A New 3DS XL was given to me with this problem:
It boots up. I can hear the main menu. The screens are completely black.* No input works.**
*(It's not just the light not working because you cannot see anything at all even with a flashlight. TBH I'm not sure if N3DS lighting works like that, I know most cellphones do. But that is not important.)
**(Control pad should make a noise because of moving the cursor. It does not. A button should run programs. It does not. Hitting power button repeatedly should shut down system. It does not. (Have to hold power for 5 seconds to shut down even though main menu music is still playing fine.)
I installed boot9strap-1.3 just fine. And i have Luma3DSv9.0 on the sd card. (In other words on SD card all i have is the luma 9.0 boot.firm & luma folder with GM9 / D9 & GM9 folder.)
The screens (input & light) work just fine doing that stuff.
Here is the weirdest part of this brick: The screens work fine in recovery mode (L+R+Up+A). So does input.
I have GodMode9 and Decrypt9 working fine.
I have moved boot.firm to sysnand and tried booting without card. Goes to main menu/black screens. So nothing to report there.
I did a CTRTransfer using the only image I had handy (9.2.0-20U_ctrtransfer_n3ds). It was "successful" but does not fix the glitch. Still black screens & no input on main menu.
I then did an official update back to 11.6 using recovery mode & wifi. Still no fix.
I have tried a few other things as well.
I am quite sure it is not a bad main menu title that causes this brick because I have deleted it (00008F02) with GodMode9 while on 9.2. Then recovered it by doing an official update with recovery mode. Does not fix.
I have tried various states of uninstalling/reinstalling b9s while on 9.2 or 11.6. Nothing.
I have left it on main menu (with music playing) for over an hour before. Nothing.
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Hello TurdPooCharger, good to see you! Yep it seems we have #10 here. I hope perhaps some of my info might help.
Are most examples of this brick on New style systems? If so, here is a theory:
Maybe the auto-brightness feature they implemented on New styles is causing a problem somehow. And since recovery mode was very likely never updated with that feature, the screen & input in recovery mode works fine...
In other words, a
hardware problem with the auto-brightness sensor & light level changing might be causing this. Which would explain why this brick is not recoverable through any software means.
Though that does not explain why I do not have input either and it would not explain why a couple people reported this glitch on non-New style 3DSs.
Just an idea...