Hacking A9LH Update / Restore Issue

Thispi

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Hey guys, I have kind of a unique problem that I can't seem to find an answer to anywhere.

I have an Old USA 3DS that was on 11.3 with A9LH and working fine with a lot of my stuff on it, installed, and categorized/sorted, (Essentially PERFECT) and it got into the hands of a small child who immediately pressed "ok" for the 11.4 update nag that I've been avoiding like the plague for months now, while I had my back turned for literally 45 seconds.

In a foolish panic, I quickly booted up Hourglass9 and used the SysNAND Restore option to revert back to what I thought was a backup of my 11.3 NAND, but as it turns out, it was actually the 9.2.0-20U backup I had from back when I originally used The Guide (for A9LH, that is, not the bootloader one).

So my problem now is absolutely everything has disappeared from my home screen, it's completely stock. It's all still on the SD card tho, because I can see all my games in the "00040000" folder under "title" inside the "Nintendo 3DS" folder, nested inside the two folder with what I'm assuming is the console's unique ID or whatever (it's like a million numbers).

Also, in System Settings>Data Management>Nintendo 3DS>Software I see all the "Saved Software Titles", but I can't do anything with them as they're all grayed out with big gray X's on everything, and with only the option to "Delete" or "Close" when I click on anything.

So now my question is, how can I get everything back to normal, especially without having to re-install everything and categorize/sort it all again?

I'm assuming I can't use any of my software unless I somehow manage to update back to 11.3/11.4 (although for whatever reason, I'd just prefer to stay on 11.3), or at least that's what I've read, but it's still unclear to me whether or not I have to mess with some "Ticket/Title Database" or something along those lines.

I do have the update files for 11.3 in a .zip file which I'm hoping to use with SysUpdater somehow (if possible), but I don't exactly remember the process for that, and I'm not even sure that it'll fix my problem, or make matters worse.

I'm also not sure if I can just update to 11.4 without breaking something, but like I said, I'd still prefer to be on 11.3 and have everything exactly the way I had it before, categorized, sorted, and with all my FBI and other "homebrew" stuff on it.

All my pre-boot payloads still work, like Hourglass9, Decrypt9, Luma3DS and GodMode..but I haven't seen any possible options to solve my issue in any of those programs..

Well, thanks for taking the time to read this long post, and hopefully you don't flame me too much for being a noob lol.
 

sora10pls

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If I recall correctly, the only thing you'd need to do is re-install the tickets for the titles you have installed.

All the data is still on your SD Card, it's just that your 9.2 NAND backup didn't have all the tickets, so it wiped them with what the NAND backup had.

I know tikShop is a thing, but I haven't used it much to know exactly how it works.
 

Thispi

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Thanks for the quick reply! So once I somehow get back to 11.3, I'll still need to restore the tickets, right?

Or is that just because I'm on 9.2 right now and it has tickets from a future System Software that it doesn't know how to handle.

How exactly are the tickets re-installed anyways? Is this a file somewhere on the SD card?
 

sora10pls

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Thanks for the quick reply! So once I somehow get back to 11.3, I'll still need to restore the tickets, right?

Or is that just because I'm on 9.2 right now and it has tickets from a future System Software that it doesn't know how to handle.

How exactly are the tickets re-installed anyways? Is this a file somewhere on the SD card?
You can update to 11.4 (latest firmware) just fine since you're running A9LH; the tickets should make the installed titles reappear. Basically, all the games are still installed to your SD Card, it's just because the tickets are gone (wiped when you restored the 9.2 backup), the titles are hidden until the tickets have been re-installed.

As far as I'm aware you can install them with FBI, they have the .tik extension.

If you know it, that titlekey site has tickets you can download.
 

Thispi

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Is there a way to update to just 11.3 as far as you know? Like I mentioned earlier, I do have the 11.3 update files ready to be used if possible.

I'm not sure why I'm so reluctant to be on 11.4, but I guess it's just because everything was working so perfectly on 11.3, and "if it ain't broke", you know the rest, lol.

So what you're saying is, though, even if I do update to 11.4, I still have to go through that process of re-injecting FBI into the health and safety thing to install it, then restore it, and go through all that other madness all over again?

..and do I have to grab a .tik file for each individual title I have and install it? or is it just some big central file I can use?

Sorry for all the questions, I just want this to go as smoothly as possible.
 

sora10pls

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Is there a way to update to just 11.3 as far as you know? Like I mentioned earlier, I do have the 11.3 update files ready to be used if possible.

I'm not sure why I'm so reluctant to be on 11.4, but I guess it's just because everything was working so perfectly on 11.3, and "if it ain't broke", you know the rest, lol.

So what you're saying is, though, even if I do update to 11.4, I still have to go through that process of re-injecting FBI into the health and safety thing to install it, then restore it, and go through all that other madness all over again?

..and do I have to grab a .tik file for each individual title I have and install it? or is it just some big central file I can use?

Sorry for all the questions, I just want this to go as smoothly as possible.
There is a way to go from 9.2 to 11.3 directly, but there's no reason not to go to 11.4. Everything that works on 11.3 works on 11.4 when you're running CFW.

Since it's a NAND backup from when it was stock, yes, you'll have to re-inject FBI into H&S.

Yes, though ticket files are extremely small.
 
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Quantumcat

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Is there a way to update to just 11.3 as far as you know? Like I mentioned earlier, I do have the 11.3 update files ready to be used if possible.

