• Light/Dark
  • Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.

"The software was closed because an error occurred" - Nintendo Switch

How often do you see this?

  • Almost once a day

    Votes: 15 2.2%

  • Almost once a week

    Votes: 32 4.7%

  • Almost once a month

    Votes: 83 12.2%

  • I've seen it once

    Votes: 374 54.8%

  • I've never seen it

    Votes: 179 26.2%
  • Total voters
    683
Tailzo

Tailzo

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,919
Recently I've been seeing this error more often. It seems to happen when I try to start a new game, without closing the other. When Switch is trying to "switch" games, a black screen with the text: "The software was closed because an error occurred" appears. At first I thought it was some select unstable software (Like The World ends with you getting this randomly), but now I've seen it almost once a week.

I do not think I got similar messages with Vita or 3ds. I have gotten something like this with ps4, but it was very rare. How about you?

fqd1ii2jsft11.jpg
 
Last edited:
theosmeo

theosmeo

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 27, 2017
773
its only been a few games, like botw near launch, bloodstained, and deadly premonition
 
Lite_Agent

Lite_Agent

Member
Oct 26, 2017
4,572
Somewhere. I think.
Can't say that I have, I think I can count the number of times a game has crashed on the fingers of one hand. Then again, I always close a game manually before launching a new one.

Is there any additional info in the system crash logs?
 
Terror-Billy

Terror-Billy

Chicken Chaser
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
2,460
Pokemon Sword gave that error once over a 100 hours playthrough. That's the one time I've seen it.
 
OP
OP
Tailzo

Tailzo

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,919
Lite_Agent said:
Can't say that I have, I think I can count the number of times a game has crashed on the fingers of one hand. Then again, I always close a game manually before launching a new one.

Is there any additional info in the system crash logs?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
No, and I can only press "OK". Since most of the time I wanted to change game, the game crashing isn't a huge problem.
 
Freezasaurus

Freezasaurus

Member
Oct 25, 2017
56,964
It really depends on the game. I haven't seen it in over a month. But then with some games I've played, I've seen it several times a week.
 
SkimpyMcChicken

SkimpyMcChicken

Member
Mar 27, 2018
463
Hey OP is your SD card FAT32 or exFAT?

Shouldn't matter, but Nintendo's exFAT implementation is weird. Leads to crashes sometimes.
 
Poltergust

Poltergust

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,821
Orlando, FL
I've only ever seen this once, when playing AI: The Somnium Files. The game noticeably struggled to load up overlays of earlier cutscenes and during one of these instances it just flat out crashed.

Fortunately, it only ever happened that one time, perhaps due to me playing it continuously without closing it. Probably a memory leak or something.
 
OP
OP
Tailzo

Tailzo

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,919
SkimpyMcChicken said:
Hey OP is your SD card FAT32 or exFAT?

Shouldn't matter, but Nintendo's exFAT implementation is weird. Leads to crashes sometimes.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I don't remember. So it might be due to the SD card then? I am quite sure I followed a guide to buy the best suited SD card I could, but maybe it wouldn't happen if I had formatted it another way?

Poltergust said:
I've only ever seen this once, when playing AI: The Somnium Files. The game noticeably struggled to load up overlays of earlier cutscenes and during one of these instances it just flat out crashed.

Fortunately, it only ever happened that one time, perhaps due to me playing it continuously without closing it. Probably a memory leak or something.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I loved that game! Though it happened with that game too.
 
Mbolibombo

Mbolibombo

Member
Oct 29, 2017
7,043
I've got a launch Switch and I've gotten an error 4 times.

1. BotW - Directly after I beat Ganonfor the first time so I didnt get to see the cut scenes before I replayed the castle again :P
2. Octopath Traveler - removed the cartridge without closing the game
3. Ni No Kuni - After a battle
4. Ni No Kuni - After a battle

So no, Cant really say it's something that occured to me very often.
 
P-MAC

P-MAC

Member
Nov 15, 2017
4,457
I don't think I've ever seen that tbh. Think I did in the eShop a few times but not a game
 
SkimpyMcChicken

SkimpyMcChicken

Member
Mar 27, 2018
463
Tailzo said:
I don't remember. So it might be due to the SD card then? I am quite sure I followed a guide to buy the best suited SD card I could, but maybe it wouldn't happen if I had formatted it another way?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

How big is your SD card? If its huge, it's probably formatted to exFAT by default. It is the better filesystem, it supports individual files over 4GB, FAT32 does not. Windows itself won't even let you format an SDXC card to FAT32, it generally isn't done. Using a tool like gui_format can help you do it. For whatever reason, Nintendo's implementation is just a little wonky.

People have reported issues specifically with Pokemon Sword / Shield and exFAT, from what I've seen.

This is all just a guess though. Honestly your SD card could be outright failing or it could be a specific faulty game on your Switch, any number of things really. I hope you figure it out!
 
OP
OP
Tailzo

Tailzo

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,919
SkimpyMcChicken said:
How big is your SD card? If its huge, it's probably formatted to exFAT by default. It is the better filesystem, it supports individual files over 4GB, FAT32 does not. Windows itself won't even let you format an SDXC card to FAT32, it generally isn't done. Using a tool like gui_format can help you do it. For whatever reason, Nintendo's implementation is just a little wonky.

