I've been toying around with the 3DS for the past 5 days trying to figure out what is causing this black screen error that many of us keep experiencing. After spending countless hours on this problem, the main cause of it seems to be the Wi-Fi. I've encountered the problem in quite a few games including: Super Monkey Ball 3D, Rayman 3D, Pilotwings Resort, and even Ghost Recon, although Super Monkey Ball 3D seems to bring it on more often than any of the others.

I recently took my 3DS, my wife's 3DS, and one of my niece's 3DS systems and I ran some tests. I put Super Monkey Ball 3D in all three systems and began a wide range of tests.

Leaving the games on the title screen, where they will run demos from various levels in the game before returning to the title screen and repeat, I began encountering the error about every 20-30 minutes or so on all three systems. I then tried formatting the SD cards in all three using the FAT32 file format, which some had suggested might help, but once again all three systems incurred the errors.

I finally decided to try to turn off the Wi-Fi function by sliding the slider on the right side of the system and leave it off and then run the Super Monkey Ball 3D demos again and so far not one system has produced the black screen error and it's now been almost 3 hours.

So while there could be other causes, this seems to be the main culprit and should be able to be easily fixed with a software update. If anyone who has been having these errors would please try turning off your Wi-Fi and see if that resolved the error, please post in this topic and let us all know.

EDIT: Just turned the wi-fi back on and sure enough, 13 minutes later Super Monkey Ball 3D gave me the black screen error. So it must be the wi-fi causing the problems. FIX IT NINTENDO!

so the wifi its the problem...

wasn't the update supposed to "make online better"?

you tried making tests with un-updated systems?

No abgar, I don't have any that aren't updated any longer. But the update definitely does NOT make the error better. It's worse if anything.

well, that's a fail for nintendo!
Maybe they rushed the update and it's trying to receive data that is not yet available (every 30 minutes) or something...

Anyways, thanks for making these tests, my 3ds arrives tomorrow someday this week or the next week, or the week after it and it's great to know what causes these infamous errors.

I just got my 3DS a few days ago and I haven't updated it yet due to the rumors of the update causing this black screen error. Should I just forgo this update until Nintendo addresses this issue?

Couldn't hurt Wolf. I didn't have any problems until I updated these units, so I'd hang onto the original firmware until we get a new update.

It seems to be both having wifi on and certain games. I always have wifi on, have the update, the only game I played on it was ssf4 and had the 3ds since release and haven't had the error yet. Has anyone else who only played ssf4 gotten the error?

i havent updated yet and probably decided i wont do so till may for those vc titles otherwise updating at any time between then would have no sense unless one of the games was well gamebreaking lol

I haven't had the error on SSFIV 3D yet.

maybe it's the games that are being played? i swear to god i haven't had an error yet, and i not only updated day one, i haven't ever bothered turning off the wireless (except for once where i tried turning it off while the system was closed and yep, it actually shut off... and then i turned it back on :3). i've only got the one 3DS game, Samurai Warriors Chronicles, and I've got a couple hours logged with it, but i haven't really been playing it much because of Okamiden. I've played the heck out of the Mii Plaza and Mii Maker, though, I've apparently spent hours on the friends list and system settings both at home and at work (because i was in chat at the same time and just left it on, haha), and that's two different networks with two different service providers. i've got hours logged with Face Raiders and maybe one with the AR games (idk, that got boring quick).

i've also been taking it with me to work and stuff, earning them 10 coins a day so i can Find Mii or whatever, haha. only been dinged once with StreetPass though. i've messed around with the camera, the sound app, i've had my SD card back and forth between the 3DS and the computer (haven't formatted it though), watched that lame music video once or twice... about the only thing on the system i haven't touched yet is the Health and Safety thing, lol, and i don't think i've opened any of the manuals yet.

Since it is wireless related do all 3 fail at the same time. That would indicate that is triggered by the network itself rather then the game.

Wierd....I have logged about 50 hours with my 3DS so far. I updated the firmware shortly after turning it on for the first time, always have wireless on and have sunk multiple hours into Pilotwings, Monkey Ball, Street Fighter, Nintendogs, and Steel Diver and have yet to get such an error. Guess I'm just lucky I hope Nintendo does get a fix out soon though. No need to tempt fate....

Oh I have no doubt it's certain games triggering at as I said, Super Monkey Ball 3D and Rayman 3D are the most common. But I've seen comments about Pilotwings Resort and Ghost Recon causing it as well. Something in those games that, when combined with the wi-fi, cause the error. That being said, I did get one in the Mii Maker yesterday, a first time it's happened outside of a game. But that's the only one out of the many hours I've logged.

that's why i mentioned everything else i've played — i've seen people reporting it happening outside of retail games too. idk if it's something that, once it's triggered, will happen across the board at random and stuff, y'know?

Hard to figure out. But at least I know I can stop it by turning off the wi-fi. At least until they fix it.

Well, so far I haven't experienced any black screen errors but then again I only have two games for the 3DS, Steel Diver and Pilotwings Resort. I might be picking up Ghost Recon Shadow Wars soon but that is one of the games that reportedly has crashing issues. I guess that I won't be updating my system until this gets sorted out. Thanks for posting this information Corbs. It is very helpful and I'm sure a lot of other readers appreciate it as well.

I've had it crash twice on me with Ghost Recon, but no other games or applications. I hope this is easily fixed, it's not what Nintendo needed.

With my previous 3DS system I have had a multiple of black screen errors with Ghost Recon. Few days ago I had a replacement and decided to not update and turn wi fi off during gameplay. Not one error so far.

Well so far I've not had a single black screen error with the wi-fi turned off on ANY of the 9 games I've tried. I'll probably leave it off most of the time until a fix is made available via software update.

I AM NOT ERROR.... I havent had any errors