It appears that users are being banned from 3DS online services, en masse. There's no direct cause right now, and seemingly no linking factor. This post is meant as an announcement for users, to be wary, and that GBAtemp will keep you updated as soon as more info rolls in. If you have been banned, please post in the thread below, and we will try to keep tabs on the situation. To be extra sure, it can't hurt to turn off your 3DS's wireless capabilities, so you might as well do that for now.

Edit 1: it appears that e-Shop access isn't restricted if you are banned.

Edit 2: A caller to Nintendo reported that the company said this ban is due to "unauthorized software usage".

Edit 3: @LinkSoraZelda is collecting info. Contact him if you are banned.

Edit 4: Click and fill this out if you were BANNED.

Edit 5:

[11:28:19 PM] Clector: Curiously the page of that error in Nintendo Support website used to have this:Error Code: 002-0102 Situation: You receive the error code 002-0102 when attempting to connect online. What to Do: If you continue to experience this issue, please contact Nintendo by calling 1-800-255-3700. Representatives are available from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., Pacific Time, 7 days a week.
[11:28:44 PM] Clector: Now it says this: What to Do: If you are experiencing this error code, your Nintendo 3DS family system has been banned due to unauthorized system modifications, play of unauthorized versions of one or more games, and/or connecting to the official game servers in violation of our terms of service. This ban is effective immediately and requests to remove the ban will not be processed.

Thanks to @Joom

Edit 6: Aurora Wright is taking another poll here

Edit 7: Not a lot is known but

There are bans happening, they are happening in all regions.
All models in the 3ds family seem to be candidates for banning.
There is no indication they will be anything other than permanent.
A game or DLC may end up being a cause but there is no one game or DLC that ties banned users together.
The cause or causes are as yet unknown, though it does seem to be related to modifications. Reports of unmodified consoles being banned are as yet unproven.
The banning is tied to something you can modify, thus you can unban. Doing it while the causes are unknown is likely only going to burn a working token though.
There are semi public tokens out there, Nintendo knows how to browse a forum as well as you so don't be surprised if they also get banned.
It does not seem to be limited to a given base firmware version, it does not seem to be limited to any one custom firmware type. There is some speculation that older hacking methods are not being hit as hard but nothing to confirm this yet.
The data collection could have happened this morning, or it could have been months in the making.
A simple check to see is checking your friends list, by itself it will not ban you.
Some are turning their wifi off. It is doubtful this will be of much use and being banned does not seem to come with any downsides that wifi being off will not also mimic.
You may have escaped a ban thus far but it could happen at any point. It could be that they stop in the future, it has happened on other consoles, but you would be living in hope rather than any particularly well founded logic.
The bans are done on the side of Nintendo's servers rather than your 3ds so there is also that.

If you hack your devices/games then their online functionality may be troubled. This has been known for decades, Nintendo seems to have finally caught up with that.

Please continue to share information with the thread or the links in previous edits.

Update 5/30

HOW TO HELP AVOID BANS (we think)​

If I was to guess from the information we have gathered since the ban wave, it seems likely that they are looking for TitleIDs that don't exist. Homebrew shows up in the activity log as the Download Play app, and fake CIA's show up as just ??????. That last one is what I'm guessing they are looking for.

If you are not banned yet or before you unban yourself, go into your friends list, choose settings, and turn off the option to "show friends what game you are playing." This will prevent you from playing games online with friends, so turn it back on when you wanna game with someone, but ALWAYS keep it off when running custom CIAs. Next, go into system settings -> internet settings -> spotpass, and turn off BOTH options. One is auto download software, the other sends system information to Nintendo. Also, make sure you don't have your favorite title set to something stupid like FBI or any other non-Nintendo CIA.

Its VERY likely that these options are what tipped off Nintendo, but we aren't 100% certain yet. The amount of banned people that had one of these options turned on was over 80% for each. If I was to assume that some of those people overlap, its very possible (but not confirmed) that 100% of banned people in the survey had at least one of those options turned on. I personally had all of them off and I have TONS of reasons for Nintendo to ban me.... yet I am not banned (yet).