People have reported issues specifically with Pokemon Sword / Shield and exFAT, from what I've seen.

This is all just a guess though. Honestly your SD card could be outright failing or it could be a specific faulty game on your Switch, any number of things really. I hope you figure it out!
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Thank you :) I was just thinking it was weird seeing this so often. So I thought maybe everyone gets the same errors, but nobody cares much about it? Though seeing the current results of the poll, it seems this error is rare for most people. :)

mazi said:
i saw it a few times when i had my old microSD card, but nothing singe i upgraded to my current one.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Yeah, it really does sound like it has something to do with the SD card. I'm glad you got rid of that error :)
 
Pau

Pau

Self-Appointed Godmother of Bruce Wayne's Children
Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,838
Happened enough with My Time at Portia that I had to drop the game...
 
Jegriva

Jegriva

Banned
Sep 23, 2019
5,519
It happens often with Telltale Batman and with Bury me, My love.
 
Last edited:
Henrar

Henrar

Member
Nov 27, 2017
1,905
If that happens when you switch games, then it probably means that the games handle messages from operating system incorrectly.
 

rafiii

Member
Feb 7, 2019
498
Asphalt9 showed that message before when you were closing the game.
It has been patched.
 
Ashlette

Ashlette

Member
Oct 28, 2017
3,254
I received those errors randomly when playing Warframe on Switch. I found them especially annoying when they popped up during free roam missions, since I would lose everything I earned.
 
OP
OP
Tailzo

Tailzo

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,919
Oh no, there is someone that sees this message almost every day. Please reply and maybe we can help :)
 
AncientReptileBrain

AncientReptileBrain

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,457
this is what a game crashing looks like on switch -- ie developer error. there are way more games approved for platforms nowadays; cert isn't and cannot be as good as it has been in the past.
 
Leandras

Leandras

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
1,462
Funnily enough saw it for the first time yesterday using youtube app
 
Shoozle

Shoozle

Banned
Dec 2, 2017
319
UK
Once it occurs, do you then get something like "software is corrupted, needs to be redownloaded?" That happened to me constantly and it was my crappy SD card. Whenever it happened, I ran a check of the SD card on my PC and it would say errors found, fix them, but then it would still happen and my PC would detect another error. I will see if I can find what I did/used to check the SD card.
 
OP
OP
Tailzo

Tailzo

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,919
Shoozle said:
Once it occurs, do you then get something like "software is corrupted, needs to be redownloaded?" That happened to me constantly and it was my crappy SD card. Whenever it happened, I ran a check of the SD card on my PC and it would say errors found, fix them, but then it would still happen and my PC would detect another error. I will see if I can find what I did/used to check the SD card.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
No, I've never gotten "software is corrupted, needs to be redownloaded". Thank you for the suggestion :)
 
clay_ghost

clay_ghost

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,368
Once with bloodstained I think. Maybe Another time with another game that I don't remember. It's really rare.
 
defaltoption

defaltoption

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
11,484
Austin
Ive actually never seen that on switch but i have on my ps4, happens there the most, my xbox one has closed apps on me before as well but i don't remember what the error was. If it's happening only to a certain game id say reinstall fresh but if its multiple games then try an sd reformat or new card but be careful with your saved data, you may want to contact Nintendo since not all games have cloud save
 
Soltis

Soltis

Member
Feb 28, 2019
1,027
United States
I've gotten that error before, but rarely.

I think I encountered it while playing Tales of Vesperia and another time while playing Dragon Quest 11 S.
 
Raysoul

Raysoul

Fat4All Ruined My Rug
Member
Oct 26, 2017
3,016
There was a known bug (pre-patch) for The Escapist 2 that led to that error. It is now fixed.
 
NightShift

NightShift

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,002
Australia
Glad this thread popped up. This happened to me for the first time today playing BotW so I'm glad I'm not the only one. It's a lot more scary than on PS4 because of all the save file bullshit.
 

Deleted member 55822

User requested account closure
Banned
Apr 10, 2019
698
It's only happened to me two times. On the SNES app (it's just straight up won't load for some reason) and the YouTube app. So I'm not sure what happened there really.
 
slsk

slsk

Member
Oct 27, 2017
247
From what I can remember, I've had this twice:
- Playing Super Mario Odyssey and I somehow hadn't inserted the cart firmly enough so it popped out while I was in the middle of playing the game.
- Dragon Quest XI crashed - I assume that the Switch OS can detect when game is in a bad state and will stop it.
 
eXistor

eXistor

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,281
I don't even remember what games but I think I've seen it once or twice. I have had some slight issues with BotW where I insert the cart and it won't read the first time. This only happened on BotW, but that might be because it's my most played game by far, most games I put in, finish and put on the shelf.
 
Stevo

Stevo

Member
Jan 29, 2019
280
A few times in recent weeks with Ring Fit in particular, and some eShop things. Also, I bought the FFX/X-2 pack in the Black Friday sales and when I went to download X-2 everything corrupted and the SD died. I've had my Switch less than a year and the SD was bought new for it and had never been removed or anything since it went in. I never thought I would say it but I'm glad I paid for the cloud saves! And speaking of Cloud, I was playing a bit of FF VII last night and it froze/ died on me. That never happened to me once on the original hardware. :( it has been a rough couple of weeks for me with my Switch library.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.