Hacking The status of Gateway and A9LH

[daxtsu]

I don't have a hard mod. Just taking educated risks. I used the known safe methods of getting to 2.1 (I remember the SysUpdater horror stories, and wasn't about to try the beta version of Time Machine). So the only risk I took was that the A9LH installer and NAND restorer would mess things up. GW's NAND restoration code has been solid for a long time, so this seemed unlikely. I also have Sky Blue and Sky+ laying around, so I'm maybe a bit overconfident, having every trick in the book at my disposal. I took another educated risk again, updating to 9.9 with PSMD, when none of my NAND.bin files worked, after reading that firm protection was not enabled, and that people were getting factory 11.0 (and not getting a brick) when updating online. It worked, and I was then able to downgrade, and restore my original A9LH SysNAND.



Don't mess with it. There are enough people who have FIRM and NAND dumps to provide them to those that can make good use of them to provide us with a working alternative should GW fail to provide a .bin file. It's not worth risking getting stuck. Especially if you don't have a Sky+ loaded up with PSMD and CN ROMs to bail yourself out.

In my case I just installed NATIVE_FIRM from 9.3 via FBI and then downgraded with browserhax, but our methods were basically the same in the end.

 

[RednaxelaNnamtra]

I created a a9lh payloads which loads the gw stage 2, but it seems their a11 code is not loaded properly. So it can't setup the framebuffer will be properly for their payload and firmlaunch will fail.
If somebody knows how to fix this or wants to experiment with it, here is the source and binary.

 

[Brawl345]

so tomorrow is the release or the 26 ?
surprise surprise surprise

it's 48 hours AFTER the beta test, not 48 hours after their announcement

 

[tony_2018]

Someone here doesn't understand how coding works.....Go work for developers buddy...you don't roll shit out in production unless you know for sure its good to go. Thats why they had beta testers, they aren't testing to make sure A9LH is working, they're checking for something else to work after A9LH is installed....

 

[Kazuma77]

In my case I just installed NATIVE_FIRM from 9.3 via FBI and then downgraded with browserhax, but our methods were basically the same in the end.

Interesting. Installing an NF from FBI hadn't crossed my mind. But all of d0k3's apps were just returning me back to the HB menu in HBL, so I had quickly written off being able to use *hax to get out of it. Good to know you were able to get it resolved.

 

[daxtsu]

Interesting. Installing an NF from FBI hadn't crossed my mind. But all of d0k3's apps were just returning me back to the HB menu in HBL, so I had quickly written off being able to use *hax to get out of it. Good to know you were able to get it resolved.

Yeah, I ended up using a .3ds version of FBI to do it.

 

[Kazuma77]

Oh yeah, forgot to mention, for anyone who can't find the CFW Discussion forum on that iso site, and wants to use Cakes to try liomajor's method, if you need to decrypt cetk in Cakes, just boot another CFW first, go to System Settings and close, and reboot into Cakes. What Cakes needs in order to decrypt will stay in memory after the reboot.

 

[SpencerlyEverly]

Okay, I made a better video showing POC of me having Gateway A9LH without Hardmod. It even has my voice. See here:

 

[tony_2018]

If this works, my sister has a 3ds w/ gw card and I don't have to worry about her fubering with cfw..it just plays roms..w/ cheat system(doubt she'll be able to figure it out but maybe in time).

 

[loco365]

Don't mess with it. There are enough people who have FIRM and NAND dumps to provide them to those that can make good use of them to provide us with a working alternative should GW fail to provide a .bin file. It's not worth risking getting stuck. Especially if you don't have a Sky+ loaded up with PSMD and CN ROMs to bail yourself out.

Eh, I have three 3DS handhelds so if one breaks in some way, I can still get some carts loaded with hax, like CN or OoT. I'm still not going to risk it though.

