Hacking EXTDATA and System Update erasing

[josiascaignard]

I've made TL-DR (too long didn't read) for every paragraph so if you are in a rush(or just don't feel like reading from a newb), you don't have to endure all my foolery.​

Hi tempers, I recently was foolish enought to let my 3DS in sleep mode with the WiFi on, so naturally she downloaded the damn update via spotpass, I'm waiting for Smealum to release his exploit since I'm on 7.2 and I missed gateway because I updated from 4.5 and then I found out gateway would only work on 4.5 or less.

So my fear was that I accedentally and mindlessly pressed A throughout the process of updating the console in some kind of rush to play a game, maybe when I'm sleepy or something (it happened once to me) thus I started searching for a way to get rid of the damn update, and I think I found one way, I'm still testing it so I'm not 100% sure this will work for everyone.

TL-DR Im a fool, I let my 3DS to download an update and I'm scared.​

So I started searching for a way to delete it, as I mentioned above, and something with the EXTDATA folder, so I went on and backed up my SD card and started the process.

First thing I did was to eject the SD card from the 3DS and boot it up, and it didn't ask me to update. I put on the SD and booted up, she ask me to update her. This was ovious, the update data was on the SD card, or at least some data that told my 3DS that there's an update.

Next thing I did was to search for the folder EXTDATA, and found that this folder actually has the extra data of all my eShop titles, I have like 60 something so there were lots of folders. I also found this in 3DBrew:

00000082 0000008f 00000098 Home Menu extdata, this contains home-menu savedata and cached icons for applications.
00000200 00000210 00000220 System Settings extdata added with 2.0.0-2.

So I figured that if I deleted the content of these two folders, something would happen (again, my SD was backed up whole so this wasn't a risk) and proceeded to do it. First the 3DS shpwed me a message that it is buidling the filesystem of the 3DS (or something like that), to my surprise when she finished all of my eShop games icons showed like presents, like when you first download them, and no update at all. I don't know if the update itself was saved in the SD, maybe one of those folders contained a file that tells the 3DS that there is an update downloaded and that it needs to be intalled.

Also it is important to note that although the games showed like presents, they worked normally, and no savefile was lost.

TL-DR I´ve erased the folders 0000008f and 00000210 from the EXTDATA folder in my SD card (its ubication varies between consoles so just search for it in the Nintendo 3DS folder in the root) and the update message dissapeared, all my games were wrapped like presents and were functional as before. I didn't noticed anything apart from the 3DS creating the extra data again.​

​

I'm now doing an experiment, I will let MY 3DS in sleepmode connected to the internet and wait for it to download the update, but this time it has an empty SD, I've put the SD in the 3DS and when I read it in my PC the only folder it has is the 0000008f and its files, it has to be because it builded the extra data for the menu, so if the update prompt appears again, and a new folder appears in the SD, that folder has to be where the update files are, if it doesn't apppear a new folder, and I erase the 0000008f folder and again the update prompt dissapears, forever, this means 1) that the files are actually saved here, or 2) in this folder lies a file that tells the 3DS that there is a update downloaded.

TL-DR I'm making a new experiment, with a new SD card reciently formatted and let the 3DS downlaod the update, to see if it makes a new folder and have some conclusions.​

Well if you made it this far, thanks! and hope this is helpful to someone, and sorry if this was already posted, but I coudln't find it, so decided to make this post to help those people with the same predicament as me. Any feedback will be helpful.

Sorry if my English is bad or inconsistent, it is not my native language.

 

[josiascaignard]

I claim this reply to use it in the future!

 

[Apache Thunder]

System updates are stored on the internal NAND. I'm pretty sure this has been documented many times. You be wasting your time.

You want a quick no nonsense check to see if this true? Let it download in sleep mode. Shut it down. Remove SD card then power it up and use it with the SD card removed. I'm pretty sure you'd still get the update prompt.

Better yet, power on the 3DS without the SD card inserted and put it in sleep mode. If the update prompt comes up. Poof, proof that it stores that on the internal NAND. By the way system formats don't erase the SD card. Because if it did, a system format I did awhile back to fix a failed update attempt should have removed photos and such that I had on the SD card.

 

[josiascaignard]

Actually that's what I'm doing pal, read the TL-DR, no offense . I coudn't fin a thead that talked especifically about EXTDATA folder here in GBAtemp.

 

[cracker]

Others have come to the conclusion that it IS stored in NAND (or at least the trigger to spawn the update nag). If you have a good 4.5 dump saved then you could always restore it with the NAND JTAG mod.

 

[josiascaignard]

Yeah I've seen that, but now that the 3DS downloaded the update, when I removed the SD the update was gone, so I wan't now to check if I can replicate this, because this could be just a coincidence.

 

[Ryft]

Also, it only asks you once every 24 hours to update. You have to wait a day to see if it works properly.