I'm not sure why I'm so reluctant to be on 11.4, but I guess it's just because everything was working so perfectly on 11.3, and "if it ain't broke", you know the rest, lol.

So what you're saying is, though, even if I do update to 11.4, I still have to go through that process of re-injecting FBI into the health and safety thing to install it, then restore it, and go through all that other madness all over again?

..and do I have to grab a .tik file for each individual title I have and install it? or is it just some big central file I can use?

Sorry for all the questions, I just want this to go as smoothly as possible.
You can use TikShop to mass install all tickets available on the titlekey database. If it's not there you'd have to reinstall the cia. And as ninja'd above, yes, if you didn't leave FBI in your H&S app then you'll have to inject it again.

There's no reason to be on 11.3 as opposed to 11.4. If you want to be on 11.2 you can use 3Down (basically 11.2 CTR transfer), but 11.3 would involve downloading the update files using 3DNUS and installing with sysupdater. You'd be unlikely to get any help, because everyone will just ask "why?" and when you don't have a good reason may not want to put in effort to help you work it out. So you'd have to work it out in your own.
 
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Thispi

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Ok, so bear with me, please, because I'm still pretty dense and confused here.

Let's say I update to 11.4 using the Official Nintendo Update Method (right?), I'll still (probably?) have to find an entry point to somehow get into Homebrew Launcher (?) after I find this "TikShop" program, and load it with that?

Then once I'm in that program, do I select everything I think I have on my SD card? or does it find it on its own just by pointing it to that "onesite"..

..and even if I somehow get past that hurdle, I'll still have to install all my homebrew, like thatcertaineshopapp, FBI, LumaUpdater, HBL, etc, right?

..and then, once these tickets get installed, do I still have to categorize and sort/folder-ize all this madness again? Like all my games, virtual console stuff, etc etc..

:wacko: this is becoming more and more of a nightmare by the second lol
 

sora10pls

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Ok, so bear with me, please, because I'm still pretty dense and confused here.

Let's say I update to 11.4 using the Official Nintendo Update Method (right?), I'll still (probably?) have to find an entry point to somehow get into Homebrew Launcher (?) after I find this "TikShop" program, and load it with that?

Then once I'm in that program, do I select everything I think I have on my SD card? or does it find it on its own just by pointing it to that "onesite"..

..and even if I somehow get past that hurdle, I'll still have to install all my homebrew, like thatcertaineshopapp, FBI, LumaUpdater, HBL, etc, right?

..and then, once these tickets get installed, do I still have to categorize and sort/folder-ize all this madness again? Like all my games, virtual console stuff, etc etc..

:wacko: this is becoming more and more of a nightmare by the second lol
Reinject H&S into FBI using Hourglass9, then install hblauncher_loader with FBI. Since you have an Old 3DS, you'll need the 11.2 otherapp payload to run HBL. Alternatively, install tikShop as a CIA (recommended).

Do as @Quantumcat said and mass install all tickets found in the database. Should one not be there, you'll need to reinstall the entire game in CIA format.

Yes, all of your Homebrew apps (unofficial titles, including custom VC) will have to be reinstalled, though they should be much easier and quicker compared to your games.

Edit: I'm not sure about that last one, though I would assume you will have to re-organize them all.
 
Last edited by sora10pls, , Reason: spelling is hard xd

Thispi

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Ok, cool, appreciate all the help fellas, I suppose I have my work cut out for me.

To avoid this happening again in the future, what exactly can I back up to prevent something like this? or does it not really matter if I update anymore.
 

Thispi

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The SD card was backed up recently before this, I didn't think to backup the NAND, because I just assumed it was simply the system software version on it, like PS3 or iOS or something, I didn't realize entire databases were tied to it

Also, should I just start fresh and follow the bootstrap guide? Am I to assume that's superior to A9LH?

I have all my .cia's backed up anyways, I guess the main thing I was clinging to was being on a known well-working firmware with zero issues, and the fact that I had hundreds of titles categorized, foldered, and alphabetized..but since all that's out the window, I might as well just start from scratch right?
 

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The SD card was backed up recently before this, I didn't think to backup the NAND, because I just assumed it was simply the system software version on it, like PS3 or iOS or something, I didn't realize entire databases were tied to it

Also, should I just start fresh and follow the bootstrap guide? Am I to assume that's superior to A9LH?

I have all my .cia's backed up anyways, I guess the main thing I was clinging to was being on a known well-working firmware with zero issues, and the fact that I had hundreds of titles categorized, foldered, and alphabetized..but since all that's out the window, I might as well just start from scratch right?
Follow the Updating to boot9strap guide, this will uninstall A9LH in favour of B9S. After doing so, follow the Finalizing Setup guide, then you should have everything set up again the way you want it. :)
 
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Thispi

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Well, I just want to thank everyone here to holding my hand through this.

I updated to 11.4, got boot9strap installed, along with all the homebrew .cia's I had before, and restored all my tickets, so all my titles are back on the home screen.

I do have to sort all this crap out again, which sucks, but oh well, at least I'm on the newest CFW, which does indeed seem superior to the A9LH set up I had before.

Now, does anyone know of a good way to mass rename DSiWare folders on the PC? It took me forever to back these up with Godmode9, and they all just have the title ID on them, but I want the Name on them as well without having to constantly copy/paste to/from "thattitlesite".
 
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