Another bit of advice: Only run custom CIAs when offline, and after you close them, run a "legit" game like Smash Bros. or something before shutting down or going back online. This way your most recent title won't show up as a fake CIA

Current Theories as to what causes a ban
​

* SpotPass Settings: 8 users out of 46 users that were banned have SpotPass completely shut off, or SpotPass only (no friends list visibility)
* Firmware Version (Luma, Nintendo): Literally all reports ranged from 10.2+, I can get exact numbers for this if you'd like, but all firmwares were affected.
* Firmware Type (A9LH, B9S): 44 of the 126 B9S users that answered were banned, pattern was mirrored for A9LH users as well.
* Homebrew Titles such as FBI, HBL, Luma Updater, Themely, and freeShop: Literally about 98% of users both banned and unbanned had some combination of these applications installed. However the common ones were: FBI, HBL, LumaUpdater and NTR.
* Save Modification: Equal amounts of users on both sides have reported save modification in some form, either with PKSM or another save editor
* System Transfers: 188 users said that they had not previously system transfered, 61 of those users were banned; 16 users said they transferred from a hacked console, only three of them received a ban; 13 said they transferred from a stock system and likewise were banned. The rest of our sample did not answer this question.
* Activity Log Information: A majority of those who have not been banned have said they had NOT cleaned their activity logs. I can get exact numbers for this too on request.

This information is just what I've found. Like I said, there could be variables or things we haven't even checked for yet. But these are things that I feel should be disproven, at least with the current dataset we have.

• From the information that we've gathered from some people that have used a packet sniffer such as WireShark, the following data is sent to Nintendo's online gaming servers as soon as the 3DS connects to the internet:
  • Amount of time spent online (timer stops when either the system is disconnected from the internet, or connection drops out, then starts the timer again in a new session when it reconnects to the internet).
  • The game being played and amount of time spent on it during that session.
  • The console's unique hexadecimal ID used in the LocalFriendCodeSeedB, along with it's RSA-signed signature.
  • The console's serial number in which is broadcasted from the SoC and is hard coded in the SoC.
  • Friend Code generated on the Nintendo 3DS system, if one has been generated.
  • Internet connection status (either online or offline).
  • The Nintendo Network ID, if there is one linked to it.
  • Even if the sending of SpotPass Information is switched off, or even hiding your currently playing games. It does not prevent the system from sending currently playing information to Nintendo's online gaming servers, it only hides it from your friends in your friend list (like being invisible on the forum, while mods and admins can still see you). Why? Because even people without a Friend Code on their system have been getting banned too!

• The following data is NOT sent to Nintendo's online gaming servers:
  • The data from the Nintendo 3DS's Activity Log. Oddly enough, while Nintendo does explicitly state that they collect Activity Log data, they're actually referring to their own server's Activity Log, which always tracks every console's online activity, and keeps a record of them that is stored forever. And is only collected in increments of data through a timer and a currently playing list.
    
  • Games or apps that have not been played, regardless if they're legitimate or not. You only get tracked when you're online and using that game or app.
  • Using games or apps while offline. Even though it is stored on the 3DS console's Activity Log, that data is NOT sent to Nintendo's online gaming servers.
  • Custom Firmware. Though we can't rule out the possibility of them releasing a 3DS update in the future that adds such function to collect MD5 hashes of files and FIRM data and send them to Nintendo online gaming servers (which would also be updated in a maintenance).

• Things that people think what happens with consoles, but really doesn't:
  • "LocalFriendCodeSeedB is transferred to the system upon doing a system transfer". This is false, the LocalFriendCodeSeedB remains on the system and does not move to another system.
  • "The console generates a LocalFriendCodeSeedB upon first startup". Again, this is false, the LocalFriendCodeSeedB is made during the manufacturing process at Foxconn. It is generated at the factory, flashed to the NAND flash memory storage, then created as an account on Nintendo's online gaming server and Nintendo eShop server immediately when being manufactured. It is absolutely impossible to generate a LocalFriendCodeSeedB and be able to connect to Nintendo's online gaming server and/or Nintendo eShop server, even if you knew the RSA generation key for it. You'd end up with Error Code 002-0102 "This console's online services have been restricted by Nintendo" if you even tried (the error can either mean two things: The hexadecimal ID doesn't exist on the server, or the request to access the hexadecimal ID has been denied which in other words... banned). So a LocalFriendCodeSeedB generator will NEVER happen! Because it's not worth doing, if it can't connect.
  • Switching off "Currently Playing" information. Once again, this does not hide your online activity from Nintendo's online gaming server, it only hides it from your friends.
  • Switching off SpotPass. Nope, this too doesn't hide your online activity from Nintendo's online gaming server, it only opts-out of receiving SpotPass data, sorry.

