How to Downgrade a Old 3DS/2DS Home Menu

Roulettz · Mar 15, 2026

Want the old Home menu back? Now it's possible! Just try this at your own risk and ALWAYS have a nand backup first before doing this before trying this.

Also to note which is also mentioned in the video, 1.0.0 ONLY works on the Old 3DS, not the 3DS XL or the 2DS, JUST the Old 3DS. This also won't work on ANY "New" 3DS/2DS models as these home Menu's came from before the "New" 3DS Models were released or announced.

ALSO, this does NOT downgrade the firmware, that will stay at what you were at. it ONLY downgrades the home menu

EDIT: DO NOT TRY THIS IF YOU PLAY SMASH! I just tried playing smash on a 3DS that was downgraded to 8.1.0, and it ended up with the home menu breaking on my SD Card. Luckily I had a backup of my SD Card that fixed it, but if you play or planning on playing smash, DON'T TRY THIS

Anyways, here's the tutorial:

The Catboy · Mar 15, 2026

Neat but why?

Roulettz · Mar 15, 2026

The Catboy said:
Neat but why?

For the people that REALLY wanted the old Home Menu, and it was a cool project I wanted to share either way so.
PLUS the cia CAN be used on emulators like Citra or azahar as well so if anyone wanted to try out 1.0.0 or 8.1.0's home menu on a emulator then they can do that too

IC · Mar 15, 2026

Sometimes instead of asking what's the point, it's important to just have some fun! But I guess, preservation would be a valid point too. Downgrading the entire firmware could be a much bigger headache.

The Catboy · Mar 15, 2026

Roulettz said:
For the people that REALLY wanted the old Home Menu, and it was a cool project I wanted to share either way so.
PLUS the cia CAN be used on emulators like Citra or azahar as well so if anyone wanted to try out 1.0.0 or 8.1.0's home menu on a emulator then they can do that too

Fair enough

Kwyjor · Mar 16, 2026

IC_ said:
Sometimes instead of asking what's the point, it's important to just have some fun!

If there's a risk of horribly breaking everything, it seems wiser to find other ways of having fun..?

Roulettz · Mar 16, 2026

Kwyjor said:
If there's a risk of horribly breaking everything, it seems wiser to find other ways of having fun..?

well the only reason I said it was a risk was because I didn't want someone just assuming everything would go well, and then ask why their 3DS/2DS won't boot anymore. Plus it does still boot to GodMode9 either way so as long as you have a nand backup (Which I DID mention in the video) then you'll be fine, but I can't guarantee that it will tho.

IC · Mar 16, 2026

Kwyjor said:
If there's a risk of horribly breaking everything, it seems wiser to find other ways of having fun..?

That's something I would say to all sports car owners in this world. But, let's not get too off-topic.

For a lot of people, fun activities involve risk, and that's just how it is. Some popular recreational activities can be very dangerous. Mountain climbing and extreme sports, for example.
Or even, hobbyist repair of microelectronics, where you risk making a device even more broken than it already is. Yet, people do it for fun and a learning experience anyway, and it's their decision.

Some people find the most fun even directly within the risk of "horribly breaking everything".

The difference is, if you make a NAND backup of the 3DS before messing around with the firmware, you'll be able to restore it to the previous state if something goes horribly wrong. Even if you somehow ended up with a hardbrick, in most cases you should be able to restore the NAND backup with the help of ntrboot. Even if someone loses a NAND backup or "forgets" to make one, the system can be restored to a clean state using methods such as CTRtransfer.

With your life, health, and most physical objects: you can't make a backup.

So, if someone finds it fun to mess around with firmware/software, while it's still less dangerous than a lot of common physical recreational activities, I wouldn't call it wrong. In the end, it's the decision and potential consequences of the one who's doing it.

goodydanny · Mar 17, 2026

Will the Miiverse applet appear on the original 3ds or only 2ds?

Roulettz · Mar 17, 2026

goodydanny said:
Will the Miiverse applet appear on the original 3ds or only 2ds?

