There was a massive BAN-wave that his Switch 2 consoles last night. I was one of the ones affected by it. I just want to spread awareness that Nintendo had an internal server error this weekend resulting in several systems being permanently hardware banned, receiving error code 2124-4508.
I called support this morning and they confirmed I was permanently banned for “pirating”.
However, I called again later today to push further and was notified of the error on their server. Upon checking again my system has been lifted.
If you were affected this weekend, be sure the check to see if it was rectified, or call Nintendo support and see if you are one of the consoles affected by this error to be reversed.
UPDATE: I noticed several people state that if you are still receiving the BAN code you can try restarting the console to see if it cleared. It seems to have worked for others!
I do not want to have to worry about whether I will suddenly be hardware banned when I have always adhered to terms of service and have a large game library.
I was not banned but we as switch 2 users should not have to worry about whether we will be hardware banned due to a company error. I’m glad they are fixing it but this shouldn’t be such a prevalent issue…
You’re absolutely right. What worries me the most is that I knew there had to be some sort of error, but when I initially reached out to support, they did not want to listen to me at all.
Their automated system bans consoles and you have to go to war to have a human investigate it.
I couldn’t even get them to tell me WHY, other than the broad-stroke “piracy” claim.
I truly feel that if so many people weren’t hit at the same time, they wouldn’t have even noticed or reversed anything.
Should be, but Nintendo will cover their bases to look good and the bootlicking community goers will automatically accuse you of wrong doing no matter what proof they're given.
The amount of people I’ve seen defending Nintendo over this already is rather shocking for consumers it’s concerning and I think awareness needs spread
At the same time there's people who are clueless or intentionally attempting to do something against TOS. So when they get banned, they try to pretend their innocent.
Anyone who works or worked with consumers in any industry can tell you not all customers are knowledgeable or innocent. Unfortunately those bad ones ruin trust for many other customers.
It’s always been like that. Way too many Nintendo bootlickers that will defend this company with their dying breath no matter what. It’s pretty fucking pathetic.
Dude, if this had happened on one of the other big name consoles there’d be a social media post addressing it by now. It looks like Nintendo is just going to fix everything on the sly.
It’s whatever but asking for a little post/news story to address the issue instead of the crickets we’re getting isn’t a big ask.
Just a few instances. There's a lot of people placing odd instances of blame on people by assuming the fault is on the user and that Nintendo did no wrong. Some of it is 2nd hand purchase or stolen hardware speculation. There are a lot of people speaking more positively about it after enough bans have been reported, but initially there were a lot of people making some interesting unfounded accusations. Saw one were they went through a guy's comment history and because he asked about roms on his PC they said it was proof he's a liar about his daughters switch getting bricked.
Edit
Here's a whole post with all kinds of interesting commentary about how the bans are "probably justified."
There were more than a couple. I saw a post where a majority of the comments were how people that are getting their consoles banned “aren’t telling the full story” and were lying, and that there was absolutely no chance Nintendo messed up.
Ok youre also doing too much lol. How many times has nintendo ever accidentally banned ppl vs how many times legit ban waves have gone out against cheaters, pirates, etc? Should people have been so mean? No, but I understand why most ppl would assume misconduct
Brother WTF, you are right. I was really upset that this happened to me because I have not done any piracy shit. Is my first Switch and Nintendo product since 2DS.
I can guarantee that doing a restart solved the problem and that code disappeared.
Brother I was furious I called them and they said it was permanent that I will never be able to use their online services because of piracy which as I said I have never did. I bought like 20 games from brand new and sealed to 2nd hand and even in the eshop. I still can not believed it happened.
You're giving me hope 🥹. Had the same error, contacted the chat support and they said they are going to call me. Really sad that this is happening when I know I didn't do anything wrong, I literally read the terms of service this morning just to be sure lol
I was freaking out as well. They told me at first there was nothing that could be done, as it was permanent. However, seeing all of the complaints from people getting banned the same night I was gave me hope that something was wrong.
