Help with local play freezing

I have a friend with three 3DS units in the home. All three of them have ACNL cartridges in them. She has hercharacters go back and forth from one town to another often. Wifi is not always available, so she has been using local play such , telling the Porter she wants to visit a nearby town. Today. That function stopped working - on all 3 games in all 3 DS units. The Porter goes to open the gate and then the game freezes.

She has shut everything off and rebooted, made sure the systems and the games were all updated, deleted the information for the wifi she occasionally uses etc. But that has changed nothing. Any ideas as to what might have caused this and how to fix it?

Hmm... did she delete her update data or extra data? That could be the case.

Haydenv019 said:

Hmm... did she delete her update data or extra data? That could be the case.

Click to expand...

Probably not. She nevers fiddles with her system. Even if it was done by accident, it would be odd if happened on all three DS units at the same time. She was using local play right up until the day before yesterday.

If you take it that your friend has done nothing differently, then you are looking for an outside source.
I suppose it is possible that something could interfere with the signal - something being used in the home/neighbour's home at the same time? Radio waves/mobile mast near you (engineering work on it)/microwave on within a 100 feet?

I would have thought it unlikely that all 3 3ds units go wrong at the same time, hence thinking something has interfered with the signal -I know its DS to DS - /nearby town but the units are still searching for a signal.
Try again later/ next day - I hope it works, & hope you post back, would like to know.

katysu said:

If you take it that your friend has done nothing differently, then you are looking for an outside source.
I suppose it is possible that something could interfere with the signal - something being used in the home/neighbour's home at the same time? Radio waves/mobile mast near you (engineering work on it)/microwave on within a 100 feet?

I would have thought it unlikely that all 3 3ds units go wrong at the same time, hence thinking something has interfered with the signal -I know its DS to DS - /nearby town but the units are still searching for a signal.
Try again later/ next day - I hope it works, & hope you post back, would like to know.

Click to expand...

I agree that sudden, simultaneous failure of local communication on all three units is unlikely. They are also well-cared for, never dropped etc.

My friend is an extreme early riser. I just texted her a message for when she wakes up and I asked her to try again then when there is no one else up in the neighbourhood. I will post back on the results.

- - - Post Merge - - -

Chiana said:

I agree that sudden, simultaneous failure of local communication on all three units is unlikely. They are also well-cared for, never dropped etc.

My friend is an extreme early riser. I just texted her a message for when she wakes up and I asked her to try again then when there is no one else up in the neighbourhood. I will post back on the results.

Click to expand...

katysu said:

If you take it that your friend has done nothing differently, then you are looking for an outside source.
I suppose it is possible that something could interfere with the signal - something being used in the home/neighbour's home at the same time? Radio waves/mobile mast near you (engineering work on it)/microwave on within a 100 feet?

I would have thought it unlikely that all 3 3ds units go wrong at the same time, hence thinking something has interfered with the signal -I know its DS to DS - /nearby town but the units are still searching for a signal.
Try again later/ next day - I hope it works, & hope you post back, would like to know.

Click to expand...

Oh, that gave me another idea. The older #DS needs a NFC card reader to call up campers. I should have her test to see if that works.

katysu said:

If you take it that your friend has done nothing differently, then you are looking for an outside source.
I suppose it is possible that something could interfere with the signal - something being used in the home/neighbour's home at the same time? Radio waves/mobile mast near you (engineering work on it)/microwave on within a 100 feet?

I would have thought it unlikely that all 3 3ds units go wrong at the same time, hence thinking something has interfered with the signal -I know its DS to DS - /nearby town but the units are still searching for a signal.
Try again later/ next day - I hope it works, & hope you post back, would like to know.

Click to expand...

Chiana said:

I agree that sudden, simultaneous failure of local communication on all three units is unlikely. They are also well-cared for, never dropped etc.

My friend is an extreme early riser. I just texted her a message for when she wakes up and I asked her to try again then when there is no one else up in the neighbourhood. I will post back on the results.

- - - Post Merge - - -

Oh, that gave me another idea. The older #DS needs a NFC card reader to call up campers. I should have her test to see if that works.

Click to expand...

The verdict is in. The three DS units works perfectly well at 5 am.

Pleased to hear your friend was able to connect, what a relief!
I think the range for picking up a signal is 100 feet (streetpass & hence I guess also for DS to DS connections).

The 3ds is certainly more sensitive to signal than the DS lites I had - I couldn't connect a lite, DS to DS with just a cushion in between!
Maybe someone has an electrical that doesn't have a suppressor or something that uses the same signal range (could be anything, a doorbell even). If so, then it could happen again - hopefully she will be able to pinpoint what it might be.