So pretty much the bottom line is, if anyone has been using custom apps and/or titles not installed through Nintendo eShop while online in the past, guess what? You're screwed! And it is only a matter of time before your console's unique hexadecimal ID in the LocalFriendCodeSeedB is banned from Nintendo's online gaming server. This will mean, your console can't access the Friend List or play any online functions in games.

If you have been online while using custom apps and/or titles not installed through Nintendo eShop and haven't been banned yet, that's because Nintendo hasn't caught up to you yet. They're still going through each unique hexadecimal ID's Activity Log on their server, and by Activity Log, I mean the Activity Log on their server, not the 3DS console's activity log. And it will be only a matter of time before you're banned too.

Thanks to @Platinum Lucario @MadMageKefka and @ShadowEO !

 

[appeltje_eitje]

Freeshop games are indistinguishable at run-time (i.e while playing the game) from an eshop copy. And the 3DS doesn't have the ability to check your account while the game is running.

In theory, they could check it during the update process (since that uses the eShop), but not while playing online. They would have to manually check the header files of everyone who plays online and compare the accounts of people playing with digital headers (assigned by the console upon installation, as opposed to cartridge headers which are assigned in manufacturing), and compare those accounts to those who have purchased the game.

This would be a major task even if they had a process on their servers to handle it automatically, just because of the huge size of the 3DS audience. Even worse if they feel the need to do it by human hand.

Homebrew CIAs online is different, they can just run a detection of online titleIDs and compare them to real titleIDs. Still a rough task with the large number of 3DS titles, but not as hard as detecting pirated copies during online play.

Ah that makes me feel better, when I download a game with freeshop, I must have the internet on, and when it`s finished I forget to putt out the internet often.. And I wan`t to keep contact with other players with streetpass, and play together online. I don`t use homebrew cia`s or 3ds titles, only the ones I put on with the guide.. One time I streetpassed my other 3ds and it was showing that I had used FBI, so I only use it trough the hb launcher now..

 

[Reaga]

I have heard from some places that the 1.2 update for USM might be detecting pirated copies of just that game and not CFW itself. Any news on this and if updating my legit cart will be risky?

 

[Purge]

Here is a fact that everyone should know:

Unless Nintendo announces exactly why these people are getting banned, we will never know why. Simple as that. The only reason why people think that using homebrew in general is the cause of the bans is because based on user ban reports (which are NOT reliable btw), people were unable to find a positive correlation between a specific action and a ban. People were saying all kinds of things, so a link could not be established. It is also possible that people are getting banned for different reasons, and we just don't know it.

Basically, any statements made by the gbatemp community about the reason why people are getting banned ARE ALL GUESSES. It is possible that the actual reason is specific, but no one will ever know because random user reports are, once again, UNRELIABLE. Some of these people have no idea wtf they're talking about. They may install "region-free" CIAs without knowing and then report that they have never done so but got banned. And this is just one example. They also might omit important information about exactly what they did with their consoles.

 

[HighMans]

I believe I was just banned -- 002-0102. I have pokebank installed and have over 700 pokemon stored on there. Is there some way of going online and getting them back? Be it buying a new 3ds or anything?

 

[HighMans]

-snip-

Thanks! I'll keep that in mind next time.

 

[Deleted User]

Thanks! I'll keep that in mind next time.

Buying a cheap 2DS and installing it with CFW is your best bet to have a private localfriendcodeseed. Never be that one guy who donates them online. They'll get banned easily

 

[Deleted member 350372]

Buying a cheap 2DS and installing it with CFW is your best bet to have a private localfriendcodeseed. Never be that one guy who donates them online. They'll get banned easily

Agreed. Wanna know what's weird? When the May 2017 ban happened last year, Nintendo banned all of my consoles with CFW except my N3DSXL. Each of my CFW'd 3DSes had their own unique LFCS_B. Also, they all had the same setup and CFW at the same time. Same homebrew apps, everything. I shared my seed with my older 3DSes only and now to this date they can access all online services.

 

[RFVasco]

Hey guys, I'm kind of new here and I was having some doubts.
I'm Brazilian and most of Nintendo events don't get here, so I didn't get the chance to own myself a Volcanion, for instance, but I love completing pokedexes, and I heard about this homebrew launcher for 3ds. My question is. If I install this on my 3ds, do not connect to the internet, get myself the pokemons I wouldn't be able to get normally, and uninstall after that, will Nintendo take notice of it? Can I be banned for that?