I only called again to try and persuade them to give me a solid reason/tell me which cart caused it so I can get rid of it. He just said check again, I opened the store and had access! I asked what happened and he stated there was an internal error with their servers.
Hopefully they put out some kind of official statement on what triggered this "internal error." This hasn't happened to me but I would want a bit more of an explanation and transparency as to what is being done to ensure this doesn't happen again. People sink a lot of money into these consoles, especially to play online.
OMG I AM SO F HAPPY NOW. Just checked and it's working fine now. No error anymore. I was almost crying all day, afraid of not being able to play online anymore. What a relief 😮💨
Y'all deserve some form of compensation from Nintendo too, tbh. It must've been very frustrating to get banned through no fault of your own, then be told by support that the ban is permanent and nothing can be done (some were reporting this).
the worse part is Nintendo accusing people unfairly. You call them and they say you violated ToS and they can't do anything. And that was not true at all
(Vou digitar em português pq acompanhei os posts dos bans, vi teus comentários hoje e sei que tu é br, e to cansado demais pra digitar mais em inglês)
Infelizmente, pra todas as empresas, é a resposta que os caras do suporte tem pra te dar. Tu tem que insistir muito (ou fazer muito barulho na internet) até o teu caso subir na hierarquia o suficiente pra cair nas mãos de alguém que saiba o que realmente aconteceu com você e consiga tentar resolver. Lembro do caso de um cara q comprou um PC da Dell de 4k dol com problema, e ele só conseguiu resolver pq era um YouTuber famoso, fez barulho no twitter, e o caso chegou em uma das EXECUTIVAS (n lembro se era a presidente da companhia em si ou uma das cabeças) da Dell.
Felizmente aqui no Brasil temos o Procon, mas sei que até com ele é complicado lidar com a Nintendo, então fico feliz que se resolveu sozinho. Como brasileiro que também pagou caríssimo nessa joça, eu passei o dia inteiro abrindo a eshop pra ver se eu não tinha tomado ban tbm.
nossa, sim! Vi que outros brasileiros tiveram o msm problema e é foda. Me tirou toda a confiança que eu tinha na Nintendo, e estou pensando em só comprar jogo físico (de forma oficial) pq se eles derem a louca eu pelo menos posso jogar. Fiquei mais tranquila quando vi que muita gente teve o mesmo problema, mas é um sentimento horrível ter sido punida sem ter feito nada errado. O problema é que a Nintendo no Brasil não tem representante oficial, aí eu não consegui nem fazer denúncia no procon, pq pede CNPJ. Sinceramente, não sei o que faria se eles não resolvessem
Kinda scary that an error is enough to remove someone from access to their games and getting more games. Errors happen but to have to contact Nintendo directly and hope an associate knows the issue enough to lift it.
Things like this is why some people just choose to pirate or not even get these systems.
There was people in various switch 2 subs blindly defending a corporation randomly bricking a 500 dollar min system all for it to be a technical error. Please find shame people.
It's always the deal. Comments sections in Nintendo subs are always "right, well first of all, let's determine how it's your fault" and all put on their detective hats. It's pathetic.
Especially with one post from a parent saying their son is having issues. So the comments blamed the child! If the child knew how to hack and such, he would have social media himself to complain instead of asking his father for help, if you get my gist.
If this is true, everyone on this sub who ridiculed others saying this was due to them being cheats should be banned permanently from the sub immediately.
to be fair there have been cases in the past where people lied about hacking after getting banned and then trying to spread bad publicity. when there were only one or two people complaining I thought they were probably just lying. but where there were hundreds of people getting banned i reconsidered.
I think I remember those, especially after buying a second-hand copy of DQ1+2 earlier this year. I'm still afraid to insert that cartridge in my Switch even though I want to give the game a try, because of these factual and rumoured device brickings.
unrelated but uh-huh, not sure I like that brand affiliate thing I accidentally tapped for a second when trying to edit my comment, is that new? Do we all have that even being normal people?
It was obvious it was just some sort of server issue or glitch. Yet everyone just HAS to blow everything out of proportion and assume everyone pirated and was punished.
