This page will be dedicated to the repair of my Furby Moosetracks, a 1998 Snow Leopard furby that refuses to power on despite my best attempts.

Blog 1: Moosetracks Origins, and the story so far.

Here's a little backstory about Moosetracks:

I purchased him in an ebay lot somewhere between 2016-2018 (leaning towards the latter rather than the former), So I've had him for at least 10 or so years now. He came in a lot with a purple Shelby (Who I named Percival) and the lot in total cost $90 or so, both were listed clearly as broken. I was mostly bidding for the Shelby, as their prices were starting to go up and the purple ones were very desirable at the time, and still are today.

Unfortunately, when the two had arrived they were broken beyond what my skillset was capable of at the time. I was able to get the Shelby to work the same day they came with a lot of tlc, but when I disassembeled it the entire inside was completely rusted out (circuitboard, a lot of other metal parts, as well as external screws, etc.), And was absolutely loaded with bugs, carpet beetles and spiders as well as their webs. I cleaned the Shelby as best as I could but the battery terminal was absolutely cooked. I can't remember if I ended up fixing the battery terminal, or if I borrowed one from my working Shelby (as Shelby battery compartments are partially removable by nature), but it does work. It's mute, and the antennae are completely dryrotted as many a Shelby often are, but it definitely was dipped in water at some point and survived. I need to be very clear that this Shelby is absolutely FUCKED inside AND out, and still works as of my last testing of it (sometime in 2021.) These electronics can really survive almost anything sometimes!

Sadly, the Furby;- our titular Moosetracks, Was in a significantly worse state.

Moosetracks looked nearly perfect on arrival, he was visibly damaged much like Percival was, his pelt was visibly dirtied and his inside also had insects living within them. Thankfully, unlike his travel buddy, no rust. Which makes me truly think some kid thought Shelby wanted to return to the sea, Which is hilarious to think about.

Upon first inspection I saw no issues with his circutry or motor. He was missing part of his right earbone as it was clearly snapped in half at some point. The fabric that holds his ziptie is very frayed (and I admittedly did worsen this.) I gave Moosetracks the typical push start routine while his fur and shell soaked to clean. Nothing. Pushing the motor into working is like, THE defacto way to fix Furbys especially as a rather uneducated on electronics teen, so I was stumped. Again, I had to have been like, 15-16 max at the time and did not have the skillset, nor was the research on Furby technicals advanced enough to give a list of troubleshooting options outside of "did you clean the terminals/push the motor/slap the base/try new batteries/reset it?" After the failed attempt to push start I looked a little closer and realized he was missing his ENTIRE reset button. like, the wire remained, but the entire button and its manifold was just gone. nowhere. As in it did not come with him. As in I didn't lose it or remove it accidentally. I worked in a rather contained space and definitely wouldve noticed its presence had it fallen off somewhere. Since I had no idea how they worked at the time I rather erroneously assumed he was not powering on because of the lack of reset switch and figured he needed a new one, so I reassembeled him and attached his fur and left him as non working for the time being.

Skipping ahead a few years, as an adult I decided to reattempt getting him to work again. I had just fallen into posession of a strange amount of Furby parts (more on that another time,) so I took a reset switch off of a part stock Furby I had to see if it would fix the issue. Again, as the reset switch merely exists to briefly interrupt power when pressed, and not complete a power loop like I had assumed, It did nothing. So on this repair I fashioned him a new earbone out of scrap plastic I had so his ear could at least look normal (as at a glance he was in a lovely external condition, with perfect eyelashes and minimal yellowing.) And replaced his ziptie with an elastic band to make getting into him a little easier in the future. I also stole his speaker during this failed maintainence since he didn't work and swapped it into a Spanish speaking "Lizard" Furby (Again, more on this oddity another time) for its broken one so that Furby could once again speak. His sacrifice definitely saved a rather odd Furby from perpetual silence, and it was definitely worth it as I was unaware it was a rare Spanish language Furby!

