Hacking New 3DS XL - Black Screens & No Input on Home Menu - BSOD Brick?

smallmedicap · Jun 10, 2018

Coincidentally after reading this thread from a couple days ago:

https://gbatemp.net/threads/what-is-wrong-with-my-2ds-it-cant-boot-to-home-menu.506674/

I believe I have the same BSoD Main Menu Brick described here:

TurdPooCharger said:
Oh no. You're victim #6 of this BSoD soft brick.

Black Screens, Everything works in system update mode, Error when camera disconnected

N3DS XL Black Screen of Death

3ds bricked itself, can't figure out why or how to fix.

Big Problem with a possible Brick on New 3ds XL

Black screens on n3ds xl

Prognosis: really bad. Not fixable/no known work around.

I'm going to post all of the info in post #2 just in case someone has a brilliant idea.

TurdPooCharger · Jun 10, 2018

There are other varieties of Black Screens of Death bricks that are recoverable. The one that's not fixable has sound.

In case your 3DS has conditions described in those threads and you've already tried all those ideas in trying to bring it back to life, you would be #10.

9 - CFW 3DS - Black Screens

8 ??? - New 3DS brick after installing a bad CIA file

7 - Luma3DS Noob Question + Bricked?

6 - Help my 3ds boots with black screens

5 - Black Screens, Everything works in system update mode, Error when camera disconnected

4 - N3DS XL Black Screen of Death

3 - 3ds bricked itself, can't figure out why or how to fix.

2 - Big Problem with a possible Brick on New 3ds XL

1 - Black screens on n3ds xl

***

Post Update
On August 22, 2018, gisel213 solved and provided the solution in fixing this BSoD brick.

New 3DS XL Screens only display recovery mode

smallmedicap · Jun 10, 2018

A New 3DS XL was given to me with this problem:

It boots up. I can hear the main menu. The screens are completely black.* No input works.**

*(It's not just the light not working because you cannot see anything at all even with a flashlight. TBH I'm not sure if N3DS lighting works like that, I know most cellphones do. But that is not important.)

**(Control pad should make a noise because of moving the cursor. It does not. A button should run programs. It does not. Hitting power button repeatedly should shut down system. It does not. (Have to hold power for 5 seconds to shut down even though main menu music is still playing fine.)

I installed boot9strap-1.3 just fine. And i have Luma3DSv9.0 on the sd card. (In other words on SD card all i have is the luma 9.0 boot.firm & luma folder with GM9 / D9 & GM9 folder.)

The screens (input & light) work just fine doing that stuff.

Here is the weirdest part of this brick: The screens work fine in recovery mode (L+R+Up+A). So does input.

I have GodMode9 and Decrypt9 working fine.

I have moved boot.firm to sysnand and tried booting without card. Goes to main menu/black screens. So nothing to report there.

I did a CTRTransfer using the only image I had handy (9.2.0-20U_ctrtransfer_n3ds). It was "successful" but does not fix the glitch. Still black screens & no input on main menu.

I then did an official update back to 11.6 using recovery mode & wifi. Still no fix.

I have tried a few other things as well.

I am quite sure it is not a bad main menu title that causes this brick because I have deleted it (00008F02) with GodMode9 while on 9.2. Then recovered it by doing an official update with recovery mode. Does not fix.

I have tried various states of uninstalling/reinstalling b9s while on 9.2 or 11.6. Nothing.

I have left it on main menu (with music playing) for over an hour before. Nothing.

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TurdPooCharger said:
<snip>

Hello TurdPooCharger, good to see you! Yep it seems we have #10 here. I hope perhaps some of my info might help.

Are most examples of this brick on New style systems? If so, here is a theory:

Maybe the auto-brightness feature they implemented on New styles is causing a problem somehow. And since recovery mode was very likely never updated with that feature, the screen & input in recovery mode works fine...

In other words, a hardware problem with the auto-brightness sensor & light level changing might be causing this. Which would explain why this brick is not recoverable through any software means.

Though that does not explain why I do not have input either and it would not explain why a couple people reported this glitch on non-New style 3DSs.

Just an idea...

TurdPooCharger · Jun 10, 2018

smallmedicap said:
Hello TurdPooCharger, good to see you! Yep it seems we have #10 here. I hope perhaps some of my info might help.

Are most examples of this brick on New style systems? If so, here is a theory:

Maybe the auto-brightness feature they implemented on New styles is causing a problem somehow. And since recovery mode was very likely never updated with it, it works fine...

Though that does not explain why I do not have input either and it would not explain why a couple people reported this glitch on non-New style 3DSs.