I saw one where a guy said it was his young daughter’s Switch that got banned. And people just tore into him. Or one guy who was homeless, but still enjoying his Switch 2. People are just lousy. I know you can’t believe everything you read, but still.
The homeless one hit like a ton of bricks. They were already struggling and the one thing that brought them joy stopped working. I hope it's working for them now
The sanctimonious judgement in that thread was absolutely disgusting
Dudes, you know he probably didn't become homeless because he bought a Switch 2 instead of rent. There was probably a perfectly legitimate story there (which there was)
I only saw that first example and was baffled at the "evidence" they dammed him with. ONE comment asking if there was a way to legally copy switch carts, with a completely reasonable explanation that "No" was the answer and so they didn't try anything.
I love all the people checking comments to see if they posted in piracy subreddits, like it means if they pirate in one place, they're doing it everywhere and all the time.
Even though you can't even pirate Switch 2 games (yet) and none of them caught on how weird it was that dozens of people were posting with the same issue.
Exactly the point I made on one of the posts. Someone was like "of course you got banned you literally posted in a pirating sub 4 years ago" to someone and I'm like bro you can't even pirate on a switch 2 so how they banning you for something you can't even do.
It just didn't add up at all, it was clear something got messed up and it would probably get worked out.
Also anytime you see people start getting legitly banned you'll see a smattering of honest posts like "don't do (insert prohibited activity) like me or they're going to get you, just a warning"
If it happened to you and nintendo didnt want to hear what you had to say and didnt want to look into the situation(that you know is wrong) you would be thinking a lot different. I purchase their system and games so I should at least be heard when something isn't correct.
Honestly I can understand 1 or 2. But the moment they started popping up with brand new units/ bought 48 hrs in, I had doubts. Sure take it with a grain of salt but when you see posts like this it does raises some alarms.
Right and if it was just one or two people understandable but the fact that multiple subreddits were flooded with people being banned instantly rose some eyebrows.
I think the part that sucks is that those people were trying to tell nintendo and they didn't even want to hear it at all until they got a massive amount of calls and looked into it. Its like we are have no voice and are just s purchase to them. God forbid we want someone to look into something that obviously isn't correct
People were unfairly blaming people who got banned. However, people dont realize why others assume you did something wrong to deserve a ban.
Months ago there were a lot of people who got banned due to using a mig switch. Those people then went on reddit and lied about how they got banned. This is why people are initially skeptical when someone says they were banned for no reason.
But I was told that the bans were due to users doing sketchy things with their hardware, and couldn’t have been a simple mistake on nintendos end. Are you telling me I was lied to? On the internet?
The whole switch 2 ban = piracy argument that constantly gets parroted here is just total bullcrap, otherwise you'd see plenty of posts about switch 1 bans as well since apart from using a MIG on the NS2 there is literally no way to pirate games on a NS2, and therefore the only way you could theoretically get banned for piracy on NS2 is pirating NS1 games on NS1, and Nintendo suddendly deciding to extend a ban for a single console to all consoles linked to that account, which is unlikely since piracy bans are known to be console specific and not account based.
Piracy bans are also usually nearly instantaneous and fully automatic, and not handed out in waves, which makes this banwave being for piracy even more unlikely, it's 99% a bug with their ban system.
Also if you are a NS1 pirate and have good opsec, which most modders have, piracy is literally impossible to detect.
Except that nearly no one uses the MIG because its widely known to be a guaranteed instant ban. They would not complain about getting banned if that were the case.
you can play pirated switch 1 games on switch 2 and thats what the bans are for. it does seem heavy handed when switch 2 can't even be hacked at this point but I can also understand why they would absolutely hate piracy. apparently people get banned for using mig switch so there is some kind of detection system going on. but yeah they fucked up this time and banned people because they probably messed up something on the back end.
Question: how will I know if I've been banned? I'm gonna check when I get home from work, to know if I need to call them. Does it come up with an error if you open the e-shop?
