Hacking [WIP] KARL3DS - Kernel access on N3DS via Ninjhax + Loadcode

[Zidapi]

Here's the thing, it turns our that our emuNAND format is actually better than gateway's. They're mostly the same, but gateway reserves an entire 2GB for their emunand, whereas only 1.3GB needs to be reserved. That leaves then with 700MB of literally just zeroes. We'll be keeping our slightly-different format because of that. Porting emunands around will be possible, though. You only need to move your 512-byte first sector back a ways.

Cool, thanks for the quick response, that's all I needed to hear.

If you guys provide a tool to trim and push that 512-byte back upon release, I'll leave gateway behind and never look back!

Also, you spoke of perhaps back porting MSET? I hope this is an entirely optional choice for the end user.

I'd prefer the "inconvenience" of having to boot through CN each time if it meant I could continue to play DS games under your emuNAND setup.

I'm so excited about this project. The possibilities of what could be achieved with Arm11 kernel access homebrew are both vast and varied.

 

[2Hack]

Cool, thanks for the quick response, that's all I needed to hear.

If you guys provide a tool to trim and push that 512-byte back upon release, I'll leave gateway behind and never look back!

Also, you spoke of perhaps back porting MSET? I hope this is an entirely optional choice for the end user.

I'd prefer the "inconvenience" of having to boot through CN each time if it meant I could continue to play DS games under your emuNAND setup.

I'm so excited about this project. The possibilities of what could be achieved with Arm11 kernel access homebrew are both vast and varied.

Well,you have to install MSET firstly, for it to break DS games. So without it installed, you're free to not install it.

 

[WulfyStylez]

Honestly, I'm not even going to look into the MSET thing for a while anyways. There's many more fun things to be played around with at the moment.

 

[shinyquagsire23]

OK, so I've been playing around with my region changed N3DS, a few notes:

• eShop is fairly finicky to get working (if you can get it working at all). Trying to go into the eShop "fresh" will tell you that you moved from another region and it'll try to go through the motions to get you in, but fails if you have a host 3DS serial ID which was linked to an NNID at one point. I haven't checked if you can simply download an update from eShop without an ID though, but probably not.
• Online works, no surprises there
• Normal game carts work perfectly
• You need to install ALL US system apps to have it functioning 100% vanilla, I believe a few are mandatory but if you miss something, say, the Music App, it will be absent from your home menu. Not having all your apps up to spec can cause random crashes with certain games.

EDIT: Downloading updates fails as well because country differences. Also, system transfer fails because you need to go into the eShop successfully at least once, and the country difference + error is problematic with that.

 

[Kracken]

So would that mean that online would not work with games that require updates or would it be possible to install updates?

 

[gamesquest1]

you probably need to strip out all the old regions system titles after you swap regions....probably somthing you guys can do manually, but dev menu by default doesnt allow the removal of system titles

 

[shinyquagsire23]

So would that mean that online would not work with games that require updates or would it be possible to install updates?

You would need to use .cias, which would be kinda problematic because I don't believe dumped .cias are signed properly. Basically though, eShop is completely crippled for the time being. I do recall someone doing a manual system transfer at one point though, I might look into that and see if I can do likewise.

you probably need to strip out all the old regions system titles after you swap regions....probably somthing you guys can do manually, but dev menu by default doesnt allow the removal of system titles

You could probably also do it just by removing the directories in your emuNAND image, since you have to mount the FAT16 partition to swap regions anyhow.

 

[mmn]

OK, so I've been playing around with my region changed N3DS, a few notes:

• eShop is fairly finicky to get working (if you can get it working at all). Trying to go into the eShop "fresh" will tell you that you moved from another region and it'll try to go through the motions to get you in, but fails if you have a host 3DS serial ID which was linked to an NNID at one point. I haven't checked if you can simply download an update from eShop without an ID though, but probably not.
• Online works, no surprises there
• Normal game carts work perfectly
• You need to install ALL US system apps to have it functioning 100% vanilla, I believe a few are mandatory but if you miss something, say, the Music App, it will be absent from your home menu. Not having all your apps up to spec can cause random crashes with certain games.

EDIT: Downloading updates fails as well because country differences. Also, system transfer fails because you need to go into the eShop successfully at least once, and the country difference + error is problematic with that.

So on a fresh console that has never been linked with an nnid, changing to a different region using data from an already-nnid-linked 3ds should work?

 

[Lord Prime]

eShop is fairly finicky to get working (if you can get it working at all). Trying to go into the eShop "fresh" will tell you that you moved from another region and it'll try to go through the motions to get you in, but fails if you have a host 3DS serial ID which was linked to an NNID at one point.

Wow, I've never expected that they would have this in place already. (Referring to moving from another region with e-shop)

EDIT: Downloading updates fails as well because country differences.

That sucks.