Just an idea...

Hello there, smallmedicap. And condolences to your 3DS experiencing electronic purgatory.

Your post is of great help to the community as any information pertaining to this brick sheds more light to what it is. Although a solution has eluded us thus far for probably one of the biggest 3DS mysteries, every piece of collected data and attempted new ideas inches us closer to catching this killer bug. One day we'll get you, you SoB... *shakes fist*

As for answering your question, BSoD (with sound) appears to affect more of the New types [hold your jimmies, gundam fans. We ain't talking about souls getting weighed down by gravity here.] more than the Old ones, but this could be due to skewed reports as more O3DS/O2DS retire from usage. There hasn't been a reported case of a N2DSXL yet, but that could be because that model is relatively new, there's not as many N2DSXL CFW users here compared to others, or Nintendo did their due diligence in its design where it's not susceptible to the brick.

You're not alone in having non-responsive input as that's one of the common symptoms. There's a variant where instead of the buttons not working, buttons cause the 3DS to crash with the BGM sound stopping. Both CFW hacked and stock (nonhacked) 3DS have been hit by this frickin' BSoD. It strikes with the pattern of a Jack Ripper. Whether it is sleep mode or the middle of playing a game, your 3DS is not safe from it. :gun:

As for Recovery Mode, that's part of the 3DS core operating system that's left alone whenever updating the firmware. See System Updater.

As for tinkering with the auto-brightness feature, I'm not sure how one would tests this and how it relates back to the buttons. There's clearly something or some things that fail to initialize when the 3DS boots up. We just won't know what they are until an unlucky 3DS owner goes techno Sherlock Homes on this perpetrator.

smallmedicap · Jun 10, 2018

(In the below when I say hacked I mean boot9strap-1.3 installed via magnet/r4card running Luma3DSv9.0. And when I say unhacked I mean running an uninstall_hax_retail_NEW script via GodMode9.)

Some more info, hopefully of use:

Not sure how I missed this earlier but in further testing I found this: On both 11.6 and 9.2 I only hear the main menu music if the n3ds is unhacked. If it is hacked I might hear the main menu music for 1 second or so but then it stops, usually not at all.

Something else interesting. 3DSs have a few boot codes. The one we have talked about already for Updating (L+R+UP+A). There is also one for joystick calibration (L+R+Y). There is also one for touchscreen calibration (L+R+X).

If you ran these on a functional 3DS it would appear that they are similar. They go to an option screen where you can either do the function, or cancel to turn off.

Here's the interesting thing. We know already that the update one (L+R+UP+A) goes to a functioning option screen with working light/screens/input.

But on this BSoD no input glitched n3DS the other two boot codes have the same black screen & no input glitch as turning on the n3DS normally does! I know the button codes are working because the main menu music never starts if I do one of them.

So, for whatever reason, only the update button boot code seems to survive this black screen no input glitch. Those other two do not. They exec, but with black screen & no input.

smallmedicap · Jun 11, 2018

More info:

I left it on for 24 hours. Did not help. The main menu music was still happily playing away.

Here is something interesting. If I put the 3DS to sleep, even for a second, and then wake it up again. No main menu music. So putting it to sleep appears to make it fully crash.

TurdPooCharger said:
The one that's not fixable has sound.

smallmedicap said:
I only hear the main menu music if the n3ds is unhacked. If it is hacked I might hear the main menu music for 1 second or so but then it stops, usually not at all.

That made me think of something interesting.

If you get reports of someone having an unfixable BSoD without main menu music (like the thread from last week) perhaps have them run an uninstall hax script with GM9. I bet they have BSoD with main menu music after that.

mbcrazed · Jun 11, 2018

Edit: Did not mean to double post. Also, making an emunand won't fix the problem, I meant to say something along the lines of seeing if that will boot.
--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

mbcrazed said:
Not sure if this has been tried before (it would be a lot of work to check the other 9 threads) but have you tried making an emunand and seeing if that would fix the problem? Yes, I know emunand is obsolete, but it's worth a try, right?

smallmedicap · Jun 11, 2018

That might be worth a shot mbcrazed, though I never really messed with emunand and I have a feeling someone probably already tried that.

Anyway, new info:

I successfully (correctly) ran Lazarus3DS. It did not fix this specific BSoD brick.

smallmedicap · Jun 13, 2018

I am going to serve this n3DSxl up for parts in a few days. So if anyone has any crazy ideas to try let me know now.

Hacking New 3DS XL - Black Screens & No Input on Home Menu - BSOD Brick?

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Meh.

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