screen blacking out on startup page??

[debinoresu]

i was starting up my game and pressed "a" to start and the screen just went pitch black. i just sort of stared in a panic for a couple minutes, i was horrified the screen would come back and my town would be gone or something, i didnt want to turn off my 3ds and restart. then, finally, the screen popped back up and i could resume like normal. has this ever happened to any of you? is this a sign of my game potentially corrupting/on the edge of it? im pretty sure it was a game error and not a screen error bc you know how on the startup page you can see a villager walking around, when the screen came back up they were exactly where they were before and then kept going along, so im pretty sure the game actually froze while the screen was black. the game is fine now but yeesh im just kinda nervous about my game... anyone else ever seen this? should i be concerned

 

[ZetaFunction]

Oh jeez, I've had something like this happen to me a few times, but with different games and also in the title menu: right when you turn it on, how there's the menu with different apps? It'd freeze and turn black and then unfreeze after a little while; same thing happens when loading games, it temporarily goes black and then appears and everything runs fine. None of my games have corrupted or glitched out yet, and my 3DS is fine (as far as I'm aware), but I don't know if it's a sign of anything bad. It scares the hell outta me though.

 

[Charcolor]

sometimes my ds does this with tomodachi life while i'm playing, but i don't think it does it with any other games. it just turns off your sound and screen for a moment. i don't know if it's just a problem with the 3ds but it kinda scares me. nothing bad happens if you quit without saving in tomodachi life, but sometimes in animal crossing it's a different story.

tomodachi life hasn't acted up for me yet so i think your animal crossing game should be fine.

 

[pocky]

I agree that it's not a screen error, but I don't think that it was a game error either. It was probably related to your system/3DS. If it had been an error with your cartridge/game then your 3DS would have probably alerted you of it. Instead of the screens going black, the game would have crashed (which has happened to me multiple times before with various games and applications.) The fact that your villager kept walking in the same spot it was before assures me that it was your system freezing up. A 3DS is basically a mini computer and sometimes it can have its hiccups. Might be a one time thing, might not.

As someone who has had data corruption I can tell you that nothing special happens before the data is corrupted. What causes the data to corrupt is something going badly with your last save, like turning off your 3ds in the middle of saving (which might or might not corrupt the data depending on when exactly the 3DS is turned off.) Data corruption isn't something that builds over time. Its just something that happens when your last save messes up.

The screen going black during saving might however cause some issues depending on what exactly is happening with your cartridge/system during this blackout.

 

[debinoresu]

ok everyone thanks for your insight, made me feel a bit better. ive never had a system error/problem so it just freaked me out a lot

 

[SummerHime]

Hmm sounds like what I experienced a while ago. The screen would turn black, no sound, and it would take a few seconds to work again. I was so scared my 3DS was broken, I googled for a solution, I was on the edge of returning it.

But I ended up finding the cause

It was my iPad's proximity. You know how the 3DS goes to sleep when you pull down the top part? Well, my iPad (or its cover) activated this mecanism, probably with a magnet or something. I tested it: when the two were close, sometimes the 3DS screen would go black, and when I separated them, the game would resume as normal (just like it does when you "unfold" the 3DS).

Perhaps it's not the same issue, but it's worth a look? Did you have anything that could cause this lying around? For me, it was easy to pinpoint my iPad, because I always played with the 3DS on top of it. I hope this helps someone

 

[lunachii]

It hasn't happened to me yet D: but i'd be a bit concerned ;_; can you backup your game?

 

[namiieco]

Nope never happened to me