

Update 5/30

HOW TO HELP AVOID BANS (we think)​

If I was to guess from the information we have gathered since the ban wave, it seems likely that they are looking for TitleIDs that don't exist. Homebrew shows up in the activity log as the Download Play app, and fake CIA's show up as just ??????. That last one is what I'm guessing they are looking for.

If you are not banned yet or before you unban yourself, go into your friends list, choose settings, and turn off the option to "show friends what game you are playing." This will prevent you from playing games online with friends, so turn it back on when you wanna game with someone, but ALWAYS keep it off when running custom CIAs. Next, go into system settings -> internet settings -> spotpass, and turn off BOTH options. One is auto download software, the other sends system information to Nintendo. Also, make sure you don't have your favorite title set to something stupid like FBI or any other non-Nintendo CIA.

Its VERY likely that these options are what tipped off Nintendo, but we aren't 100% certain yet. The amount of banned people that had one of these options turned on was over 80% for each. If I was to assume that some of those people overlap, its very possible (but not confirmed) that 100% of banned people in the survey had at least one of those options turned on. I personally had all of them off and I have TONS of reasons for Nintendo to ban me.... yet I am not banned (yet).

Another bit of advice: Only run custom CIAs when offline, and after you close them, run a "legit" game like Smash Bros. or something before shutting down or going back online. This way your most recent title won't show up as a fake CIA

Current Theories as to what causes a ban
​

* SpotPass Settings: 8 users out of 46 users that were banned have SpotPass completely shut off, or SpotPass only (no friends list visibility)
* Firmware Version (Luma, Nintendo): Literally all reports ranged from 10.2+, I can get exact numbers for this if you'd like, but all firmwares were affected.
* Firmware Type (A9LH, B9S): 44 of the 126 B9S users that answered were banned, pattern was mirrored for A9LH users as well.
* Homebrew Titles such as FBI, HBL, Luma Updater, Themely, and freeShop: Literally about 98% of users both banned and unbanned had some combination of these applications installed. However the common ones were: FBI, HBL, LumaUpdater and NTR.
* Save Modification: Equal amounts of users on both sides have reported save modification in some form, either with PKSM or another save editor
* System Transfers: 188 users said that they had not previously system transfered, 61 of those users were banned; 16 users said they transferred from a hacked console, only three of them received a ban; 13 said they transferred from a stock system and likewise were banned. The rest of our sample did not answer this question.
* Activity Log Information: A majority of those who have not been banned have said they had NOT cleaned their activity logs. I can get exact numbers for this too on request.

This information is just what I've found. Like I said, there could be variables or things we haven't even checked for yet. But these are things that I feel should be disproven, at least with the current dataset we have.

• From the information that we've gathered from some people that have used a packet sniffer such as WireShark, the following data is sent to Nintendo's online gaming servers as soon as the 3DS connects to the internet:
  • Amount of time spent online (timer stops when either the system is disconnected from the internet, or connection drops out, then starts the timer again in a new session when it reconnects to the internet).
  • The game being played and amount of time spent on it during that session.
  • The console's unique hexadecimal ID used in the LocalFriendCodeSeedB, along with it's RSA-signed signature.
  • The console's serial number in which is broadcasted from the SoC and is hard coded in the SoC.
  • Friend Code generated on the Nintendo 3DS system, if one has been generated.
  • Internet connection status (either online or offline).
  • The Nintendo Network ID, if there is one linked to it.
  • Even if the sending of SpotPass Information is switched off, or even hiding your currently playing games. It does not prevent the system from sending currently playing information to Nintendo's online gaming servers, it only hides it from your friends in your friend list (like being invisible on the forum, while mods and admins can still see you). Why? Because even people without a Friend Code on their system have been getting banned too!

• The following data is NOT sent to Nintendo's online gaming servers:
  • The data from the Nintendo 3DS's Activity Log. Oddly enough, while Nintendo does explicitly state that they collect Activity Log data, they're actually referring to their own server's Activity Log, which always tracks every console's online activity, and keeps a record of them that is stored forever. And is only collected in increments of data through a timer and a currently playing list.
    