 

[Bluespheal]

Hey guys, I'm kind of new here and I was having some doubts.
I'm Brazilian and most of Nintendo events don't get here, so I didn't get the chance to own myself a Volcanion, for instance, but I love completing pokedexes, and I heard about this homebrew launcher for 3ds. My question is. If I install this on my 3ds, do not connect to the internet, get myself the pokemons I wouldn't be able to get normally, and uninstall after that, will Nintendo take notice of it? Can I be banned for that?

I'm pretty sure you can't get banned by using just the homebrew launcher, what gets you banned or even black-listed is so far, having CFW in your 3ds.

 

[nl255]

I believe I was just banned -- 002-0102. I have pokebank installed and have over 700 pokemon stored on there. Is there some way of going online and getting them back? Be it buying a new 3ds or anything?

Yes, get an unbanned public LFCS (try that iso site) and use it. As long as you don't have a NNID ban (and you likely don't) that should work. Note that said codes will always get banned sooner or later (in which case you will have to find a new public code, typically someone posts one within a few days of the old one getting banned but sometimes it can be weeks) so extract all your pokemon from poke bank and use homebrew to store/extract them from now on.

Buying a cheap 2DS and installing it with CFW is your best bet to have a private localfriendcodeseed. Never be that one guy who donates them online. They'll get banned easily

Yeah, though as long as there is an unbanned public one there is no real downside in using that rather than risking a private code.

 

[AdenTheThird]

Got the ban code on Mario Maker ):

 

[Bondgirl85]

How often does Nintendo do their banning waves? Last one was in May 2017 I assume. It's like they go around looking for game consoles to ban so it's like they do spring cleaning.

Can you still access the freeshop when your system is banned? What about the theme shop? What about streetpasses?

 

[RFVasco]

I'm pretty sure you can't get banned by using just the homebrew launcher, what gets you banned or even black-listed is so far, having CFW in your 3ds.

Ok, I'm sorry if this is too obvious for the people on GBATemp, but would someone kindly explain to me what CFW is, and if I need to have it in my 3DS to use PkHex and apps like that, please?

The last time I used anything like that was in the late DS Lite times and PSP 2000.

 

[Bondgirl85]

CFW=custom firmware

 

[Bluespheal]

Gladly, CFW as Bondgirl said is Custom Firmware, it's basically something on top of the original 3DS firmware that let's us users get to all the code in the system, basically letting us use cheats, make backups, install tickets, everything the system can and sometimes even more.

Homebrew is kinda similar, but with much less access to the code, at most there are certain apps and functions, the most useful thing (imo) is to use it to get certain game's save data (some do require CFW, like Battle Cats Pop, at least in my experience.)

Speaking of PkHex, Homebrew alone should be more than enough, you can extract the save data, edit it and inject it, all without a real risk of bricking or getting banned... however as time has passed, Homebrew has lost most of its charm to CFW, not only it's harder to get Homebrew in newer versions which at that point you might as well get CFW, because they require almost the same methods, but CFW has so much more features and overall is far better (aside from the possible risk of getting banned).

If you wish to get into hacking, visit the almighty https://3ds.hacks.guide/ and also look up seedminer here in the forums, it's mostly easy to get and understand, and if you have any doubts, don't be afraid to ask here in the forums, all here are more than glad to help you out, it's better to help someone while they are still doing the process than someone who somehow did something wrong and has to backtrack. Also DO NOT USE VIDEO GUIDES, stick to the mighty guide and the forums.

Any other questions feel free to PM me, or post a topic.

 

[SaberLilly]

How often does Nintendo do their banning waves? Last one was in May 2017 I assume. It's like they go around looking for game consoles to ban so it's like they do spring cleaning.

Can you still access the freeshop when your system is banned? What about the theme shop? What about streetpasses?

As far as I can tell, you can still use the freeshop/Eshop, and the theme shop, I have no idea about streetpass. Its things like playing games online, and the pokebank (if you play pokemon a lot) that won't work.

As to what triggers said bans, just having CFW on the system will raise a flag with nintendo, and from what i've been able to gather when it comes to the bans themselves, it goes kind of like this:
1: You install CFW and something in the 3DS sends information to nintendo saying that CFW has been installed to the system. Even with information sending and streetpass title sharing off, they can still find out. Someone has analyzed network traffic to see what gets sent, but I don't know where that is exactly.

2: Once Nintendo finds out you've been using CFW your system seed gets a flag on it, i think depending on what you do, you could get banned sooner rather than later, like say cheating online. My 3DS in particular had been using homebrew and CFW since pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire were popular, and wasn't actually banned until around when pokemon USUM patch 1.2 came out.