 

[Ryu Kenshin]

I hope Gateway could add those functions in the final release:
- Update to 11.x for online purpose
- Region swap for DLC
- Multi a9lh switch

 

[izy]

Okay, I made a better video showing POC of me having Gateway A9LH without Hardmod. It even has my voice. See here:

Well you either did 2 things.
Already had OTP and ran the installer on a higher Firmware than
or
You downgraded to 2.1 and used OTPHelper to Unbrick your firmware


Because if you didnt do any of these things im gonna cal bullshit because the tool is 100% Brick chance for N3DS if you didnt

 

[CreAtor135]

Well you either did 2 things.
Already had OTP and ran the installer on a higher Firmware than
or
You downgraded to 2.1 and used OTPHelper to Unbrick your firmware


Because if you didnt do any of these things im gonna cal bullshit because the tool is 100% Brick chance for N3DS if you didnt

He's said before that he combined Plail's and Gateway's guide.

 

[izy]

He's said before that he combined Plail's and Gateway's guide.

isnt that backwords because its a copy of plails guide just replace the final step with gatewaps a9lh installer

 

[CreAtor135]

isnt that backwords because its a copy of plails guide just replace the final step with gatewaps a9lh installer

He just used an unbricked emunand he's generated in the past rather than the bricked one GW would usually put on.

 

[dyingyam]

Honestly, this is just embarrassing at this point. Alpha or beta status does not excuse this level of incompetency. 100% brickrate on N3DS? Do the Gateway devs not own a N3DS? Jesus. I'm not expecting them to have a robust testing system (though I should, this is a paid product—people pay them for this, being more negligent then the people working for free is completely unacceptable), but did they even test it out once? How does this happen?

The previous bricking incident showed that they had no issue incorporating malicious anti-consumer features into their propriety software—this incident shows that they're incompetent as well. Whenever you're doing this kind of software modding, you are doing so with the implicit risk that you may break your system forever. Malice and incompetence without the ability for the community to check their work is a sure recipe for disaster. I am not sure why anyone would choose to go down this path, especially new customers, who have to pay 90 bucks for this.

 

[Kazuma77]

Ok, i've used for now old dark_samus a9lh installer (had the files already): https://github.com/dark-samus/arm9loaderhax/tree/1ee8d8849bf8c340bc1421b8a642b8d64d31d165

payload_stage1 > main.c (for A Button)

#include "common.h"
#include "sdmmc.h"
#include "i2c.h"
#define HID_PAD  ((~*(u16*)0x10146000) & 0xFFF)
#define BUTTON_A  (1 << 0)
#define BUTTON_B  (1 << 1)

u16 pressed;

int main()
{
  // Initialize sdcard and nand
  *(vu32*)0x10000020 = 0;
  *(vu32*)0x10000020 = 0x340;
  sdmmc_sdcard_init();

  pressed = HID_PAD;

  if (pressed & BUTTON_A) //if a button is pressed
  {
  //Jump to alternate stage2
  sdmmc_nand_readsectors(0x5A000, 0x20, (u8*)0x08006000);
  }
  else
  {
  //jump to normal stage2
  sdmmc_nand_readsectors(0x5C000, 0x20, (u8*)0x08006000);
  }
 
  // Jump to secondary payload
  ((void (*)())0x08006000)();
  return 0;
}

To use B Button change the line to " if (pressed & BUTTON_B) //if b button is pressed "

Currently i'm too tired adding this to aurora's SafeA9LHInstaller... nightshift and +12h without sleep ^^'''

It works, a9lh and gw a9lh

Well, I got it to compile. Now I'm not 100% sure what to do with it. I can't seem to get the .3dsx file to work in Cakes. Keeps saying "exploiting arm9" or something and flashing a red screen. Do I have to revert to a clean SysNAND in order to make this work?

 

[astronautlevel]

Well, I got it to compile. Now I'm not 100% sure what to do with it. I can't seem to get the .3dsx file to work in Cakes. Keeps saying "exploiting arm9" or something and flashing a red screen. Do I have to revert to a clean SysNAND in order to make this work?

SysNAND has to be on 9.2. Try running minipasta before running the installer (Don't know if that was necessary, I heard conflicting reports)

 

[CreAtor135]

-snip-

This is not the thread for complaints. We're all.. well, most of us are disappointed with this alpha, but I didn't make this thread for people to show their distaste. It was made to document the errors in the beta/alpha//whatever so Gateway can fix them when they push out their next beta.

 

[Kazuma77]

SysNAND has to be on 9.2. Try running minipasta before running the installer (Don't know if that was necessary, I heard conflicting reports)

Alright. Thanks.