  • Games or apps that have not been played, regardless if they're legitimate or not. You only get tracked when you're online and using that game or app.
  • Using games or apps while offline. Even though it is stored on the 3DS console's Activity Log, that data is NOT sent to Nintendo's online gaming servers.
  • Custom Firmware. Though we can't rule out the possibility of them releasing a 3DS update in the future that adds such function to collect MD5 hashes of files and FIRM data and send them to Nintendo online gaming servers (which would also be updated in a maintenance).

• Things that people think what happens with consoles, but really doesn't:
  • "LocalFriendCodeSeedB is transferred to the system upon doing a system transfer". This is false, the LocalFriendCodeSeedB remains on the system and does not move to another system.
  • "The console generates a LocalFriendCodeSeedB upon first startup". Again, this is false, the LocalFriendCodeSeedB is made during the manufacturing process at Foxconn. It is generated at the factory, flashed to the NAND flash memory storage, then created as an account on Nintendo's online gaming server and Nintendo eShop server immediately when being manufactured. It is absolutely impossible to generate a LocalFriendCodeSeedB and be able to connect to Nintendo's online gaming server and/or Nintendo eShop server, even if you knew the RSA generation key for it. You'd end up with Error Code 002-0102 "This console's online services have been restricted by Nintendo" if you even tried (the error can either mean two things: The hexadecimal ID doesn't exist on the server, or the request to access the hexadecimal ID has been denied which in other words... banned). So a LocalFriendCodeSeedB generator will NEVER happen! Because it's not worth doing, if it can't connect.
  • Switching off "Currently Playing" information. Once again, this does not hide your online activity from Nintendo's online gaming server, it only hides it from your friends.
  • Switching off SpotPass. Nope, this too doesn't hide your online activity from Nintendo's online gaming server, it only opts-out of receiving SpotPass data, sorry.

So pretty much the bottom line is, if anyone has been using custom apps and/or titles not installed through Nintendo eShop while online in the past, guess what? You're screwed! And it is only a matter of time before your console's unique hexadecimal ID in the LocalFriendCodeSeedB is banned from Nintendo's online gaming server. This will mean, your console can't access the Friend List or play any online functions in games.

If you have been online while using custom apps and/or titles not installed through Nintendo eShop and haven't been banned yet, that's because Nintendo hasn't caught up to you yet. They're still going through each unique hexadecimal ID's Activity Log on their server, and by Activity Log, I mean the Activity Log on their server, not the 3DS console's activity log. And it will be only a matter of time before you're banned too.

Thanks to @Platinum Lucario @MadMageKefka and @ShadowEO !

 

[LunarXDiviner]

There's no reason to believe that anymore. (I guess I should add this to the list copy/paste) but prior to the SuMo bans, they were indeed typically temporary. But the SuMo bans brought a permanent use of this code.

To be fair, there they knew without a shadow of a doubt people were pirating their games.
Here.. we don't really know what they've banned so many for. If it turns out more piracy, fine, perma is deserved. But if not?

 

[KunoichiZ]

Click their name, then hit Send Private Message. Not sure if it appears on mobile though.

They need 10+ posts to PM people. They currently have 4.

 

[ShadowEO]

To be fair, there they knew without a shadow of a doubt people were pirating their games.
Here.. we don't really know what they've banned so many for. If it turns out more piracy, fine, perma is deserved. But if not?

This is true, that's why I'm not saying definitively that it is permanent. Only that it's reasonable to think that it could possibly be permanent.

@KunoichiZ Thank you, I didn't even check the post count.

 

[skapista]

All this time, we knew.
LINK

 

[Zekamon]

To be fair, there they knew without a shadow of a doubt people were pirating their games.
Here.. we don't really know what they've banned so many for. If it turns out more piracy, fine, perma is deserved. But if not?

I mean I think they think (Sorry for mindfuckery) that if we only get banned temporarily we won't deinstall CFW after the ban so that might be why they are using perma.

