Has anyone actually escaped the softbrick loop of doom?

Have you tried formatting?
It worked for me.

 

I hate to break it to you, but the solution is formatting.

 

Had 4 softbricks in a row before fixing it by removing the Nintendo DS cartridge I had in my console and changing SD. But yeah, the only real fix is formatting.

 

My problem got solved like this, but I've heard no one except me fixed it like this. Stars must've aligned themselves and I was chosen by Lord Helix to downgrade it seems.

I did not have to format but everyone else with the softbrick loop seems to have been forced to do it. That's why I told you it is the only real fix.

 

If you have an update prompt on your sysNAND that could supposedly cause a soft brick too, but people don't seem quite sure what's actually causing the softbricks.

 

They didn't format. but they also only got 4 soft-bricks. I got well over a dozen at least, I formatted and it downgraded instantly. There have been several other users with the same issue (well over a dozen soft-bricks and trying everything).

Formatting is the fix to the constant soft-bricking. Some users get lucky and aren't plagued with eternal soft-bricks and only some soft-bricks.

Wouldn't the update prompt go away after updating back to 10.3 due to soft-bricking? The type we're talking about here is well over 10-12 soft-bricks.

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If it helps, you can back up your actual save files by using SVDT and extdata_dump (for games like fantasy life that save to extdata). And then restore them after the format. You don't lose the games either, since you can relink your NNID and just download them again (or pirate ;P).

So really the only stuff lost are: game notes, friends list/friendcode, Street Pass Plaza, and a couple other things that you can't backup.

 

It would, but yeah, a lot of the bricks are just unexplainable. Some of them are probably just menuhax conflicting.

 

Yea, I assumed by "soft brick loop of doom" we're talking about the "tried everything, but still soft bricking over a dozen times" club. .

 

I'm on an old 3ds and probably have soft bricked 2 or 3 dozen times.

Gonna make one hell of a squishy house with all these soft bricks!

But yeah, really trying to avoid formatting system.
4-5 years of traveling with this thing for all those streetpasses...really too hard for me to let go without anyway of backing it up.
(Was hoping to downgrade so i would be able to make a NAND backup haha...) i have more or leas 2-3 hours before servers shut down and i can't update to 10.3

 

You have to opportunity to downgrade to an exploitable firmware, the timeframe window is closing and your biggest concern is losing your streetpasses?

I lost ALL of my eshop games because I had to format. Kinda sucks but best tradeoff ever

 

No real reason not to format your SysNAND if you're stuck in a soft-brick loop. I went through 9 soft-bricks - that's right, NINE - before I tried formatting and it worked flawlessly. You can re-link your NNID and download your purchased content after formatting. As for game saves, I'm sure you can back them up with homebrew and restore them with homebrew. I might be wrong, though; do research first.

 

Simple.. Don't downgrade. Outside of trying a different MSD.. then who knows.

 

I just wanted to clear up something:

When you guys refer to formatting, are you talking about the console or the SD card? And at what point should you perform this step?

 

Formatting the system. This step must be done after several softbricks from attempting to downgrade. It literally solved the problem for me.

 

console, and before you downgrade.

there really needs to be some research into this, since formatting isn't a solution for some people.

 

Seems to solve the problem... for me and a few other people who posted here on this thread.

 

I mean because formatting resets a lot of things like friend code and whatnot.