Nintendo comments on 3DS error screen

By Fred Dutton Published 28 March, 2011

Recommends downloading system update.

Nintendo has acknowledged the widely-reported 3DS bug that crashes the device and recommended that anyone experiencing it makes sure they download the latest system update.

"If anyone is experiencing any problems with their Nintendo 3DS console, we recommend that in the first instance they download and install the latest system update, now available online," read a Nintendo statement handed to Eurogamer.

"If the problems still persist we recommend they contact their local Nintendo Customer Service centre to investigate the problem further."

Reports started circulating soon after launch this weekend that many 3DSes were crashing, bringing up a black screen suggesting the owner reboot the system or get in touch with customer services should the problem persist.

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About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (35) Latest comment 9 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Haunted_Tree #1 1 year ago

    Had the black screen of doom on my first play of "Shadow Wars" but that was after I had installed the update. Rebooted and it's been fine since then.

    More worrying is the battery length of the 3DS and I was getting the weird "seeing double" thing watching TV later on.

  • MadCaddy13 #2 1 year ago

    What's the length?

  • supanova #3 1 year ago

    my error screen happened after the update playing ghost recon. Its been working great - but only playing pilot wings which is awesome in 3d! have to see if the error occurs playing ghost recon.

  • wizlon #4 1 year ago

    The "update the console" is the standard knee jerk reaction for any hardware vendor, my errors have only happened after the update.

  • Haunted_Tree #5 1 year ago

    After a full charge the day before, it felt like 2.5 hours before I was getting the red warning light with the system unplugged. I had the 3D up full on RR and SFIV so that would probably drain it quicker.

    For a portable device, that's pretty worrying ...

  • spudsbuckley #6 1 year ago

    I also got the error playing Ghost Recon, after i updated. Odd.
    Edited by spudsbuckley at 28/03/11 @ 16:55

  • JayG #7 1 year ago

    I ain't updated, and so far no issues, knock on wood.

  • spitfire1945 #8 1 year ago

    chicgoods40 explode in 4-3-2-1...

  • NimbusTLD #9 1 year ago

    And so Nintendo finally joins the system update ranks :(
    Edited by NimbusTLD at 28/03/11 @ 17:12

  • Moonprince #10 1 year ago

    2.5 hours! Goddamn. Will def wait for the revision later in the year.

  • SlackMaster #11 1 year ago

    Not had the error but then I've hardlyh played it. Not even spent enough time to get off the first level in Ghost Recon.

  • Murton #12 1 year ago

    Suppose it was only a matter of time until hardware was released without adequate QA.

    Not really keen on the sort of gaming offered by the DS so I'll likely not be getting a 3DS any time soon if ever, but I hope for those that did buy, and Nintendo, that this can be remedied through software updates as suggested and quite soon too. We've ha da lot of "sales of goods act" type reports recently, most of which have been swept away as software concerns with devs and publishers hiding behind the fact that you don't have to offer a warranty on software, for this issue there is no shield and this soon after release there'll be a massive fanfare about it, unlike RROD and YLOD which didn't rear their heads until well after release day.

  • midnight_walker #13 1 year ago

    Suppose it was only a matter of time until hardware was released without adequate QA.

    You have heard of the XBox 360, right?

  • orangpelupa #14 1 year ago

    @midnight
    and the early PS2 fat model
    and the early PS2 slim model.

    although sony very fast in making mainboard revision so the "damage" is not as widespread as Xbox 360 where microsoft need long time (years) to fix in revision Jasper and Revision Vajle.

  • Gojiratron #15 1 year ago

    2.5 hours?

    Is the wireless on or off?

    I'm getting around 5 hours on PES with the slider about halfway and brightness on full.

    Edited by Gojiratron at 28/03/11 @ 18:33

  • PseudoDuck #16 1 year ago

    So, is this a region thing then? Because surely we'd have heard some reports of these errors from Japan when it was launched a month ago?

  • wez_316 #17 1 year ago

    Don't understand why Nintendo have the brightness going up to 5 and making the battery dying off quicker as a default. Level 3 is too bright for me. On level 2 I'm averaging a 6-7 hour battery life on my unit with wi-fi on sparringly across 4 charge runs. It's not brilliant but a lot less worrying than the 3 hour nonsense.

    Level 2 is perfectly bright enough to see everything clearly without compromise. Level 1 brightness is fine too if you really want to conserve power but admittedly this level is not too great in a brightly lit area. Great in the dark or standard light though.

    So turn your brightness level down, save the planet and money on your electricity bills whilst giving yourself a longer battery life in the process :)

  • rare_uk #18 1 year ago

    I got the error last night on Ghost Recon, and I've updated!
    Loving the game though, and seeing work colleagues faces when they saw the 3d video on it - they love it

  • Beerduck #19 1 year ago

    Sounds like a jailbreak opportunity :)

  • b0bb1ns #20 1 year ago

    I've been on the latest firmware all along and have had 3 ghost recon crashes.

    Has anyone actually tried contacting Nintendo customer service about it?

  • b0bb1ns #21 1 year ago

    I've been on the latest firmware all along and have had 3 ghost recon crashes.

    Has anyone actually tried contacting Nintendo customer service about it?