But hey could be something else.

 

[ShadowEO]

All this time, we knew.
LINK

We always knew that. Data for the activity log is collected via the PTM sysmodule and the activity log library (both are documented on 3dbrew). But we haven't conclusively seen that the Activity Log is the main cause, nor any real reason to believe that it is.

 

[Jaxon]

I myself have been banned. New 3DS BS9 CFW used the latest updated version of freeshop for cias, dlc, and updates, had spotpass on, edited saves, used NTR to run cheats (never online), played online, the whole 9 yards. I have a question for the majority of the people dropping their reports in this thread... How many of you actually used the eShop? Many of the reports I've seen of people who were not banned also included the use of the eShop to download and update their games, even when used in conjunction with freeshop (ie downloading a game via freeshop but using eShop to update or downloading their game via eShop but using freeshop to download dlc). I myself never once opened the eShop on my system, and I wonder if the fact that I hadn't opened the eShop but had installed and played many games via freeshop could have been a factor in sealing my console's fate. I'm sure this ban wave is being issued by an algorithm that statistically calculates the chances that you have CFW installed on your system, then issuing a ban once you hit a certain statistical percentage... And not ever using eShop but still being able to install games has to be a pretty obvious red flag.

I think this is a plausible theory that at least deserves consideration. I was actually going to note that I have purchased legit DLC on both my 3DS from the eShop, and neither system was banned. I wonder how many other people not banned have made a legal purchase on the eShop, and how many banned have not.

 

[LunarXDiviner]

All this time, we knew.
LINK

..Well that would have been nice to know sooner. Would have tried to actively destroy my logs the days I used stuff.

 

[Thunder Hawk]

Checked my 3DS today, not banned.
Sys 11.4.0-37U, B9S
Automatic Spotpass Downloads On (turned it off now)
Spotpass info sharing disabled
Homebrew CIAs, Freeshop, Custom Theme
Never cheated online in SM (or rather ever)
Modified save data.
Activity log had freeshop, some corrupted title that filled the screen, fbi, luma updater, etc

 

[Misthallery]

Made an account just to answer this, haha. I'm new to the hacking/CFW scene. Like, not even a week old-new. Hope this helps a bit? Let me know if y'all need more info.

System: New 3DS XL Ver. 11.4.0-37U, literally only using B9S??

Status: Not banned

Legit games: Too many to count, but all of my games are legit.

Legit Apps: All of my apps are legit, too. I literally just hacked my 3ds like, 3 days ago to play a Hamtaro game on the go, LOL

Non legit games: Uh. I have a ROM of Hamtaro: Rainbow Rescue for GBA and a ROM of the second Pokemon TCG game for GBC that was only released in Japan. It's translated.

Homebrew apps: Only the starter pack. I haven't actually installed anything aside from the Homebrew channel itself. I don't even use half of them. The most I'll use is the GBA emulator.

Online activity: I barely play online to begin with, I have terrible social anxiety. The most I'll ever do is play ACNL with friends or do the online multiplayer for the Story of Seasons games. I peeked into the free shop (I think it was the free shop?? the description was "download old versions of games!") but didn't download anything and turned the 3DS off after like, two seconds.

 

[ShadowEO]

I think this is a plausible theory that at least deserves consideration. I was actually going to note that I have purchased legit DLC on both my 3DS from the eShop, and neither system was banned. I wonder how many other people not banned have made a legal purchase on the eShop, and how many banned have not.

This is indeed a plausible theory, I just realized that I had been mistaken with my previous info, I did have one other game purchased on this account legitimately and that was Pokemon Yellow.

Edit: More non-banned people with modified save data could possibly disprove save modification as a factor as well. Still more people not banned using the basic starter pack with *TS* installed. Could possibly disprove certain homebrew apps as well, certainly adds to my currently debunked theory about *TS*

 

[Zekamon]

I think this is a plausible theory that at least deserves consideration. I was actually going to note that I have purchased legit DLC on both my 3DS from the eShop, and neither system was banned. I wonder how many other people not banned have made a legal purchase on the eShop, and how many banned have not.