 

[josiascaignard]

Mine prompted me to update every time I powered on, it was annoying.

 

[Adr990]

Nice, I'll try to remove the said files from my SD Card, see if that removes the update nag with this method.

Edit:
It seems to disable the update nag if you do this:
http://gbatemp.net/threads/tutorial-blocking-online-updates-and-the-install-update-nag-easy.369798/

But only as long as the proxy server is running.
As soon as the 3DS cannot connect to the internet in that fashion anymore, it will just read it's internal downloaded (old) update, instead of keep trying to look for the latest version, before giving the nag.

Edit:
On my EU 3DS I cannot find the 00000220 folder.
I can how ever find the 00000098 folder, just removing that folder didn't remove the nag. It is probably stored on the NAND, but with one 1GB of memory, Nintendo should be offloading most of the stuff to the SD if possible, right? (Probably wishful thinking, haha)

 

[Reecey]

Yeah I've seen that, but now that the 3DS downloaded the update, when I removed the SD the update was gone, so I wan't now to check if I can replicate this, because this could be just a coincidence.

Just a quick question, you say it updated with the wifi switch on via spotpass with it left open in sleep mode so did you leave all your wifi connections present in your system settings? cause if not I doubt very much it would automatically update via spotpass in sleep mode without them, which I would of thought you should of none that to begin with!. I leave mine on open all the time and as long as I don't have the wifi connections on system settings present and do not have auto downloads enabled it has never updated or even quoted to update via system settings, ever!!!. I find your feel sorry for me story a little hard to believe!, sorry. My opinion I think you just fuck** up and updated, please be honest with us and cut the bull

 

[Nurio]

Just a quick question, you say it updated with the wifi switch on via spotpass with it left open in sleep mode so did you leave all your wifi connections present in your system settings? cause if not I doubt very much it would automatically update via spotpass in sleep mode without them, which I would of thought you should of none that to begin with!. I leave mine on open all the time and as long as I don't have the wifi connections on system settings present and do not have auto downloads enabled it has never updated or even quoted to update via system settings, ever!!!. I find your feel sorry for me story a little hard to believe!, sorry. My opinion I think you just fuck** up and updated, please be honest with us and cut the bull

I think you misunderstood him.
...Speaking of which, your post was kind of hard to understand...

 

[Ryft]

Mine prompted me to update every time I powered on, it was annoying.

Ahh does it? I guess I don't turn mine off enough haha. Good to know. I also have a dang update nag so hoping you figure something out. Thanks in advance!

 

[Reecey]

I think you misunderstood him.
...Speaking of which, your post was kind of hard to understand...

Its not that hard to understand, if you read it thorough then it makes perfect sense, if he had wifi connection settings present in his system settings it probably would update with the 3DS in sleep mode but if not I doubt very much it would of updated just by the 3DS being open with spotpass, I just would of thought he should of known that in the first place instead of trying to explain a solution for the 3DS not to update! Its quite simple to understand!

 

[Nurio]

Its not that hard to understand, if you read it thorough then it makes perfect sense, if he had wifi connection settings present in his system settings it probably would update with the 3DS in sleep mode but if not I doubt very much it would of updated just by the 3DS being open with spotpass, I just would of thought he should of known that in the first place instead of trying to explain a solution for the 3DS not to update! Its quite simple to understand!

I still don't know what you're trying to dispute. josiascaignard is trying to find a way to delete the update data so you don't get the update nag, if you've been cursed with it accidentally.
And since you insist your post is "quite simple to understand", let me quote the things I trip over.

did you leave all your wifi connections present in your system settings?

What's the point of this question? Of course he 'left open' (terrible wording) the wifi connection in order to download the update so he can go experiment.

cause if not I doubt very much it would automatically update via spotpass

First you put words in josiascaignard's mouth and then you try to dispute those words. That's just wrong.

you should of none that

"Should of none"? After some puzzling, I guess you mean "should've done"... But should've done what exactly? Remove the Wifi connection from his settings? You really are missing josiascaignard's point, aren't you?

I leave mine on open all the time and as long as I don't have the wifi connections on system settings present and do not have auto downloads enabled it has never updated or even quoted to update via system settings, ever!!!

Congratulations. You managed to tell something pretty much everyone knows. Again, this thread isn't about such lessons.

I find your feel sorry for me story a little hard to believe!

What does this even mean? "I find your feel sorry"?

My opinion I think you just fuck** up and updated

That's not an opinion.

please be honest with us and cut the bull

josiascaignard is being completely honest, and there is no "bull". Did you even read his post(s) at all?

I still think you're misunderstanding josiascaignard
I hate to say this, but since you say it's easy to understand, I feel the need to comment on it. Your grammar and spelling leave much to be desired, and I wonder how you got through school if this is the extent of your capabilities in your mother tongue (if it is indeed your mother tongue?)

