I need help!
I bought a brand new, fresh New 3DS XL which came with firmware version 9.6.0-24E and attempted to install arm9loaderhax + Luma3DS using the Plailect Guide.
The entire process was going great, the only major hiccup being that the first downgrade to 9.2 was incomplete - I used my cartridge of Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon to install an update (not wanting to go to 11.0, since that would ruin any hope of downgrading) and ended up on 10.2.0-20E. After trying again, the downgrade to 9.2 went without a hitch.
I followed the remaining parts of the guide and it was going smoothly. But when it came to the downgrade to 2.1 (last steps of the tutorial's Part 4) an issue popped up. PlaiSys Updater claimed to have finished successfully and rebooted my console. Happy it went well, I initialized the OTPHelper from SysNAND and used the One Click Setup, the very last step in that part of the tutorial.
And upon rebooting, I was greeted with a black screen.
Booting without the microSD card did show the Home Menu properly, but putting it in after it booted didn't help at all. I had a mini panic attack, afraid I bricked my console for good (which still might be true), but I figured I might be able to recover with the solution to the previous issue. And I updated with Super Mystery Dungeon again.
This solved the problem of booting without the microSD - however, I still receive black screen when trying to enter System Settings, so I'm not even able to confirm which firmware version I'm on (or which version the console thinks I'm on) or format the system.
BrowserHax is out of the question, it wants me to update the system to use it, and my FreakyHax doesn't work for whatever reason, giving me an error and rebooting the system. Menuhax is no longer present and while I could try installing SuperMysteryDungeonHax or BaseHax from another HomeBrewable console, I don't know which firmware version to pick during installation.
I found some claims that removing a 000002cc/d/e folder on the card might solve some problems, but I don't even have any folder like that - in any of my three (!) "scrambled letters and numbers" folders.
Formatting the microSD and putting all the files back on didn't help anything either, though I didn't really expect it to. It was a rather desperate attempt.
Is there any way to recover from this? Would launching Homebrew somehow allow me to recover the backup NANDs? According to Plailtect's guide, even updating to the newest firmware may brick my N3DS.
Of course the final solution for me would be to return the console to the store and try to exchange it for another one. This one's brand new, they'd probably believe me if I claimed they accidentally sold me a faulty product. I don't want to do that though, not unless there are really no possible options left.
I bought a brand new, fresh New 3DS XL which came with firmware version 9.6.0-24E and attempted to install arm9loaderhax + Luma3DS using the Plailect Guide.
The entire process was going great, the only major hiccup being that the first downgrade to 9.2 was incomplete - I used my cartridge of Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon to install an update (not wanting to go to 11.0, since that would ruin any hope of downgrading) and ended up on 10.2.0-20E. After trying again, the downgrade to 9.2 went without a hitch.
I followed the remaining parts of the guide and it was going smoothly. But when it came to the downgrade to 2.1 (last steps of the tutorial's Part 4) an issue popped up. PlaiSys Updater claimed to have finished successfully and rebooted my console. Happy it went well, I initialized the OTPHelper from SysNAND and used the One Click Setup, the very last step in that part of the tutorial.
And upon rebooting, I was greeted with a black screen.
Booting without the microSD card did show the Home Menu properly, but putting it in after it booted didn't help at all. I had a mini panic attack, afraid I bricked my console for good (which still might be true), but I figured I might be able to recover with the solution to the previous issue. And I updated with Super Mystery Dungeon again.
This solved the problem of booting without the microSD - however, I still receive black screen when trying to enter System Settings, so I'm not even able to confirm which firmware version I'm on (or which version the console thinks I'm on) or format the system.
BrowserHax is out of the question, it wants me to update the system to use it, and my FreakyHax doesn't work for whatever reason, giving me an error and rebooting the system. Menuhax is no longer present and while I could try installing SuperMysteryDungeonHax or BaseHax from another HomeBrewable console, I don't know which firmware version to pick during installation.
I found some claims that removing a 000002cc/d/e folder on the card might solve some problems, but I don't even have any folder like that - in any of my three (!) "scrambled letters and numbers" folders.
Formatting the microSD and putting all the files back on didn't help anything either, though I didn't really expect it to. It was a rather desperate attempt.
Is there any way to recover from this? Would launching Homebrew somehow allow me to recover the backup NANDs? According to Plailtect's guide, even updating to the newest firmware may brick my N3DS.
Of course the final solution for me would be to return the console to the store and try to exchange it for another one. This one's brand new, they'd probably believe me if I claimed they accidentally sold me a faulty product. I don't want to do that though, not unless there are really no possible options left.
Last edited by eworm,