I have bought some DLC for Smash and pirated some (which get deleted everytime for some reason) and I'm not banned.

My friend has also legit DLC but he got banned a couple of hours ago.

 

[LunarXDiviner]

I think this is a plausible theory that at least deserves consideration. I was actually going to note that I have purchased legit DLC on both my 3DS from the eShop, and neither system was banned. I wonder how many other people not banned have made a legal purchase on the eShop, and how many banned have not.

My only legal purchase is Bank. I'm not banned, so maybe it counts for something. But in general I prefer physical games over digital so I never used eshop much, and for sure didn't use freeshop.

 

[RedBlueGreen]

I mean I think they think (Sorry for mindfuckery) that if we only get banned temporarily we won't deinstall CFW after the ban so that might be why they are using perma.

But hey could be something else.

That's unlikely. If they were just doing it to get people to delete CFW and pirated games I'm sure that they would've put something like "Please uninstall any unauthorized software to remove the ban". They're not worried about getting people to stop using homebrew/pirated games, they're just punishing people who do. That's why there's no warning before the ban.

 

[skapista]

This is indeed a plausible theory, I just realized that I had been mistaken with my previous info, I did have one other game purchased on this account legitimately and that was Pokemon Yellow.

i did buy SmashBros DLC's, and still not banned.

 

[Slartibartfast42]

Heres my situation:

I believe they were just masively checking for CFW 3DS randomly because it is impossible to check every single user in their servers and they proceeded to ban all the ones that where detected as cfw.

So far it looks like they are taking a random sample. But it wouldn't be impossible to check everyone if they were competent with Big Data. Though they probably aren't. Idiots. They should realize that a Data Scientist pay for themselves many times over.

 

[ShadowEO]

Posted this as an edit to my previous post, but we moved to a new page before I finished:

More non-banned people with modified save data could possibly disprove save modification as a factor as well. Still more people not banned using the basic starter pack with *TS* installed. Could possibly disprove certain homebrew apps as well, certainly adds to my currently debunked theory about *TS*.

(Copy/Paste time)

Items which haven't seemed to be related to this ban wave so far (along with reasons for my thoughts, but just because these are on this list, does not mean they aren't plausible. If you have a valid argument as to why these shouldn't be ruled out, feel free to contribute!):

• SpotPass Settings: Some who have been banned have this off, some who have not have it turned on.
• Firmware Version (Luma, Nintendo): People on all versions have been hit
• Firmware Type (A9LH, B9S): People using A9LH and B9S have been hit as well.
• StreetPass Settings (I doubt this was a thing to begin with since StreetPass uses local Wireless for communications)
• Homebrew Titles such as FBI, HBL, Luma Updater, Themely, and *thatShop* (We now have more users who are saying they have these titles installed who aren't banned, myself included)
• FE: Echoes, Pokemon SuMo
• Save Modification (Potentially, we've had users report modded save data for games and were not yet banned. May not be a factor, need more samples with modified data to firmly debunk)

Additionally, there is no reason to believe that this ban is temporary. It is true that prior to SuMo, this error code was typically temporary (15 day), but after SuMo, we've seen this error code applied as a perma ban.

(End Copy/Paste)

 

[Zekamon]

That's unlikely. If they were just doing it to get people to delete CFW and pirated games I'm sure that they would've put something like "Please uninstall any unauthorized software to remove the ban". They're not worried about getting people to stop using homebrew/pirated games, they're just punishing people who do. That's why there's no warning before the ban.

But that what you were saying would be better than straight up punishing everyone with the permanent ban.

 

[KytuzuEX]

But that what you were saying would be better than straight up punishing everyone with the permanent ban.

Now that I read your signature, I had the same specs like your hacked New 3DS and I got banned

 

[Derpdragon]

They need 10+ posts to PM people. They currently have 4.

Thanks at least I know I'm not just crazy. Lol