Hacking Luma3DS - An exception occurred (ARM11)

[sakura-mk7]

I was playing Mario Kart 7 online earlier today and after a while I got this error:

An exception occurred
Processor: arm11 <core 0>
Exception type: prefetch abort
Fault status: translation - section
Current process: MarioKar (title ID)

The same error happened when I tried to play local multiplayer with friends on Pokémon Moon after issuing PKSM. I’m not sure if the Luma plugin loader was enabled or not.

How can I fix this?

 

[AkikoKumagara]

It's not a "fix" per se, but you can disable ARM11 Exception Handlers in Luma Config (hold select when turning on console).

 

[sakura-mk7]

I was thinking about doing that but then I read on another post that it is dangerous and could harm my console.

 

[TurdPooCharger]

I was thinking about going that but then I read on another post that it is dangerous and could harm my console.

If you're using the latest Luma3DS v10.0.1, see if changing boot.firm back back to Luma3DS v9.1 helps.

 

[AkikoKumagara]

I was thinking about doing that but then I read on another post that it is dangerous and could harm my console.

Untrue. Your games may still crash, though. The only problem turning the handlers off imposes is that you cannot submit bug reports to Luma3DS if you have them disabled.

 

[sakura-mk7]

So would the best option be to replace the boot.firm file to Luma3DS v9.1? Or is there anything else I could do?

Untrue. Your games may still crash, though. The only problem turning the handlers off imposes is that you cannot submit bug reports to Luma3DS if you have them disabled.

 

[Lacius]

So would the best option be to replace the boot.firm file to Luma3DS v9.1? Or is there anything else I could do?

It's a good idea to switch to Luma3DS v9.1 as a matter of troubleshooting if nothing else fixes the problem. I would start by disabling ARM11 Exception Handlers.

 

[sakura-mk7]

It's a good idea to switch to Luma3DS v9.1 as a matter of troubleshooting if nothing else fixes the problem. I would start by disabling ARM11 Exception Handlers.

Would disabling the handlers cause the actual errors to persist without showing the error codes?

 

[Lacius]

Would disabling the handlers cause the actual errors to persist without showing the error codes?

Possibly, depending on the cause.

 

[TurdPooCharger]

Untrue. Your games may still crash, though. The only problem turning the handlers off imposes is that you cannot submit bug reports to Luma3DS if you have them disabled.

No, disabling ARM11 exception handlers can in fact cause softbricks. Don't use that option unless your mod or plugin absolutely requires it disabled.

Edit - Okay, let me rephrase this in another way. Disabling the ARM11 exception handlers allows the underlying cause of your ARM11 error to get worse. Having Luma3DS crash is actually a good thing because it minimizes the bug from wrecking havoc on your firmware and SD setup.

Bad things have happened before to those who used that setting like damaged title.db/import.db (all installed titles become unrecognized or delisted) and in some cases, softbrick that requires CTRTransfer to fix.

 

[AkikoKumagara]

No, disabling ARM11 exception handlers can in fact cause softbricks. Don't use that option unless your mod or plugin absolutely requires it disabled.

Edit - Okay, let me rephrase this in another way. Disabling the ARM11 exception handlers allows the underlying cause of your ARM11 error to get worse. Having Luma3DS crash is actually a good thing because it minimizes the bug from wrecking havoc on your firmware and SD setup.

Bad things have happened before to those who used that setting like damaged title.db/import.db (all installed titles become unrecognized or delisted) and in some cases, softbrick that requires CTRTransfer to fix.

Never heard of this, but I know when the exception handlers were first introduced, a lot of ARM11 crashes and errors that wouldn't crash a game started happening. I'm sure most of these, if not all of them, have been addressed by now anyway.

I obviously won't advocate for this workaround knowing it can cause significant problems, but back when I had to disable it, it never did.

Like I said though, it's a workaround and not a proper fix.

 

[TurdPooCharger]

Never heard of this, but I know when the exception handlers were first introduced, a lot of ARM11 crashes and errors that wouldn't crash a game started happening. I'm sure most of these, if not all of them, have been addressed by now anyway.

I obviously won't advocate for this workaround knowing it can cause significant problems, but back when I had to disable it, it never did.

Like I said though, it's a workaround and not a proper fix.

The problem is people wrongly assume disabling the ARM11 exception handler acts as a general band-aid to all ARM11 bugs. Without careful consideration of what's causing the error to occur in the first place, using the option will do more harm in the long run when either their firmware bricks badly, or they have to painstakingly rebuild their database by reinstalling all their CIAs. The second scenario is made worse for the fact that you can't reinstall game CIAs without backing up their saves first as reinstalling a game will overwrite whatever save it had in place. You can't backup the saves in Checkpoint or JKSM as they rely on the database to recognize the games. This means manually pulling out the 0000001.sav files out of the Nintendo 3DS, reinstalling the games, putting back those SAV files in their correct directories, and then backing up the saves in Checkpoint/JKSM in order to bypass games that have anti-cheat restore save (Secure Value). The few I've seen who unfortunately bricked this way learned this lesson too late and lost all their save progresses.

For those above reasons, only after thoroughly checking that your SD card is good in H2testw, clean dumps of the games were installed, import seed if required, luma locale emulation added for out-of-region games, romhack is 100% setup right with Luma game patching + required update, and 3DS firmware acts stable under typical use cases,

... does one then consider trying the exception handler if they know a particular game they're playing has mod/plugin (bootNTR, ModMoon, cheats, etc).​

 

[ghjfdtg]

Never heard about this. If anything the opposite should be true since the system can't save and close opened files when it crashes immediately instead of showing an error and gracefully rebooting.

 

[Captain_Falcone]

I had the same issue and user Giodude (on another post) suggested placing boot.3dsx in the root folder of the SD Card. Hope that helps. It may also be another missing file.

 

[Foxi4]

Necrobump. Closing thread.