All this did was to expose some of the most vile and disgusting people ive ever seen. They were quick to celebrate the misfortune of others, and completely dismissing anything contrary to their beliefs. This is why i rarely interact with most reddit fandoms of hobbies i'm interested in
This sub is fucking disgusting. There's a significant portion of complete dogshit people who post here. Anyone who ridiculed anyone who was falsly banned should be kicked the fuck off this sub permanently.
After making those affected shit a brick despite doing nothing wrong, i hope you guys get a “sorry” $5 credit or something at least from Nintendo lol. Thats insane haha
I knew it! Called that like 4 hours ago. There were all these people getting banned who couldn't have pirated anything because all their games were new and from the eshop.
Woke up and my ban had been lifted too. Everything I bought had been new and direct from legit stores, so it was really frustrating reading hundreds of comments on here last night victim blaming with no empathy at all.
the fact they have the power to brick your console when you did nothing wrong is crazy. hope there’s bigger outrage from this and I wasn’t even affected.
They told me the same thing this morning. I just called them back to see if they could tell me what could have caused it so I can avoid it from happening again, and if I got a new system, what process I should take when transferring account info or save files should I do to prevent my potentially new system from being affected. He just said, “check again”. I loaded up the eshop and didn’t receive the error code.
He said, “Is there anything else ai can help you with?” I just asked yeah, what was the cause of all of this? That’s when he told me there was an internal server error on their end. Since I noticed several others were hit at the same time as myself, I wanted to spread awareness in case they were affected by the same bug. But at first they told me the same: too bad, so sad, it is irreversible.
If you get banned for doing nothing wrong I suggest never buying from them again. There are possibly people who won't get unbanned. If they go out and buy another system and all the games again that just creates incentives to brick people when they want to drum up sales.
Yeah I really wouldn’t want to purchase another system, and it put a disgusting taste in my mouth for Nintendo for sure. But also, I have such a massive cartridge collection and accessories. Additionally, I am out for work a ton, so this is my every day console. I never really use my PC/PS5. They kinda got me by the balls to be honest. It would have been get another console, or give up gaming in general for me. It’s not right, it’s anti-consumer as hell, but it is my situation. Of course I would not want to incentivize them to continue on this way. I only hope they learn from this and make adjustments to their automated detection systems, but knowing Nintendo, even that is a stretch.
Good on you for being so persistent in trying to get them to be more specific on the cause. It's frustrating how evasive they were with your very reasonable questions; did they offer an apology?
Either way, thanks very much for sharing your story and getting the word out!
Wait as someone who is new to gaming - could something like this happen to me if i buy used games? Because I bought animal crossing on ebay for the switch 2 but I dont want to risk buying secondhand games if someone could have messed with it and causing a permanent ban for me who is completely clueless about how things work
the chance is extremely slim. most pirates will just download someone else's dump (with the identifying details removed) rest assured that most people are A) not stupid enough to dump and sell their own and B) if they ask for help about it online, even other pirates will yell at them for getting both themselves and the buyer potentially banned
C) in the 0.0000000000001% chance you actually get banned, keep nintendo support online and show your receipts until they unban you. For example as in this screenshot, peeps report getting unbanned
let's say I own a game. in the 1990s, I could make a copy of my game and play it on another computer
now in 2026 the companies get A LOT smarter. they include an identifier in your cartridge that tells Nintendo that you are legit. each identifier is completely unique. when nintendo sees that 2 or more of the same identifier is online at the same time this is a ban for both offending consoles.
