Bricking your Switch on purpose or: How AutoRCM works
Since the Fusée Gelée and ShofEL2 exploits have been made public, people have used their jig, paperclip, piece of bent wire or - for those among us who are extraterrestrial androids - extraordinarily thin metal thumbs to trigger RCM mode on the Switch. And it works reasonably well.
But of course people have been thinking if there may a better way to get into RCM.
One such proposed way is bricking your Switch. No really, hear me out, that is a valid way of achieving it that has been discussed several times over the last few weeks on the ReSwitched discord.
It goes like this: Normally the Switch starts up, checks the integrity of various of its software contents, then boots into Horizon (the OS of the Switch, the part that actually runs games). BUT: If the check of boot0 fails, the Switch thinks something is wrong and panics. Instead of booting Horizon it switches into RCM, probably because Nintendo were expecting you to send it in and have some technician repair it by flashing a fresh image onto the NAND.
But as we all know by now, RCM has other uses. So if you really wanted to, you could intentionally corrupt part of your boot0 so the Switch thinks it is fucked beyond recovery and boots into RCM every time you power it up.
It should go without saying but I’ll say it anyway: This method is very dangerous. It could brick your Switch even beyond recovery and RCM if something goes wrong.
Depending on how you corrupt your boot0, it is possible to reverse this process. You could call it “install and uninstall” if you were so inclined but it is really bricking and unbricking.
With that explanation out of the way, I want to quote an FAQ that has been making the rounds:
With what we know from the above explanation, we can now parse this feature and understand what it does:
AutoRCM corrupts your boot0 via software. From then on it will ONLY ever boot to RCM. Attaching a dongle like the one TX sells or using a smartphone or PC with USB-C cable you can (and must) load a payload to boot your console, but you will not need to insert a jig or hold the Volume+ key because it ALWAYS boots to RCM.
So if you want to use this method be aware of how dangerous it is. Team Xecuter may call it AutoRCM, I call it “bricking your Switch on purpose”. Because that’s what it is.
Additional information:
About the term "brick": There are two kinds of brick, a semi-brick and a full brick.
A full brick is what we get when something goes wrong with the procedure, like if the PRODINFO partition or hardware of the console was damaged during the process. A brick of this variety can not be restored and will, depending on severity of the damage, not even function as a homebrew device. This is the worse kind of brick. The kind of brick that AutoRCM turns your console into when it works as intended is usually recoverable and can, if the info that was disrupted during the procure has been backed up or is generally known, be restored to its previous working condition. That is what we would call a semi-brick. In this state or if the corrupted information were to be lost, you would also still be able to use your Switch for homebrew, just not for commercial games.
Any further questions? Let me know.
Since the Fusée Gelée and ShofEL2 exploits have been made public, people have used their jig, paperclip, piece of bent wire or - for those among us who are extraterrestrial androids - extraordinarily thin metal thumbs to trigger RCM mode on the Switch. And it works reasonably well.
But of course people have been thinking if there may a better way to get into RCM.
One such proposed way is bricking your Switch. No really, hear me out, that is a valid way of achieving it that has been discussed several times over the last few weeks on the ReSwitched discord.
It goes like this: Normally the Switch starts up, checks the integrity of various of its software contents, then boots into Horizon (the OS of the Switch, the part that actually runs games). BUT: If the check of boot0 fails, the Switch thinks something is wrong and panics. Instead of booting Horizon it switches into RCM, probably because Nintendo were expecting you to send it in and have some technician repair it by flashing a fresh image onto the NAND.
But as we all know by now, RCM has other uses. So if you really wanted to, you could intentionally corrupt part of your boot0 so the Switch thinks it is fucked beyond recovery and boots into RCM every time you power it up.
It should go without saying but I’ll say it anyway: This method is very dangerous. It could brick your Switch even beyond recovery and RCM if something goes wrong.
Depending on how you corrupt your boot0, it is possible to reverse this process. You could call it “install and uninstall” if you were so inclined but it is really bricking and unbricking.
With that explanation out of the way, I want to quote an FAQ that has been making the rounds:
- Q: How does the AutoRCM feature work?
- A: The AutoRCM feature makes a tiny modification to your system's on-board storage via software, and from there on you will ONLY need the dongle (and won't have to press the volume key) when booting your console.
- Please note: With the AutoRCM feature installed, your Switch will only boot up with the SX Pro Dongle inserted or by any other USB-C launching method currently available. Once booted, you can always uninstall AutoRCM through SX OS.
With what we know from the above explanation, we can now parse this feature and understand what it does:
AutoRCM corrupts your boot0 via software. From then on it will ONLY ever boot to RCM. Attaching a dongle like the one TX sells or using a smartphone or PC with USB-C cable you can (and must) load a payload to boot your console, but you will not need to insert a jig or hold the Volume+ key because it ALWAYS boots to RCM.
So if you want to use this method be aware of how dangerous it is. Team Xecuter may call it AutoRCM, I call it “bricking your Switch on purpose”. Because that’s what it is.
Additional information:
About the term "brick": There are two kinds of brick, a semi-brick and a full brick.
A full brick is what we get when something goes wrong with the procedure, like if the PRODINFO partition or hardware of the console was damaged during the process. A brick of this variety can not be restored and will, depending on severity of the damage, not even function as a homebrew device. This is the worse kind of brick. The kind of brick that AutoRCM turns your console into when it works as intended is usually recoverable and can, if the info that was disrupted during the procure has been backed up or is generally known, be restored to its previous working condition. That is what we would call a semi-brick. In this state or if the corrupted information were to be lost, you would also still be able to use your Switch for homebrew, just not for commercial games.
Any further questions? Let me know.
Last edited by mnemonicpunk,