 

[Reecey]

I still don't know what you're trying to dispute. josiascaignard is trying to find a way to delete the update data so you don't get the update nag, if you've been cursed with it accidentally.
And since you insist your post is "quite simple to understand", let me quote the things I trip over.


What's the point of this question? Of course he 'left open' (terrible wording) the wifi connection in order to download the update so he can go experiment.


First you put words in josiascaignard's mouth and then you try to dispute those words. That's just wrong.


"Should of none"? After some puzzling, I guess you mean "should've done"... But should've done what exactly? Remove the Wifi connection from his settings? You really are missing josiascaignard's point, aren't you?


Congratulations. You managed to tell something pretty much everyone knows. Again, this thread isn't about such lessons.


What does this even mean? "I find your feel sorry"?


That's not an opinion.


josiascaignard is being completely honest, and there is no "bull". Did you even read his post(s) at all?

I still think you're misunderstanding josiascaignard
I hate to say this, but since you say it's easy to understand, I feel the need to comment on it. Your grammar and spelling leave much to be desired, and I wonder how you got through school if this is the extent of your capabilities in your mother tongue (if it is indeed your mother tongue?)

If you read what he has put mouthy instead of jumping the gun you will understand what I meant, read slowly and absorb what he has wrote:-

Hi tempers, I recently was foolish enought to let my 3DS in sleep mode with the WiFi on (he means the switch on the side of the 3DS to activate wifi, not the wifi connections in system settings!), so naturally she downloaded the damn update via spotpass, I'm waiting for Smealum to release his exploit since I'm on 7.2 and I missed gateway because I updated from 4.5 and then I found out gateway would only work on 4.5 or less.

He is trying to explain a method of stopping your 3DS from updating because his did via spotpass with it left open with the wifi switch on, now think about it?... this method is not necessary at all and is a waste of time, if you just erase your wifi connection settings from system settings and then disable all options in spotpass then his theory is not irrelevant!. It was his fault to begin with, which I reckon he just updated accidentally and not the bull crap about it being left open and updating via spotpass, it would not even happen!. Just a question to you, have you even got a 3DS and a Gateway card so you know what you are on about because I don't think you do???, if so why are you questioning what I am saying it makes perfect sense unless of course you don't know and don't own a 3DS on 4.5.0 with a GW card!.

Or is his comment misleading, is he trying to explain he has never had a Gateway card and then he found out you could not use one over firmware 4.5.0 whne it had updated?. I'm not sure its confusing because if he realized it had updated via spotpass to 7.2 then why did he mention it in the first place?. He must of known before that a 3DS over 4.5.0 would not work with flashcards.

 

[Nurio]

If you read what he has put mouthy instead of jumping the gun you will understand what I meant, read slowly and absorb what he has wrote:-

Hi tempers, I recently was foolish enought to let my 3DS in sleep mode with the WiFi (he means the switch on the side not the wifi connections in system settings!) on, so naturally she downloaded the damn update via spotpass, I'm waiting for Smealum to release his exploit since I'm on 7.2 and I missed gateway because I updated from 4.5 and then I found out gateway would only work on 4.5 or less.

He is trying to explain a method of stopping your 3DS from updating because his did via spotpass with it left open, now think about it?... this method is not necessary at all and is a waste of time, if you just erase your wifi connection settings from system settings and then disable all options in spotpass then his theory is not irrelevant!. It was his fault to begin with, which I reckon he just updated accidentally and not the bull crap about it being left open and updating via spotpass. Just a question to you, have you even got a 3DS and a Gateway card???, if so why are you questioning what I am saying it makes perfect sense unless of course you don't know and don't own a 3DS on 4.5.0 with a GW card!.

I keep repeating you are missing his point.
He is trying to find out a way to delete the downloaded update so that if you accidentally downloaded it (happens more often than you think), you can delete it, so you won't have to deal with the constant update nag.
I'll reiterate. He accidentally downloaded the update by leaving the 3DS on in sleep mode, but he hasn't applied it yet. He doesn't want to update to 8.1 because he wants to stay on 7.2 for Smealum's exploit. So now he is trying to experiment and find a way to delete the downloaded update.
At no point in time did josiascaignard indicate the accidental download of the update isn't his fault.

You have to consider the difference between accidentally downloading the update while your 3DS is connected to the internet, and actually applying an update.
At some point in the past, josiascaignard had a 4.5 3DS and updated to 7.2 purposely, but unknowing that he'd lose Gateway compatibility. Nobody is denying this, yet you insist that josiascaignard has to "cut the bull", even though he isn't lying or anything.
Then recently, @josiacaignard accidentally downloaded (but didn't apply) the update for 8.1 -- He doesn't want to update so he is looking for a way to delete the update without resetting.

