3DS has a succesful boot only every 2 boot ups

[drakonic]

I've run into an odd issue with my new 3DS XL. I modded it a couple months ago, and today a weird issue has popped up...
So earlier today I got impatient while waiting for Universal Updater to open. At the "getting spritesheet" step, I powered off my 3DS, since I assumed my wifi was being fussy and my 3DS just disconnected. After I did that and tried to power it back on, it just stayed on a black screen (with the power LED on). I waited about 5 mins, and no change. I powered it back off, waited a couple seconds, and tried again. The 3DS successfully booted, everything working as it should.
Next I opened up an nDS inject. At first I got a black screen - did the two reboots thing again, and successfully opened the game. When I closed the DS game, and the system was about to soft reboot I was met with a black screen again. Two reboots later and my 3DS is running normally again.
I suppose so far this is just an inconvenience, but I wonder if anyone has any idea what the hell is going on here. One person I've talked to suggested this is lumabug, but I'm not sure. During one of the hang-ups I left my 3DS alone for 15 minutes, no change. Should I try longer? What can I do?
Maybe something to do with the cart I keep in my slot? I always have one inserted, so that the slot doesn't gather dust.

TLDR; I shut down my 3DS while universal updater was loading, now only every other boot up is successful. I don't know what the hell is going on.

 

[zekro94]

What you can do is backup your sd card and format it, also use h2testw on the sd card and if everything works then copy everything back to the sd card and see if it still doesn't boot everytime. It's not like it's a bug, the 3ds expects to find the boot.firm on the sd card, if for some reason it doesn't it won't boot. This problem can be caused by a faulty sd card reader or corrupt sd card

 

[drakonic]

Okay, really odd, but this issue occured when I had my Sonic Rush cart inserted. I turned the console off, and swapped it for Pokemon Moon and now the issue has completely gone away??? What???

Post automatically merged: Mar 1, 2023

Upon further testing it seems it somehow is an issue related to the cartridge reader. The fix seems to either be 1. Don't boot with a DS cart inserted or 2. Don't boot with a faulty cart inserted (My Sonic Rush cart doesn't always read properly, sometimes i have to insert and reinsert a couple times)
Also, after the 3DS attempting to read a faulty cart I now how to put it in and out of sleep mode to swap it with something else (I assume it forces the reader to "refresh" or something?). Earlier it worked like it should: you could swap while it was open.

Really odd issue, but at least it seems to have gone away with me putting in a working 3DS cart.

 

[ghjfdtg]

Try to clean the contacts of your games. It's annoying because the fins block access but it's doable. A toothpick can reach down to the contacts for example. Use 91% or higher isopropyl alcohol.

If this doesn't help the slot is probably starting to go bad and needs to be replaced.