3: Nintendo does SOMETHING that blacklists your system from playing anything online. As for when they do it, there's no set schedule, but they seem to be like a week or two before/after the release date of a certain game. I couldn't tell you specifically which titles it is. Also DO NOT play leaked games online ahead of launch, that will bring the banhammer down upon you.

Little Notes: Some people will say "oh this game/DLC got me banned." I want to say that's false but this is also nintendo we're dealing with, until concrete evidence is found saying nintendo is bundling CFW detection into games and patches/DLC treat it as false
2: using freeshop titles/DLC will NOT get you banned, freeshop titles are downloaded directly from nintendo and are treated just like games you downloaded off the Eshop.
3: Due to system seeds being available for download and installation on a 3DS, don't treat everything like a banwave. remember, Nintendo just bans the seed, not the system, so any system using said seed will be banned. This could be a few hundred systems, could be a few thousand.
4: There is a difference between a seed ban, and a hyperban. Seed ban is code 002-0102 and is easily fixable. Hyperban is code 022-2802 and means your NNID itself was banned.

Anyone feel free to correct/add to this.

 

[Searinox]

Freeshop works on a banned system for the same reason Freeshop isn't bannable in the first place: it does its work independently of any Nintendo-side authorization, session login, or credentials, and is thus indistinguishable from a computer browser.

On the list of suspected things Nintendo might be doing to find out hacked consoles: nobody seems to have mentioned the possibility of Nintendo arbitrarily picking consoles to which to send special BOSS scripts - like they did to disable console-side Miiverse update scripts - and potentially sending scripts that scan the console in-depth and then report back. If they only did this to discrete batches of consoles every now and again, it would be very hard to catch on to what they're doing, especially if the update is some sort of one-time-run-then-delete package.

 

[Bondgirl85]

As far as I can tell, you can still use the freeshop/Eshop, and the theme shop, I have no idea about streetpass. Its things like playing games online, and the pokebank (if you play pokemon a lot) that won't work.

As to what triggers said bans, just having CFW on the system will raise a flag with nintendo, and from what i've been able to gather when it comes to the bans themselves, it goes kind of like this:
1: You install CFW and something in the 3DS sends information to nintendo saying that CFW has been installed to the system. Even with information sending and streetpass title sharing off, they can still find out. Someone has analyzed network traffic to see what gets sent, but I don't know where that is exactly.

2: Once Nintendo finds out you've been using CFW your system seed gets a flag on it, i think depending on what you do, you could get banned sooner rather than later, like say cheating online. My 3DS in particular had been using homebrew and CFW since pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire were popular, and wasn't actually banned until around when pokemon USUM patch 1.2 came out.

3: Nintendo does SOMETHING that blacklists your system from playing anything online. As for when they do it, there's no set schedule, but they seem to be like a week or two before/after the release date of a certain game. I couldn't tell you specifically which titles it is. Also DO NOT play leaked games online ahead of launch, that will bring the banhammer down upon you.

Little Notes: Some people will say "oh this game/DLC got me banned." I want to say that's false but this is also nintendo we're dealing with, until concrete evidence is found saying nintendo is bundling CFW detection into games and patches/DLC treat it as false
2: using freeshop titles/DLC will NOT get you banned, freeshop titles are downloaded directly from nintendo and are treated just like games you downloaded off the Eshop.
3: Due to system seeds being available for download and installation on a 3DS, don't treat everything like a banwave. remember, Nintendo just bans the seed, not the system, so any system using said seed will be banned. This could be a few hundred systems, could be a few thousand.
4: There is a difference between a seed ban, and a hyperban. Seed ban is code 002-0102 and is easily fixable. Hyperban is code 022-2802 and means your NNID itself was banned.

Anyone feel free to correct/add to this.

How can one tell if they have CFW on their system?

I have Homebrew, FBI, anemone, checkpoint, and some other file that says FTP something. Are any of these CFW?

 

[Bluespheal]

You most likely have, and most likely have Luma, if you press Select on boot you will surely know

 

[Captain_N]

how about usrs that installed legit CIA's. Mario kart 7, pokemon x'y animal crossing. Any data on that? I have a new3ds that has some of those legit CIA installed. No custom firmware no hacks just OOTHAX for homebrew. I have not been banned. I play monster hunter gen online alot. I have not played any of the Legit cia games online.