Yes, 8.1.0 will have the Miiverse applet on the 3ds, 3ds Xl or the 2DS. However 1.0.0 does not (only works on original 3ds, for 3ds XL or 2ds, it has to be 8.1.0)

goodydanny · Mar 17, 2026

Roulettz said:
Yes, 8.1.0 will have the Miiverse applet on the 3ds, 3ds Xl or the 2DS. However 1.0.0 does not (only works on original 3ds, for 3ds XL or 2ds, it has to be 8.1.0)

Okay so 8.1.0 should work which is the one I want but when I installed the cia it gave me the exception occured screen and said Process: Loader (000000000) there were a few more zeros in there I think but I doubt the number of zeros matter lol. What do you reccomend I do? And can you tell me what to do for the home menu extdata step? I had like 3 folders in there so I just deleted the newest one, how many did you delete?

Post automatically merged: Mar 17, 2026

Roulettz said:
Yes, 8.1.0 will have the Miiverse applet on the 3ds, 3ds Xl or the 2DS. However 1.0.0 does not (only works on original 3ds, for 3ds XL or 2ds, it has to be 8.1.0)

Wait I think I found the problem. I had a custom 3ds home menu layout installed.

Roulettz · Mar 17, 2026

goodydanny said:
Okay so 8.1.0 should work which is the one I want but when I installed the cia it gave me the exception occured screen and said Process: Loader (000000000) there were a few more zeros in there I think but I doubt the number of zeros matter lol. What do you reccomend I do? And can you tell me what to do for the home menu extdata step? I had like 3 folders in there so I just deleted the newest one, how many did you delete?

Post automatically merged: Mar 17, 2026

Wait I think I found the problem. I had a custom 3ds home menu layout installed.

oh yea, that could be the case

SylverReZ · Mar 21, 2026

Roulettz said:
For the people that REALLY wanted the old Home Menu, and it was a cool project I wanted to share either way so.
PLUS the cia CAN be used on emulators like Citra or azahar as well so if anyone wanted to try out 1.0.0 or 8.1.0's home menu on a emulator then they can do that too

Fair, but it's not necessary these days. Only purpose it had back then was to install CFW or use Gateway that would not work on later system menu versions; we have come a long way.

goodydanny · Mar 21, 2026

Roulettz said:
For the people that REALLY wanted the old Home Menu, and it was a cool project I wanted to share either way so.
PLUS the cia CAN be used on emulators like Citra or azahar as well so if anyone wanted to try out 1.0.0 or 8.1.0's home menu on a emulator then they can do that too

When I tried it on Azahar it loads the home menu but then freezes. How can I fix that? I cant boot into GM9 on Azahar so I just used FBI to install the home menu files.

Roulettz · Mar 21, 2026

goodydanny said:
When I tried it on Azahar it loads the home menu but then freezes. How can I fix that? I cant boot into GM9 on Azahar so I just used FBI to install the home menu files.

Make sure the "New 3DS Mode" is disabled in the config or settings.

goodydanny · Mar 21, 2026

Roulettz said:
Make sure the "New 3DS Mode" is disabled in the config or settings.

It is but ehh its fine. There are 2 main issues I do face with the old home menu on my main 3ds tho, 1st the downloaded/homebrew applications take forever to load when the 3ds starts up. And whenever a homebrew application sends you to the home menu (Like pressing Start to exit) instead of you pressing the home button and closing the suspended software, the home menu loads but then instantly crashes. Do you have any fixes for these?

Roulettz · Mar 22, 2026

goodydanny said:
It is but ehh its fine. There are 2 main issues I do face with the old home menu on my main 3ds tho, 1st the downloaded/homebrew applications take forever to load when the 3ds starts up. And whenever a homebrew application sends you to the home menu (Like pressing Start to exit) instead of you pressing the home button and closing the suspended software, the home menu loads but then instantly crashes. Do you have any fixes for these?

not at the moment, I may try making a custom home menu that uses the latest home menu version but uses old layout and texture, but it really depends on if I wanna take the time of doing all of that stuff. the crash thing, that has happened to me before. I wouldn't play smash because of this issue (as I had a incident where the home menu would crash everytime I had one sd card in that I played smash on), but the loading thing would probably be because of how old the home menu is. Since the firmware's used to the newer home menu, it probably causes the old home menu to slow down a bit when it comes to loading.

How to Downgrade a Old 3DS/2DS Home Menu

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