Hacking Discussion Consoles brick, learn how to handle it!

[Meepers55]

There's been quite a few posts about bricking consoles lately and one alleged brick seemed to cause a lot of controversy. What I'd like to say is this: there will be bricks. We may not like them, but pointing fingers isn't going to fix anything. If a user bricks, they are liable for their own actions. I leave you with a few things I've learned from my experiences here:

1. Consoles may brick. Modifying your console in anyway can cause a brick.

2. Always backup. Most bricks can be saved if you take time to do this.

3. In the event that your brick cannot be undone, don't act childish. It's most likely your fault anyways. Instead of pointing the blame on to developers, work with them to see if you can find the actual problem and prevent it from happening to others.

Luckily the ones involved with the controversial brick have taken strides to figure out what exactly caused the brick. In doing so, many future bricks may be prevented (unless the problem really was with Nintendo's official hardware).

 

[TheZander]

You should start a hotline

 

[SirNapkin1334]

No, I was the first person to like it, mooglazer!

 

[SaffronXL]

I genuinely want to know what exactly went wrong with Evil's Switch. I don't care who's to "blame", I want to know what went wrong and how to prevent it from happening again. The bickering gets us nowhere.

 

[Meepers55]

I genuinely want to know what exactly went wrong with Evil's Switch. I don't care who's to "blame", I want to know what went wrong and how to prevent it from happening again. The bickering gets us nowhere.

Exactly my point. I'm sure we can all agree on this.

 

[efxonly123]

I genuinely want to know what exactly went wrong with Evil's Switch. I don't care who's to "blame", I want to know what went wrong and how to prevent it from happening again. The bickering gets us nowhere.

+1. It's should be easy to rule out the hardware, since that person says they have another switch. Just load the cfw without the experimental mod chip and re-create the actions the user was doing when the error occured.

 

[Deleted User]

How to prevent 99% of permabricks:

- Download payloads and apps from creditable sources only
- Backup your system right after loading a payload and keep the backup stored in several different physical locations
- Wait a day or two before running anything just released/updated

 

[Meepers55]

+1. It's should be easy to rule out the hardware, since that person says they have another switch. Just load the cfw without the experimental mod chip and re-create the actions the user was doing when the error occured.

The problem is that they had said it and they didn't show it. We can't be sure if they did everything exactly the same way on each Switch either. All we have is he said/she said.

 

[efxonly123]

The problem is that they had said it and they didn't show it. We can't be sure if they did everything exactly the same way on each Switch either. All we have is he said/she said.

I think he said he moved the modchip to another switch and the modchip still worked. That's fine and dandy, but if the blame was placed squarely on the software, and no one else reported being bricked by it, then I wanted to see the software loaded on an un-modded switch also.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

How to prevent 99% of permabricks:

- Download payloads and apps from creditable sources only
- Backup your system right after loading a payload and keep the backup stored in several different physical locations
- Wait a day or two before running anything just released/updated

I think you may want to backup of your system prior to loading that payload.

 

[Meepers55]

I think he said he moved the modchip to another switch and the modchip still worked. That's fine and dandy, but if the blame was placed squarely on the software, and no one else reported being bricked by it, then I wanted to see the software loaded on an un-modded switch also.

I see I had misread your original reply. Sorry for that. The idea doesn't seem to be a bad one, but it seems pointless since there are already average users (those without the modchip) who hadn't reported any bricks. There's also the possibility that he messed up when installing the modchip on the previous Switch.

 

[M7L7NK7]

Wait for someone who didn't modify their console internally to get bricked and THEN be worried.

 

[SaffronXL]

How to prevent 99% of permabricks:

- Download payloads from creditable sources
- Backup your system right after loading a payload and keep it stored in several different physical locations
- Wait a day or two before running anything just released/updated

Completely agreed, but how do we really know who's "credible" anymore? The clusterfck on the RajNX thread has damaged my trust in all parties involved. I want to see evidence and resolution, and there's not much of that going on.

