Almost bricked my Switch during a firmware update at 2 AM last Sunday

I was at home trying to update my Nintendo Switch to play a new game, but the internet cut out halfway through the download. The console froze on a black screen for like 10 minutes and I panicked hard. I held down the power button for 15 seconds and it finally rebooted into safe mode where I could redo the update. Has anyone else had their system crap out mid update like that? What did you do?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_vera2d ago

Did you try holding down the power button for a full 30 seconds? That's what saved my Switch when the same thing happened to me. Just had to restart the update after that.

nora102d ago

Fourteen seconds is barely enough time to reset anything in my experience, and 30 seconds is way overkill. Actually, @the_vera's method could have forced a hard shutdown that corrupts the update files permanently instead of just giving it time to recover. I'd rather wait out a black screen for 20 minutes than risk losing the whole system over a rushed power button hold.

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