Topic: At least SOME data is recoverable from bricked Switches

So to make a long story short, update 5.0 essentially bricked one of our switches (while using official dock!) sent it in to get fixed and got the dreaded email saying that there was no way to recover our save data. Just got it back today and After logging in to mine and my sons Nintendo accounts I noticed that all of our play times were still accurate and intact. What this means is that either that info is stored in the system itself and could be recovered, or the more likely scenario that info is in the cloud somewhere. Was great to see that I lost close to 300 hours from my zelda save and almost 200 from MK8D /s

This leads me to believe there already is at least some cloud save system in place albeit not for game save data at the moment. How else would it have known unless the switch is transferring that data wirelessly and storing somewhere. Hopefully cloid saves are rolled out soon, wouldn't wish this on anyone.

Has anyone else who has sent theirs in for repair and lost game save data had a similar thing happen?

I don't think it necessarily means there's some cloud activity going on, could just simply be that the activity log is stored separately to save data on the device and happened to survive whatever process the repair person put it through.

@gcunit perhaps but even if that's the case, still seems ridiculous that they would be stored separately and only one set of data could be restored. Ah well not much that can be done about it just thought it was an interesting hypothesis.

@redd214 Doesn't have to have been restored, just may not have been touched during the process.

@gcunit for that to be the case then that would mean even following a factory reset that data would still be on the switch. Seems unlikely but isn't that the way wii u worked? Didn't have one myself but I feel like I remember reading that.

@redd214 I have not heard of Switches being bricked on Nintendo Docks. Are you sure it was the same thing as others have reported with 3rd party stuff?

@Heavyarms55 yeah I'm sure. Started having issues right after the 5.0 update. Stopped going into TV mode the next day after the update and eventually wouldn't charge at all so was essentially dead when I sent it in. Nintendo fixed it for free so I guess I can't be to upset, just sucked losing all that progress/time

@redd214 If whatever the issue is/was can happen on normal Switch docks, that seems to disprove the theory going around that it has to do with the purported non-standard USB-C... That makes the issue even stranger. What could have changed in 5.0 to have caused the problem?