Homebrew Can One Backup an Imported Seed?

[Ryccardo]

Did you manage find a list of which titles (9.6.0+) require a seed?

All 9.6+ (official digital releases of) games use seed encryption, to the best of my knowledge

The problem with this method is that the .bin files are now unavailable due to the title key site being down (permanently?).

One source disappearing is different from every copy (of one of the most downloaded 3DS-related files) disappearing!

Nintendo just started applying the changes to its servers, and that title keys site is down... right after I learnt how to download seeds. What a lucky timing!

Seeds are not covered by the new ticket-login system... (not saying it's a bad idea to mantain your own independent source of, absolutely!)

 

[starburst]

Did you manage find a list of which titles (9.6.0+) require a seed? Or did you simply hit the CDN with every single titleId via trial-and-error?

Since firmware 9.6 was published in early 2015, I guess that seed encryption has been used on games published since mid 2015 onwards.
However, since I got my first 3DS console last year, I do not really know when most of the games that I play were released. Thus, I simply tried to download the seeds of all my games. It is not that I have hundreds anyway.

It also helped that I store CIAngel-created CIAs on a different directory than CIAs obtained from other sources. So, I knew which titles had been downloaded directly from the Nintendo servers and might thus need a seed.

I have been creating CIAs of games, DLC's and udpates with CIAngel since the very beginning (this thread was created when I had just got my first console.) I was only missing the seeds.

 

[TurdPooCharger]

The problem with this method is that the .bin files are now unavailable due to the title key site being down (permanently?).

• https://github.com/ihaveamac/3DS-rom-tools/wiki/SeedDB-list

 

[Snap00]

Hi there !

Very interesting thread. What about to remove some imported seeds (titleID.dat files) ? Where this data get stored ? FBI has no delete function for this.

When removing a title.cia with FBI (delete title & ticket) the associated seed data will not be removed. I‘ve tested this by reinstalling the title.cia, and it works whitout to reinstall the seed (titleID.dat file), so that means, the seed data where remaining in the system from the previous installation.

@starburst Are you sure, the seed data were deleted after formatting the 3DS ? If so, i would format my system to clean it up, but that‘s not a confortable solution.

Anyway, it would be nice to know, where this seed data get store, so that we can delete them manually, to do a clean remove of titles, which we no longer need on our devices.

What about some new functions in FBI to handle this ? Something like the options for Secure Value (import, export, delete) would be very nice. ;-)

Best regards, Snap.

 

[Snap00]

Hello together

I’ve found the following possibility, to reset the seed data to default :

https://gbatemp.net/threads/restore-seed-database-as-default.504183/

It‘s a less elaborate solution, than formatting the whole system.

All the seed data get stored in the following file in the ctrnand :

1:/data/[console-uniqueID]/sysdata/0001000f/00000000

After deleting the seed datafile, it will be recreated on the next reboot. In this way, although all seed data get lost, but it’s a possibility to clean the system from them.

So, i‘ve deleted all my no longer wanted titles & tickets with FBI, deleted the seed data file with Godmode9 and reimported all further needed seeds with FBI after reboot.

I‘m sure, some advanced users can also edit the seed data file to remove individual seeds. Here are some informations about this :

https://gbatemp.net/threads/xorpad-generation-on-9-2.380432/page-6#post-5561070

Of corse, the simplest possibility would be still an explicit tool or a function in FBI. Maybe someone hear us. Steveice10, what about a xmas present for us ? ;-)

Best wishes, Snap.

 

[1alien1]

i have a question about the whole seed thing. i only got back to my 3ds after some time and i realised the changes and freeshop not working and all that. i think i understand what was happening. what i dont understand is the following: you only need the seeds from cias you downloaded from freeshop or ciangel directly from nintendo servers? i recently installed two cia files from current games, and i did not have to install any seeds or anything and they just work. installed with fbi but never did anything seed stuff. what dont i understand? all the old games work too still..

 

[pixelmasher]

i have a question about the whole seed thing. i only got back to my 3ds after some time and i realised the changes and freeshop not working and all that. i think i understand what was happening. what i dont understand is the following: you only need the seeds from cias you downloaded from freeshop or ciangel directly from nintendo servers? i recently installed two cia files from current games, and i did not have to install any seeds or anything and they just work. installed with fbi but never did anything seed stuff. what dont i understand? all the old games work too still..

FBI will retrieve the seed online when it's installing CIAs that need it if it has an Internet connection. The seed is needed to decrypt the games downloaded/installed from the eShop. freeShop and CIAngel retrieve the seed for you when they install the game. If you made a backup of these games using something like GodMode9, you would need the seed if you install it on a system that never installed the game. You can get around this by decrypting the game with GodMode9 or on a PC, etc. That's why you'll see games that are decrypted online. I think that's also needed for Citra, but since I don't use it, I'm not 100% sure. The seed was introduce in firmware 9.6 if I'm not mistaken.

If you had Internet connection when you installed those games, FBI would have retrieved the seed for you without any input from you. It could also have been a cartridge dump which don't need the seed or someone might have decrypted the CIA already.

Once you got the seed, it's there unless you delete it.

 

[1alien1]

FBI will retrieve the seed online when it's installing CIAs that need it if it has an Internet connection. The seed is needed to decrypt the games downloaded/installed from the eShop. freeShop and CIAngel retrieve the seed for you when they install the game. If you made a backup of these games using something like GodMode9, you would need the seed if you install it on a system that never installed the game. You can get around this by decrypting the game with GodMode9 or on a PC, etc. That's why you'll see games that are decrypted online. I think that's also needed for Citra, but since I don't use it, I'm not 100% sure. The seed was introduce in firmware 9.6 if I'm not mistaken.

If you had Internet connection when you installed those games, FBI would have retrieved the seed for you without any input from you. It could also have been a cartridge dump which don't need the seed or someone might have decrypted the CIA already.

Once you got the seed, it's there unless you delete it.

thx for the information. i wasnt online but maybe it was a cardridge dump then. so also old rips from years ago would need seeds now when they were eshop dumps? or are the seeds implemented for them somehow back in the day?

 

[starburst]

thx for the information. i wasnt online but maybe it was a cardridge dump then. so also old rips from years ago would need seeds now when they were eshop dumps? or are the seeds implemented for them somehow back in the day?

As of today, the seeds are still available for download from the Nintendo servers.
Since the vast majority of my 3DS games were downloaded directly through CIAngel, I got seeds for all of them and can now install my whole collection completely offline, which was my original goal back when I created this topic.

Lately I have seen downloads including CIA and its seed, and I try to get these, specially if were created with CIAngel. But the most common are the CIA's that do not require seeds.

 

[pixelmasher]

thx for the information. i wasnt online but maybe it was a cardridge dump then. so also old rips from years ago would need seeds now when they were eshop dumps? or are the seeds implemented for them somehow back in the day?

As I said earlier, the seed was implemented in firmware 9.6. If games predates that, it should be ok. If it's after 9.6, then you'll need the seed if it's an encrypted eShop dump. I'm not sure if Nintendo implemented the seeds for games released prior to 9.6. If they did, you'll need the seed for those games if you downloaded them after the change took effect.

You can also download the seed directly from a browser. I'm not sure if we're allowed to direct link to the seed. You can find the format for the URL by Googling.