Hacking The status of Gateway and A9LH

zes

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@liomajor did a great job with the payloads, I'm holding down arrow on power on to boot gateway 4.0a launcher.dat straight into my 11.0 sysnand, no emunand, default power on does my bootanim9 -> luma setup. great!

anybody know what byte offset to hex edit in the main stage2 payload bin, the updated one that handles both the nand types? I'd like to crank it to 0xFF, it looks like it might be using the 0x39 brightness that early screen init a9lh implementations brought in.
 

Kazuma77

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So I understand that with this tripple stage 2 a9lh i can launch a "regular" a9lh stage 2 by not pressing anything and Gateways stage 2 by pressing x+y.

from what I gathered in this thread i can not update the sysnand when launching the gateway stage 2, correct?

But i can uodate the sysnand if, for example. i launch the "regular" stage 2 launching luma, right (FIRM0 and FIRM1 protected, obviously)?

am I grasping this correctly?

Well, here's the thing. We know 4.0a does not have firm protection. Presumably so you can downgrade with the Time Machine without bricking your device. Previous versions supposedly have all had firm protection. In theory, if you were to go back to 3.7.1 and update SysNAND, it should be alright. I wouldn't risk it though without a hard mod. Maybe someone with a hard mod can test this and tell us for certain.
 
Last edited by Kazuma77,

Localhorst86

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Well, here's the thing. We know 4.0a does not have firm protection. Presumably so you can downgrade with the Time Machine without bricking your device. Previous versions supposedly have all had firm protection. In theory, if you were to go back to 3.7.1 and update SysNAND, it should be alright. I wouldn't risk it though without a hard mod. Maybe someone with a hard mod can test this and tell us for certain.

well, ok. so for me the important part is that the regular stage 2 will works just as it did before in terms of updating, i will rarely use Gateway anyways so i will be pretty sure not to be in gateway mode when updating.
 

Kazuma77

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well, ok. so for me the important part is that the regular stage 2 will works just as it did before in terms of updating, i will rarely use Gateway anyways so i will be pretty sure not to be in gateway mode when updating.

Right, the regular stage 2 remains unchanged. The other 2 just get added to hotkeys. I'm using B & START, because I was planning to put GW on B when I was still expecting them to use an "arm9loaderhax.bin" file, and had never configured START in my BootCTR9 setup either. It works out exactly as I planned it this way, and I can still put anything I want to on START just by naming it "a9lh/arm9loaderhax.bin" instead of assigning it a hotkey in BootCTR9.

Anyway, if you're planning to run Luma, it's probably best to use that to update. I leave DNS blocking on until I'm ready to update, anyway, and I disable automatic DNS again immediately after. So I'm not going to receive an update popup while running GW mode anyway. It's not like you really need firm protection the rest of the time (unless you're messing with NATIVE_FIRM CIAs or something).

Still, maybe it's time GW looked into using a configuration file, or including two copies, so that people can have it whichever way they want it.
 

DavidKang

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For the payload_stage1.rar files, what's the difference between A-B and B-A? Do I press them at the same time or press them in order? I'm currently fine with X+Y but I was wondering.
 

Kazuma77

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For the payload_stage1.rar files, what's the difference between A-B and B-A? Do I press them at the same time or press them in order? I'm currently fine with X+Y but I was wondering.

These are single-button files. The first puts GW on A and "a9lh/arm9loaderhax.bin" on B. The second, just the opposite. It's not really necessary to have the second one, because you can also just swap 2_2 and 2_3, but it simplifies things minimizing the need to move files around.

The idea of the combos was to avoid getting in the way of existing chain loaders (because currently only Arm9LoaderHay even allows you to configure combos, making it unpopular with those seeking ease-of-use, but great for parents that want to keep their kids out of Godmode9). But most people prefer single button presses, and just configuring their boot managers not to use those buttons.
 
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Kazuma77

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The readme for the private beta says this requires a hardmod. Will this work on my N3DS XL with A9LH already installed?

The beta required a hard mod for good reason. It had people testing an updater/downgrader in a beta state. The modified Safe A9LH Installer and hotkey payloads are perfectly safe to install over an existing A9LH installation without a hard mod.
 

GuyInDogSuit

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The beta required a hard mod for good reason. It had people testing an updater/downgrader in a beta state. The modified Safe A9LH Installer and hotkey payloads are perfectly safe to install over an existing A9LH installation without a hard mod.

Where do I get this modified Safe A9LH Installer?
 

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GuyInDogSuit

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Kazuma77

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Where do I get this modified Safe A9LH Installer?

Installer HERE

Alternate hotkey payloads HERE

If, you have A9LH installed, temporarily rename your "arm9loaderhax.bin" to something like "arm9loaderhax.bin.bak" and use the included one. After installing, you can move it to your "a9lh" folder and rename your current "arm9loaderhax.bin" back. Once installed, the second hotkey will boot Safe A9LH Installer in case you want to switch hotkeys later (actually, you can make "a9lh/arm9loaderhax.bin" whatever you want for your second hotkey, it's just recommended to have Safe A9LH Installer in case you want to redo the configuration). Let us know if you have any further questions.
 
Last edited by Kazuma77,

Kazuma77

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OK, I'm confused. I copied the files over, booted, and it loaded SafeA9LHInstaller right away. It updated with no problems. However, I can't get it to boot again into anything else. What am I missing here?

Move the "arm9loaderhax.bin" to your "a9lh" folder, and restore your original "arm9loaderhax.bin" (from Luma, your boot manager, etc.) to the root of the card. And you have to hold the hotkeys when powering the system on to run GW or "a9lh/arm9loaderhax.bin".
 
Last edited by Kazuma77,

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