 

[rajkosto]

I genuinely want to know what exactly went wrong with Evil's Switch. I don't care who's to "blame", I want to know what went wrong and how to prevent it from happening again. The bickering gets us nowhere.

According to the images, it seems to have the same symptoms of what a "unofficial dock bricked" switch would have, and if they were only using the official dock (like they say), that would be kinda scary as it could mean that the "dock bricking" can happen even with the Nintendo dock (cant be surprised after people reporting their switches actually BEND after some time of use), unless it was just caused by the hardware mods that they have performed on the switch (which can work for indeterminate amounts of time... until something goes wrong like an internal short caused by loose solder blob, flux corrosion finally messing up some traces/short-circuiting, or similar).

Kinda surprising to see that kind of claims from someone who is representing a company making hardware ? Surely they would know not to trust a sample size of 1 (especially when they have no control group)
Would be good to know if it can be fixed by replacing the (re-branded) power delivery chip, like how you fix dock-bricked switches. Them being a hardware company, should have the tools to perform this replacement, so I'd like to hear about the results.

 

[Ashura66]

Jesus Christ that entire thread was just a big mess, i just got finished reading trough the most of it. While i can see things from both sides, the way raj acted was...not all that good which made me more inclined to believe EvilSperm, given all the shit he did to try and get his console back to working. This is the kind of BS that sets the scene back for months, sometimes years. I myself use TumGER's sdfiles pack, it works for me, i see no reason to try any other pack.

Completely agreed, but how do we really know who's "credible" anymore? The clusterfck on the RajNX thread has damaged my trust in all parties involved. I want to see evidence and resolution, and there's not much of that going on.

Well i'd say that credibility is going to have to be earned all over again by ALL parties involved, for me by presenting solid and sufficient evidence that their stuff works and doesn't brick

 

[Meepers55]

Jesus Christ that entire thread was just a big mess, i just got finished reading trough the most of it. While i can see things from both sides, the way raj acted was...not all that good which made me more inclined to believe EvilSperm, given all the shit he did to try and get his console back to working. This is the kind of BS that sets the scene back for months, sometimes years. I myself use TumGER's sdfiles pack, it works for me, i see no reason to try any other pack.



Well i'd say that credibility is going to have to be earned all over again by ALL parties involved, for me by presenting solid and sufficient evidence that their stuff works and doesn't brick

I do admit that Raj didn't handle it that well, but also consider that most people were only attacking him and the one person who could have cooperated with him to get to the bottom of things chose to point fingers. I understand that no one wants over $300 to go down the shitter, but it's because of that fact that evilsperm should've worked with Raj to prevent this from happening again.

 

[Ashura66]

Found a new avatar for him

Spoiler: Pics

That...is actually pretty god damn fantastic!

I do admit that Raj didn't handle it that well, but also consider that most people were only attacking him and the one person who could have cooperated with him to get to the bottom of things chose to point fingers. I understand that no one wants over $300 to go down the shitter, but it's because of that fact that evilsperm should've worked with Raj to prevent this from happening again.

What i saw was everyone attacking everyone. Raj, EvilSperm, Darth Meteos, Rei, no one was spared attacks. And yes all of it could have been avoided but given EvilSperm's finger pointing and raj not even for a second considering that the issue MIGHT have been with his software, the chances of the two working together completely went down the drain and just got lost among all the hate

 

[rajkosto]

What i saw was everyone attacking everyone. Raj, EvilSperm, Darth Meteos, Rei, no one was spared attacks. And yes all of it could have been avoided but given EvilSperm's finger pointing and raj not even for a second considering that the issue MIGHT have been with his software, the chances of the two working together completely went down the drain and just got lost among all the hate

there's a reason for that. the current versions do not touch anything related to hardware to play it safe (for now), and you can verify that by going through the modifications. if this is a CFW issue, it could have happened regardless of which one you are using (even stuff like tomGER sd pack).

 

[SaffronXL]

Would be good to know if it can be fixed by replacing the (re-branded) power delivery chip, like how you fix dock-bricked switches. Them being a hardware company, should have the tools to perform this replacement, so I'd like to hear about the results.

