Ive been trying in vain to fix this issue for almost a year now and my spouse finally convinced me to ask, so here I am!
So I tried to do an update to my 3ds and it failed. I looked up solutions and tried to do a forced update by holding down R, L, A, and up, thenpowering it on - but it just fails in the same place.
I tried it both with the SD card in and out, and with or without games, but it still didn't work.
Then I made a grave mistake and accidentally removed the SD card while the system was powered on.
I had games downloaded to that card, but when I power on my device, they aren't shown. Furthermore, when I power on my device, it shows the original menu... but I can't select anything. I can click on things, but nothing happens when I do so. The settings won't open, the store doesn't open, the camera wont open... I can't even adjust the brightness. The onky thing that DOES work is opening up a folder, but when I close it again the whole screen locks and I can't even use the d-pad to select things.
I've tried powering it on with the sd card and without. Ive tried force updating it with and without. I've even tried both with a brand new SD card, but nothing changes.
I'm very stumped and I really hope the solution is out there!