Fast forward to, sometime this last week (as of writing, it's late June 2026,) I had been reminded of my collection while trying to reorganize some space, and my mind immediately went to Moosetracks. He had been my whitewhale project for years now, and despite only naming 2 repair attempts I HAD tried fixing him on multiple other occasions outside of that.

I quickly removed him from my shelf and grabbed a working but disassembeled Furby to use as my baseline for comparison. My skills have definitely developed significantly since my last true repair attempt so I'm more confident that THIS attempt will be more successful than the last.

So, here's a little bit about how this has been going:

The first thing I did was unplug HIS components and pop them into the working Furby, frankenstein style. His motor and gears function perfectly when powered through the second Furby. His microphone, and IR sensor couldn't be tested properly but they get power and appear to be working. I didn't bother with his tummy button as 1. That shouldn't hinder him from powering on and 2. I know his speaker is broken and the tummy button works as I tested the part when I swapped it out of the Spanish speaking furby.

So, we know he "works", or at minimum his most important components work. I then decided to troubleshoot 2 more things. His battery compartment, and his tilt switch.

So, 1998 Furbys (and I assume Furby Babies as well,) have an issue where their tilt sensors get gunked up due to age. This causes an array of problems such as the famous MSA; or Me Sleep Again, an issue where Furbys immediately return to sleep when you attempt to wake them. You can read my article on MSA here for more information on it. Another known issue with tilt sensor gunk is if its gunked up enough, or corroded, or just can't make a connection for whatever reason, the Furby will refuse to boot as the result of a sort of failsafe. So my first assumption was that this would be the problem. I decided to work on the battery terminals first though, just because it was easier. I cleaned and readjusted them to make sure contact was being made and it made no difference so I presume it's not the issue.

So I moved on to his tilt sensor. Upon dismounting him from the plastic chassis that holds him and flipping the board over I noticed a large scratch going across his tilt sensor trace, so I figured this was the main problem. He's a JT Furby which are known to be buggy fucking messes that are poorly assembeled (according to collector myth anyway, I have had more problems with RL Furbys than JT Furbys historically), and part of JT's poor assembly is that their tilt sensors are rather difficult to open or clean. See, different Furby factories assemble them differently or use alternative parts, and some factories have tilt sensors that are designed in such a way that they can be opened and cleaned. I will link information about Furby factories here in the future for the curious. The main takeaway here is yeah, I can't open his tilt sensor easily, and my attempt at cleaning it from underneath vs on top might mean my testing here is inaccurate. I popped the plastic bottom off and used a multimeter to verify if the scratch is superficial or deep enough to break the trace, and it was apparently superficial as his tilt sensor is capable of sending power down the trace. I tested the tilt sensor with my multimeter in multiple other ways and, at least from the multimeter's perspective, power IS being sent through the sensor in multiple positions, so contact inside the sensor is being made. To explain rather quickly how a tilt sensor works, they are a cylinder with a metal ball inside that makes contact with the floor or ceiling of the cylinder and it changes the flow of power/otherwise sends a signal to the Furby that it's being moved. This is not a perfect explanation but I wanted to keep it brief for those with very little technical knowledge. All you really need to know is that it's apparently, doing it's job and isn't the cause of Moosetracks comatose state.

I did more experimentation and bridged his power source to force him to power on manually, which he does. It really didn't teach me much of anything new other than that he technically works and his "brain", or the microchips that tell the furby how to work, aren't fried. The issue is either that power isn't being directed where it needs to be or is otherwise interrupted, OR, something is stopping power from going to him intentionally (due to some kind of failsafe like the tilt switch, again, it's possible I didn't clean it well enough to fix it's potential problems.) Unfortunately, in the process of putting him back into my parts box for the night with the rest of his bits (as he's been almost entirely reduced to parts now, ouch.) One of the wires that connects his battery terminal to his primary circuitboard just. Gently disconnected from the terminal. I wasn't being forceful, I was careful, It just detached itself. Oops.