Obviously the ball's in Evil's court to diagnose the Switch's issue in the most effective way possible, but it would be reassuring to know that you are researching and testing every possible consideration of why this issue might or might not have orginated from work on your end.

 

[evilsperm]

I really don't think you "get" it.
Lets say the official dock toasted the charge controller the nand would still be intact!
The console would still boot from RCM mode its as simple as that. In this case it does not what so ever.
The dock bricks don't exhibit behavior like this, and of coarse if I want to swap out the charge controller to do further testing I can, but I wont because its not even worth my time. As soon as that symptom is fixed I will still need to deal with the nand issue being totally muffed.
The system will not boot OFW or CFW even after a reflash of the original nand.
I really don't care if gbatemp kids don't want to do their homework and take my warning, go ahead and brick your system...
I just hope you have deep pockets though for a new one
My console could have been a perfect storm for something to go wrong, but do you really want to zap yours to find out?
I have hundreds of hours on this system with and without our mod in there, including a trinket as well during early development.
There have been no instances of anything going wrong until now with rajnx.
Hell I should have checked the src myself, but it was me being lazy...
Guess I'll have to look into it further when I have the time but as for now I'm putting all my $ on an issue with the cfw.

Also I was in no way attacking raj, and the tolls that do are assholes.
Like I said he puts out good work, this could have just been a fluke but its better to be safe than sorry!
This same exact ting happened in the ps3 scene and it bricked thousands of consoles before anyone knew what hit them.

 

[Meepers55]

That...is actually pretty god damn fantastic!



What i saw was everyone attacking everyone. Raj, EvilSperm, Darth Meteos, Rei, no one was spared attacks. And yes all of it could have been avoided but given EvilSperm's finger pointing and raj not even for a second considering that the issue MIGHT have been with his software, the chances of the two working together completely went down the drain and just got lost among all the hate

I don't blame him for being skeptical since there wasn't enough evidence to exactly say that it was his software that caused the brick. All we have is evilsperm's word which isn't exactly the best source when you consider he just bricked a $300+ device. This doesn't excuse Raj's course of action, but it helps me understand why he chose that course.

 

[rajkosto]

Well it would have been helpful if they provided more information, like what Firmware version and Launch profile they were using.
I am not a company and do not do this for money, it's a hobby, and I haven't encountered anything similar in the testing that I've done.
The most probable answer that the CFW being in use at a time was just a coincidence, nothing more. I can't find anything else that would have caused it other than a hardware glitch.

I really don't think you "get" it.
Lets say the official dock toasted the charge controller the nand would still be intact!
The console would still boot from RCM mode its as simple as that. In this case it does not what so ever.
The dock bricks don't exhibit behavior like this, and of coarse if I want to swap out the charge controller to do further testing I can, but I wont because its not even worth my time. As soon as that symptom is fixed I will still need to deal with the nand issue being totally muffed.
The system will not boot OFW or CFW even after a reflash of the original nand.
I really don't care if gbatemp kids don't want to do their homework and take my warning, go ahead and brick your system...
I just hope you have deep pockets though for a new one
My console could have been a perfect storm for something to go wrong, but do you really want to zap yours to find out?
I have hundreds of hours on this system with and without our mod in there, including a trinket as well during early development.
There have been no instances of anything going wrong until now with rajnx.
Hell I should have checked the src myself, but it was me being lazy...
Guess I'll have to look into it further when I have the time but as for now I'm putting all my $ on an issue with the cfw.

Also I was in no way attacking raj, and the tolls that do are assholes.
Like I said he puts out good work, this could have just been a fluke but its better to be safe than sorry!
This same exact ting happened in the ps3 scene and it bricked thousands of consoles before anyone knew what hit them.

Actually statements like this is something I really wouldn't want to hear from someone who is manufacturing and going to be selling modchips to potentially a LOT of people.
(the "nand being muffed" seems to just be wrong too, since the console IS showing the Nintendo Switch logo, meaning that NCAs from SYSTEM: are properly loading)