Now that I explained it as clearly as I can, I hope there will be some more clarity between us.

 

[Reecey]

I keep repeating you are missing his point.
He is trying to find out a way to delete the downloaded update so that if you accidentally downloaded it (happens more often than you think), you can delete it, so you won't have to deal with the constant update nag.
I'll reiterate. He accidentally downloaded the update by leaving the 3DS on in sleep mode, but he hasn't applied it yet. He doesn't want to update to 8.1 because he wants to stay on 7.2 for Smealum's exploit. So now he is trying to experiment and find a way to delete the downloaded update.
At no point in time did josiascaignard indicate the accidental download of the update isn't his fault.

You have to consider the difference between accidentally downloading the update while your 3DS is connected to the internet, and actually applying an update.
At some point in the past, josiascaignard had a 4.5 3DS and updated to 7.2 purposely, but unknowing that he'd lose Gateway compatibility. Nobody is denying this, yet you insist that josiascaignard has to "cut the bull", even though he isn't lying or anything.
Then recently, @josiacaignard accidentally downloaded (but didn't apply) the update for 8.1 -- He doesn't want to update so he is looking for a way to delete the update without resetting.

Now that I explained it as clearly as I can, I hope there will be some more clarity between us.

Then again I have just thought of this, is he saying he has never had a 3DS with a Gateway card:-

Or is his comment misleading, is he trying to explain he has never had a Gateway card and then he found out you could not use one over firmware 4.5.0 when it had updated?. I'm not sure its confusing because if he realized it had updated via spotpass to 7.2 then why did he mention it in the first place?. He must of known before that a 3DS over 4.5.0 would not work with flashcards. He has been an active member here since 2011 so you telling me he never knew??? Anyway i give up, peace!

 

[Nurio]

Then again I have just thought of this, is he saying he has never had a 3DS with a Gateway card:-

Or is his comment misleading, is he trying to explain he has never had a Gateway card and then he found out you could not use one over firmware 4.5.0 when it had updated?. I'm not sure its confusing because if he realized it had updated via spotpass to 7.2 then why did he mention it in the first place?. He must of known before that a 3DS over 4.5.0 would not work with flashcards. He has been an active member here since 2011 so you telling me he never knew???

It's an anecdote... It's just a lead-in. A personal story to explain his motivations for the experiment.
I don't even know why you're hammering on this so much to begin with. Why does it matter to you what his motivations and his actions up to this point are? What matters is the experiment he's conducting now, and that is what you are supposed to discuss, just like what everyone else is doing.

 

[Reecey]

It's an anecdote... It's just a lead-in. A personal story to explain his motivations for the experiment.
I don't even know why you're hammering on this so much to begin with. Why does it matter to you what his motivations and his actions up to this point are? What matters is the experiment he's conducting now, and that is what you are supposed to discuss, just like what everyone else is doing.

No m8 it don't matter at all. I was just getting carried away, its cool, don't worry about it I'm just having a bad time at the moment and feeling argumentative

 

[josiascaignard]

Then again I have just thought of this, is he saying he has never had a 3DS with a Gateway card:-

Or is his comment misleading, is he trying to explain he has never had a Gateway card and then he found out you could not use one over firmware 4.5.0 when it had updated?. I'm not sure its confusing because if he realized it had updated via spotpass to 7.2 then why did he mention it in the first place?. He must of known before that a 3DS over 4.5.0 would not work with flashcards. He has been an active member here since 2011 so you telling me he never knew??? Anyway i give up, peace!

well well, I'm here, let me tell you the whole story, when I knew that gateway actually existed (the day it was posted the review here n GBATemp) I had already updated my console to 5.something so the only thing I could do was to hope that gateway team find a new exploit for 5+. So yeah I lost faith in having homebrew in my console, untill smealum found an exploit that was able to work in 7.2, so I updated to 7.2 (to be able to use the latest update when the hack comes out, before nintendo pushes a new one).

I'm aware of what you were trying to say in your first post. I didn't had my home wifi connection registered in my 3DS so it cannot update via spotpass, but when I stood in the house of a friend of mine (all night), I forgot to delete the wifi configuration of his house (stupid error, but anyway). Now that I'm doing this experiment I decided to enable wifi, and register My wifi connection again to ensure that the 3DS can download the update and verify that what I did and accomplish, was not just a coincidence, actually I'm also experimenting with a 3DS XL of a friend right now.

Adr990

sorry if I didn't mentioned it, but I have a US 3DS, the EU folder is actually named like you said, if it didn't work with your 3DS it means that my method doesn't work then. But little question here, when you delete the contents of 00000098, does all your eshop items turn into presents? thats what happens to me when I do that, and the 3DS haven't yet prompted me to update. and I also think that nintendo is storing some things on the SD, after all I didn't recieve the message for update when I booted without the card.