Topic: Advanced Nintendo Account(s) question; why is this so hard???

I have a family of 5 and my wife and I have recently gotten divorced. She is taking our existing Switch, and I have purchased a new one. I want the users on each Switch to "sync" so my kids can pick up where they left off with their save data on whichever Switch they have access to. I believe we are all under the umbrella of the same Nintendo Account: When I login on the website, under 'Family Group' I see myself as Admin/Parent or Guardian, my ex-wife is there with nothing below her name, and it says "Supervised" under my kids names.

When I set up my new Switch, under 'Add User' I clicked "Import User Data from Another Console." It had me provide my Nintendo Account login info, and indeed, my personal user did appear on the new Switch and it does indeed sync save data across the two devices, exactly as I want it to. However, none of my kids users are there, and when I try to import another user, I try to login again with the same Nintendo Account and I get the error: "This Nintendo Account is already linked to another user on this console, so it cannot be linked."

What the hell do I need to do here?? I'm so annoyed that Nintendo makes this so very difficult... I can't be the only person that is in this situation. Does each kid need their own Nintendo Account? If so, how do I keep them as part of my "family" so our Nintendo Online membership and purchase info for the eShop can stay shared?

Any help is much appreciated!!

@stubby5000 Partial answer: It sounds like you're trying to link more than one switch user profile to the same nintendo account, which I believe the switch won't allow, because it's redundant. If one switch user profile is linked to nintendo acocunt A, it won't let you link another switch user on the console to nintendo account A.

So, finding & linking your kid's accounts is where you're stuck, I believe. I don't have experience with parsing out a familiy set up, but I know there are a couple ways child accounts can be set up, which adds another layer to your situation. (You can create family nintendo accounts without email addresses, or you can create family nintendo accounts with email addresses like a regular account. I don't know how your transfer scenario works when the family accounts were created without their own email addresses.)

Nintendo of america's support phone line used to be good, but I haven't used it myself in about three years. I think saying "representative" can get you to a person quicker. If you call them, your call may go a lot easier if you have nintendo's support page booted up, in case they want to point you to directions.
https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/contact

Maybe you should have included the Switch in the pre-nubs. Seriously though the Switch is portable so just have the kids take the Switch back and forth that's what it's made for.

@stubby5000 Did you make any progress?

I think I know what's going on. When you add a new user on your new switch, and are prompted to link that switch user profile to a nintendo account, you should be entering the username & password of the target child account (not your own username & pw).

When you originally setup/created child nintendo accounts for your kids, you were logged into your nintendo account on nintendo's website. I believe when you filled out the info for each of those child accounts, you still assign each of them their own user name and password. In each of the child accounts, I believe it should show the username. If you lost the passwords, I think there is a way to reset the passwords.

@WoomyNNYes Holly crap, that worked!! Thank you so much. Now I have another problem though, LOL. I have three children, two of which have child sub-accounts under my main Nintendo account. My third child has a user account on the original Switch, but she was unaffiliated with any Nintendo account. Last night I made her her own Nintendo account, using her own email address, and linked it to her user profile on the original Switch. Then I imported her user to the new Switch using her new Nintendo account login info. This worked swimmingly, and her save data synced across Switches, however now she can't play games I've downloaded on my regular Nintendo account. Can I switch her back somehow? I want her account to be the same as my other two kids...
Thank you again for your help!

@stubby5000 I'm fairly certain you cannot undo linking your daughter's switch user from a nintendo account. Nintendo doesn't offer a way to undo that. Nor can you move someone's game save data from one nintendo account to another. (likely an anti-piracy measure)

Which switch can't your daughter play your game? I'll guess that it's on the old switch, and your account (that owns the game) is no longer linked to that switch. If your nintendo account left the console, then the license to play the game on the console is gone too. (forgive me if I've misunderstood your scenario. When dealing with multple switches and primary vs non-primary consoles, things can get a bit more complicated. If you search nintendo support, you can find a page describing difference between a "primary" and "non-primary" console.)

Check that your new switch is your account’s primary console.

If the old one is still set as primary, then other user accounts on your new system will not be able to use software registered to your account, only yours.

It’s one of those restrictions Nintendo put on the account system to make sure people aren’t being cheeky and trying to use one account as a free ticket to share games indiscriminately.

Of course, the caveat here would be that changing the primary system will mean the roles will be reversed, her profile won’t be able to play your game on the other switch. (Unless someone buys the same game there as well!)

@stubby5000 Adding to what @Eel said, when your account is linked to more than one console, one of those consoles becomes the Primary console, and the other becomes Non-Primary. That impacts game accessibility for the non-primary console - it adds restrictions. If someone can summarize what happens better, chime in.

I never dabbled with having two consoles at once because I didn't' want to mess with the restrictions, and I gave my launch switch to my friend.

I have two consoles. A normal original switch and a lite. The lite is set as my primary console because that one comes out with me on trips and the like, while the original just stays in the dock or I play it handheld at home, so it’s always online.

Of course, I don’t share my consoles with anyone else so my situation is different.

This sounds like such a major headache and so completely unnecessary.