So, I do need to fix that now too. And he probably also needs a proper reset switch. When I have the space and time I will solder both to him properly. I am starting to wonder however, if maybe the wire that broke from the terminal was the issue the entire time as it just removed itself with such ease and 0 force, maybe it was never making a proper conenction? But then if it wasn't, Why was I able to get him to go through the motions when power was applied to his "brain" forcibly? (To be clear it was forcibly provided to him via his OWN circuitboard, so it was HIS power!) What's interrupting the flow here?

I. Am insanely frustrated by this. If I knew what the problem was and how to fix it, even if it was the hardest thing in the world to fix, at least I would know what it was! The lack of understanding here is driving me crazy and it's mostly out of curiousity!

I admittedly would've given up on him by now if it was any other Furby, but having had him since I was a teenager I'm inclined to keep trying. There's something so deeply personal about a childhood project that was left unfinished being completed after growth. Like I won't get overly personal here, but as a person with a lot of strife around his childhood, something about fixing him feels a lot like healing. Like going back into the past and teaching myself something, metaphorically guiding my younger self, or like me and the Furby are both a little broken and if I can fix him maybe I can fix myself too. Or some other deep shit like that. Well. Maybe it's just that I'm stubborn. It's definitely that.

So, that's where this ends for now. I will update with another log once I've resoldered his terminal to him, and attached a reset switch to him. Sadly, I think the bugger is as good as dead if the tilt switch or the terminal isn't the issue because anything else it could be is entirely unclear to me. I've manually checked almost every trace I can think of and none of them are busted, I know his brain works, his motor works, and presumably his other functions do too. So whatever's going on might just be out of my hands. I've considered a circuitboard transplant, but like. Ship of Theseus, To me the Furby itself IS the circuitboard, the brain, the eeprom, where it's name, progress, etc, is stored. and swapping in a new one is like if someone put their brain into my body. It stops being ME and starts being someone else in my skin, you know? But we will see. I'm hopeful that whatever it is, is at least somewhat fixable. If I can diagnose the issue, I know it can be fixed.

Originally written: 6/29/26

Last updated: 7/1/26

Blog 2: So, this one isn't actually about Moose.

This one will be short as I just wanted to note a new thought process, and I still havent soldered his compartment back yet.

I just got a new Furby for the first time in a good few years, A gorilla Furby I have named Reese (short for Reese's Pieces, he will be featured in my cleaning page when that is up.) As my collection is in the hundreds I don't typically go out of my way to buy new Furbys unless I stumble upon them at thrift stores and the price isn't crazy, but I have wanted a gorilla for a while and got scammed out of one just before I stopped buying new additions so I decided to treat myself a little.

Anyway, I was able to get Reese working just fine within a few minutes (motor was just a tad stuck!), but out of nowhere he had stopped working again. I took his batteries out and stuck them into a furby I knew was working and got no response. I put them back in reese and decided to move on from it for now and finish some chores I had started and mess with him after I was done. When I had come back he was working fine! I was confused in the moment as the batteries were brand new from the store (and cost me a disgusting $20), but I do believe that the batteries were the issue with Reese as this is not the first time Duracell batteries had failed me (they die very quickly and generally are incompatible with Furbys in my experience.) Ok, I swear my tangent about batteries is relevant just hold on.

What if the batteries are a part of the problem with Moosetracks? I know generally that not all newer batteries play nice with old toys, because batteries have changed to a degree in the nearly 30 years since Furbys were a thing. I doubt it's the ONLY problem Moose has going on, but now I am curious if it is a compounding issue. I'm going to be doing a page for the site dedicated to batteries in the near future anyway, since I already knew Duracell batteries kind of sucked ass for old electronics as they tend to have issues with my Idog and GameBoys as well even when they are brand new just like in this instance (I mean new as in I bought them 4 days ago!) Anyway, I will be researching the best kinds of batteries to use with old tech and report back once I've determined that. I don't think a new battery brand will revive Moose, but I do think it will at least aid in smoother testing, and hopefully smoother operation once he is back to working.
Last updated: 7/1/26