  • rare_uk #22 1 year ago

    Crashed 4 times in 2 hours just now playing Ghost Recon. Will contact ninty tomorrow (for what it's worth). No doubt they'll probably say wait for next update. I don't remember nintendo consoles being this buggy.....ah the internetz..the get out clause for shite product testing

  • INSOMANiAC #23 1 year ago

    Splinter Cell 3d froze on me last night, you wont hear much about this bug because Im the only fucker daft enough to be playing it

  • GamesConnoisseur #24 1 year ago

    I was going to update, but saw the comments of crashes in Ghost Recon AFTER the updates, i got nearly 10 hours of playtime on Ghost Recon, and other 10 hours spilt between SSFIV, Ridge Racer and Pilotwing.

    No crashes at all and especially not in Ghost Recon, and i m avoiding update as seem to make things worse.

    Oh re battery, should any third party releasr battery add on, i m getting that! As worked great tor iPhone 3GS eith Mili's slim and snug fit add on. 3DS great but battery man! Recharging left, right and centre!

  • rare_uk #25 1 year ago

    Just rang +44 (0) 870 60 60 247, they have asked me to send it in with the game. Told him about Eurogamer and that lots of people got the same problem with different games. I hope they're quick - don't fancy being without my console tbhJust rang +44 (0) 870 60 60 247, they have asked me to send it in with the game

  • grussbarbar #26 1 year ago

    I did the system update right after I got my 3DS. Since then I've had 4 crashes while playing Ghost Recon, 3 with an error screen and 1 where the screen just went black and froze.
    I did play Ghost Recon over 30 hours now though, and with the autosave after each mission and me saving after every few moves I've hardly had any game progress lost this way.

    I hope Nintendo finds a solution soon. In the meantime the old advice to "save early and save often" seems good to follow.

    (Edit for clarification)
    Edited by grussbarbar at 29/03/11 @ 13:53

  • tomjoadsghost #27 1 year ago

    have many people had this who haven't applied the firmware update?

  • scouserfuller9 #28 1 year ago

    I find it much easier having the brightness set to two with the 3D depth slightly down as the top brightness and 3D effect are worse for my eyes. Had my 3DS with wi fi on in sleep mode for five ours and then still got another 2-3 hours game play after yesterday :-)

  • rare_uk #29 1 year ago

    OK as I was sending the 3ds back to Nintendo for investigation/repair, thought I'd remove the parental controls. Took off the parental controls and thought "hold on - the console settings have now changed" so played on and off (as at work) for last couple of hours and no crash. So the problem might not have occurred for me today possibly due to the following:
    1) Parental controls causing problems - you guys should be able to confirm this
    2) My wifi network is obviously at home, and not got one here at work - so wifi connection is minimum
    3) Not played like I would have at home - for 1-2 hours straight
    4) Just lucky
    I think number 4. Will play at home later, as got lots of crashes last night so this will confirm

  • GotCakes #30 1 year ago

    Before System Update...

    First crash : Augmented Reality App - camera froze. Needed hard reset.

    Second crash : Goat Recon produced the 'An error has occurred' within first hour of play.

    Third crash : Recon screen went entirely black (sort of just fizzled out) within 30 minutes of the previous crash. This was whilst not using the console, it'd been at rest for a few minutes whilst i was on the phone. Had to hard reset to get it to respond.

    Fourth crash : Recon produced the 'An error has occurred' within 30 minutes of the previous crash.

    SFIV : No problems within first hour of play at all.

    After System Update :

    No crashes yet after 90mins of Recon

    No problems playing the 3d video a few times (12mins total?)

    Also I've put 4 hours into playing Layton (DS version) with no problems at all.

    i've had the wireless off since the update btw.

    Not exactly the best first impressions to get from a new console if I'm honest, these aren't what I'd call 'teething problems' as they're game breaking, but sticking with it, everything else is quite cool.

  • mustardkid #31 1 year ago

    Have had this crash a couple of times in fairly quick succession but noticed that it had only happened when the running games had been "slept". Have now been shutting down software at the end of session and powering off completely and so far there have been no further crashes.

  • ymo1965 #32 1 year ago

    Re-format your SD memory card. It fixed this issue! :D

  • SuperJoeUK #33 1 year ago

    Downloading and installing the update does nothing, I am still getting this error message on Ghost Recon...
    but I didn't get it before the update, but then I don't think I ever put my 3ds to 'sleep' before the update.
    I always powered off. So not much help narrowing it down there.

    Better be a way to fix this or it's going back for a refund and I won't buy another !
    I can't believe Nintendo buggered this up. With iPad 2 and iPhone/Android phones eating into their market they could do without this.

    Oh and my battery life is terrible too, will be turning off the wifi (see if that has effect on above too) and brightness
    from now on.

  • damianmac #34 1 year ago

    I have had this problem intermittently over the past 3 weeks, once watching the 3D movie, and other times playing ridge racer, rayman and starwars. Reformatting the card might work, and I have noticed today playing Starwars the device began to freeze in between levels at the save game point, so perhaps it is an issue with the card. However due to the fact it is an intermittent problem formatting the card might seem to work in the short term but then in a few days it mightl happen again. Sending mine back to customer services just to be on the safe side.

    On the whole thought very impressed with the console, and I think Nintendo have a great track record. I've owned every bit of Nintendo hardware since the old 8 bit NES, this is the first time I've ever had to send anything back.

  • jhonnash #35 9 months ago

    my error screen happened after the update playing ghost recon. Its been working great - but only playing pilot wings which is awesome in 3d! have to see if the error occurs playing ghost recon. ged practice test ged math practice test