Hacking N3DS boot soft-lock with Luma randomly clearing homemenu data fixes it.

[masterz87]

For some reason if I clear the homemenu extdata from godmode9 then the n3ds will boot just fine. And if I boot w/o a memory card in the n3ds it also boots just fine. It happens randomly. I've already tried replacing the uSD card with a brand new one that I tested and came back fine. For some reason though it still happens to me. I can't explain it, and it doesn't happen with any certain title. First I thought it was something with Captain Toad, but after playing Picross 3d(the 3ds one) it did it again. It happens randomly and I don't know if it's the bootrom that's doing it or what. As far as I know my 3ds' version of Luma is up to date. The only thing I haven't tried is the 4x formatting which I'll probably be trying here in a bit as I'm out of other options.
I'd just like to know why it's always the homemenu extdata. When I clear that data it boots just fine(of course I lose all of my folders) but then it happens again and if I clear it again from godmode9 it starts up again just fine once more.

 

[TurdPooCharger]

Check if your SD card is fake, faulty, or dying.

1. Copy everything off the SD card to a computer.
2. Quadruple reformat.
3. Full Write + Verify the empty card in H2testw. Do not skip.

 

[masterz87]

I've already run badblocks on the brand new uSD card and it's doing the same thing as it did with my old data after copying it over from the old SD card. I don't know if the data itself is going crazy or what. What's the easiest way for the 3ds to verify that all installed data is good?

 

[TurdPooCharger]

I've already run badblocks on the brand new uSD card and it's doing the same thing as it did with my old data after copying it over from the old SD card. I don't know if the data itself is going crazy or what. What's the easiest way for the 3ds to verify that all installed data is good?

Ah, a linux user.

Since I don't know if badblocks (wiki) is the equivalent to H2testw (Windows) or F3 (Linux), I'm going to say that it's probably more like Window's chkdsk (wiki) which is not an appropriate program for testing the hardware condition of a flash storage drive.

1. Copy everthing off the SD card to a computer.
2. Reformat the card in [ FAT32 format | 32 KB cluster/allocation size | MBR disk | Primary partition ] with GParted, KDE Partition Manager, or whichever flavor your Linux typically resorts to for its reformatting needs.
3. Full Write + Verify the empty card in F3. Do not skip.
   • If F3 somehow doesn't compile or run correctly from command line, consider temporarily borrowing a friend's/family's Windows computer or begrudgingly booting to Windows if you have a dual boot setup. Take extra safety precautions for the Coronavirus. Sanitize a borrowed computer not from the same household.

 

[masterz87]

badblocks is basically like HWTest or F3 except that it A) It talks to the drive as a raw device not one with a file system(it doesn't deal with the filesystem in write mode it writes to the raw device w/o any filesystem overhead). And B) it lets you specify the patterns. The default set of tests is 0x00 repeated over and over again. Then 0xaa, then 0x55, then finally 0xff by default. You can also have it do a random pattern where it psuedorandomly writes a pattern to the disk. And it does this across the entire disk and reports if any reads/writes errored out. It's basically like F3 except that it _does not_ deal with the filesystem. It's writing across the entire device. So it's checking all sectors from 0 to the final one.

chkdisk is more like fsck(filesystem check). Whereas badblocks doesn't care about filesystems and if you do the write test to it, it'll write across the entire device overwriting everything in blocks of data that you specify(defaults to 4k blocks and 512 blocks at a time). So it's a lower level sector checker than chkdisk or F3. F3/H2test2 both require the device to be formatted already(they won't work with a raw device).

As per this note on the 3ds.guide "./f3write /media/michel/6135-3363/"
That tells me there's some filesystem already on the device so its' only checking from from whatever sector the filesystem starts on and also not checking the beginning of the device where the MBR/Partition table is.

But I'll try F3 and see if it results in anything different.


And I have a windows partition solely so that i can use the sd association formatter for my SD cards after running badblocks on them.

H2Test2 came back AOK for all of the ones and it verified AOK. I'll try it again and see what happens next. I don't get what's going on with it and why it's not working.

No fix. I can get into the luma menu but still a black screen after copying the files back to it.

The fix is always to go into godemode9 and select plailect's guides->"remove extdata" and then it'll boot AOK. I'm still using bootstrap9 and apparently there is a newer bootloader out there but I don't know if it'd make much of a difference.

 

[TurdPooCharger]

-snip-
But I'll try F3 and see if it results in anything different.


And I have a windows partition solely so that i can use the sd association formatter for my SD cards after running badblocks on them.

H2Test2 came back AOK for all of the ones and it verified AOK. I'll try it again and see what happens next. I don't get what's going on with it and why it's not working.

No fix. I can get into the luma menu but still a black screen after copying the files back to it.

The fix is always to go into godemode9 and select plailect's guides->"remove extdata" and then it'll boot AOK. I'm still using bootstrap9 and apparently there is a newer bootloader out there but I don't know if it'd make much of a difference.

(cont.)

4. Battery trick.
5. On the SD Card, rename the Nintendo 3DS folder to Nintendo 3DS (main).
6. Boot to HOME Menu and check if the 3DS still crashes.
​

Path (A) - If the 3DS no longer crashes,

7a. Delete the (dummy) Nintendo 3DS folder, and rename Nintendo 3DS (main) back to Nintendo 3DS.
8a. See the Path (A) - If the (original) main SD card passed in H2testw in the link below,

• Ultra sun game crashing "an Error Occured". [post #24]

-or-​

Path (B) - If the 3DS still crashes,

7b. Delete the (dummy) Nintendo 3DS folder, and rename Nintendo 3DS (main) back to Nintendo 3DS.
8b. Repair the 3DS firmware + custom firmware with CTRTransfer (Type D9) - CTRTransfer. Follow the Instructions.​