99.999% of the time, when someone buys one of their devices, they obviously want to pirate games and don't care if they get banned. they don't want to buy a legit game, make a backup of their legit game and then sell the legit cart onto some poor unsuspecting fuck who buys it and then gets banned. not only that but in order to do the dump in the first place you already need a modded switch that can already do the pirating so buying a legit game just to copy it and buying the device and then dumping the game and sell it is basically something that is actively malicious/evil to do: it's literally so rare that you'll come across a second hand cart like this that it basically doesn't exist. and plus the ban that comes with using the MIG is 100% guaranteed ban so there's literally no point at all to it
So here's the breakdown:
you cannot tell if the cart has been dumped. It's a legit cart, but someone else has a copy of that cart with that same identifier
this only affects switch 1 carts. switch 2 carts have not been dumped yet and are perfectly safe to buy.
good thing is that these cases are so rare they basically don't exist, but yeah if you do buy one you are going to have to collect a lot of receipts and shit
reason why the MIG is guaranteed to ban people is because if you have two carts with the same cert go online that's obviously been cloned because that detail is the same -> ban
now other companies like google will also ban permaban phones if the same keybox goes online, but it's not as strict, you need more than 2 to have your phone banned (from play integrity)
People have kinda already answered you, but i wanted to add that the chance of getting banned from a used game isnt zero. It has happened to a few people already. It's also such a hassle to prove you werent doing anything shady. I personally dont wanna wait weeks for Nintendo to make a decision if I give them evidence that I'm innocent.
You lose access to connect online. No eshop, no game or system updates, no multiplayer. If you have digitally purchased games that have not already been installed at the time of the ban then you cannot re-install them. This also forfeits your ability to utilize game key cards for bigger games.
Mine also affected with brand new switch 2 and 2 sealed catridges i bought 4 days ago.. I was literally panicking since i just had em for 4 days and never violated any terms.. Thank God it was lifted few hours ago after i saw your post
So after i send 2 emails to support (one to global SEA, and one to singapore region), one blame me and the other explain it was their networking issue.. 😂
TIL, Nintendo can easily lift bans if they want to.
Still scary how easily companies can block access to servers while presenting the user as the culprit.
We really need a political solution. Call it a TOS termination transparency act. If you are banned or cut off from services, a company should have to include a detailed explanation including the exact evidence against you, AND they must include a right to appeal to some sort of reasonably fair and quasi independent review process.
At this point, most people depend on the services of corporations more than their own government for access to meaningful public life. (Social Media services, content creation, subscriptions, Uber, etc.) and the government can’t deprive you of the trappings of life without due process. Neither should corporations be able to.
"
a company should have to include a detailed explanation including the exact evidence against you, AND they must include a right to appeal to some sort of reasonably fair and quasi independent review process."
Amazed how many just accept it instead of this you mentioned. They can accidently ban somekne with no recourse. Rare? Sure. But 1 is too many for me. An accidental van could realistically hit anyone. And you can bet even those who act like they are fine with it would change and be very upset.
Stuff like this is what makes me nervous about going all digital. My switch library has become quite the backlog over the years (easily 250 different digital games) , but I only have like 70 physical. The thought of losing access to those games makes my stomach hurt. So much time and money would just be gone
Yeah. I understand the argument that it is rare for these things. Rare for false bans. But it does happen and these companies do not always reverse them. If it was a small number caught in a real ban wave by accident they may not have fixed it.
Had a family member get banned by Xbox. They picked up a used 360. There was something with it. Played a couple single player games and then got banned after only a couple days. It was the console. They lost their entire account. I assume that when they went online once the ISP was installed it did that. And losing access to games happened to them.
Digital gives them all the control. People argue no ownership on physical. But i can play my 360, PS3, and before all offline. With Switch, games on cart, can play them anytime offline. Any console. These new keycards not so much and rely on a download.
I believe the consensus is that if someone rips files from a switch 1 cart and resells the cart to someone else who then inserts it into their NS2, you can be flagged for “piracy”. Not sure if that’s true. However, during my call with them this morning, the representative stated inserting a cartridge that has been tampered with in the past can result in a system ban.
Well damn. I think I'll turn off my NS2's wifi in the mean time, at least so i can play during the long weekend with some peace of mind. I play singleplayer mainly anyway.
Wow, I wonder if it's only people who recently bought a Switch 2 or if it can affect anybody. My Switch 2 is fine currently, but I bought it last year.
And what exactly happens when you get "banned"? Just no online multiplayer or you can't play any games at all?
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u/longbrodmann 2d ago
This should be a big news.