 

[shinyquagsire23]

So on a fresh console that has never been linked with an nnid, changing to a different region using data from an already-nnid-linked 3ds should work?

No, you need a host 3DS which has never been linked to an NNID to extract the SecureInfo_A from, and transplant it into the N3DS. My console was fresh and it failed because the SecureInfo_A I grabbed was already NNID linked. I could probably get it completely unlinked if I called Nintendo though, idk.

 

[mmn]

No, you need a host 3DS which has never been linked to an NNID to extract the SecureInfo_A from, and transplant it into the N3DS. My console was fresh and it failed because the SecureInfo_A I grabbed was already NNID linked. I could probably get it completely unlinked if I called Nintendo though, idk.

Ah, I thought you meant the other way around, that the one you were transferring to was the host.

 

[gamesquest1]

You would need to use .cias, which would be kinda problematic because I don't believe dumped .cias are signed properly. Basically though, eShop is completely crippled for the time being. I do recall someone doing a manual system transfer at one point though, I might look into that and see if I can do likewise.



You could probably also do it just by removing the directories in your emuNAND image, since you have to mount the FAT16 partition to swap regions anyhow.

did you swap the title.db file from the donor console, as the tickets for the incorrect region system titles would still be installed......might be easier to just swap the whole fat16 partition with the donor console so everything is as it should be (but that would require a n3DS donor ctr partition most likely)

would likely solve the NNID issue too as that would be transferred too

 

[Kracken]

No, you need a host 3DS which has never been linked to an NNID to extract the SecureInfo_A from, and transplant it into the N3DS. My console was fresh and it failed because the SecureInfo_A I grabbed was already NNID linked. I could probably get it completely unlinked if I called Nintendo though, idk.

Is there an easy way to tell if a NNID has been linked? I honestly have never used one so I don't know. I bought my 3DS used so could they have linked a NNID before the sold it to me?

 

[boomie0123]

eShop is fairly finicky to get working (if you can get it working at all). Trying to go into the eShop "fresh" will tell you that you moved from another region and it'll try to go through the motions to get you in, but fails if you have a host 3DS serial ID which was linked to an NNID at one point. I haven't checked if you can simply download an update from eShop without an ID though, but probably not.

Is there any way to tell if the 3DS you have has ever been linked to a NNID? I bought my OG 3DS from a mom n pop shop, it came already wiped, but still have no idea if it ever was linked.

You need to install ALL US system apps to have it functioning 100% vanilla, I believe a few are mandatory but if you miss something, say, the Music App, it will be absent from your home menu. Not having all your apps up to spec can cause random crashes with certain games.

This seems pretty straight forward. I've a whole catalog of US cias per update in the past. I figured the only way to try it would be to go 100% one region or another.

Downloading updates fails as well because country differences. Also, system transfer fails because you need to go into the eShop successfully at least once, and the country difference + error is problematic with that.

So for example, this region changed to US N3DS won't be able to download an update because it was at one point a different region? Wouldn't that already be solved by swapping the SecureInfo_A files? Especially since the serial number is stored there, that one kinda has me clueless.
Great work on this! I know I speak for a lot of us with how grateful we are that you guys are doing something this great for the scene!

 

[shinyquagsire23]

did you swap the title.db file from the donor console, as the tickets for the incorrect region system titles would still be installed......might be easier to just swap the whole fat16 partition with the donor console so everything is as it should be (but that would require a n3DS donor ctr partition most likely)

would likely solve the NNID issue too as that would be transferred too

Yeah, I'm about to attempt to do something along those lines, I just can't find the person/guide of whoever managed to do it once. IIRC some files needed copying and some didn't. And also, N3DS cannot have some 3DS titles, because crashes and stuff, so that would have to be worked around.

 

[Slushie3DS]

I just thought about something. I thought the idea was to patch for region-free, not region-swapping?

 

[Hashtastrophe]

No, you need a host 3DS which has never been linked to an NNID to extract the SecureInfo_A from, and transplant it into the N3DS. My console was fresh and it failed because the SecureInfo_A I grabbed was already NNID linked. I could probably get it completely unlinked if I called Nintendo though, idk.

You can, tell them you need it unlinked because you left it at a relative's house cross country but don't plan on using it again because you were going to buy an N3DS anyway. As long as you don't mention it being stolen or lost, it's fine. Because they might blacklist the SN from online services/eshop if you do. It works because I called in to NoA support on behalf of my cousin last week. (He left his 3DS here lol. Too bad it's a plain blue XL and the battery lasts all of an hour at best.)

 

[gamesquest1]

Yeah, I'm about to attempt to do something along those lines, I just can't find the person/guide of whoever managed to do it once. IIRC some files needed copying and some didn't. And also, N3DS cannot have some 3DS titles, because crashes and stuff, so that would have to be worked around.

well if you had 2 different region n3DS consoles you should be able to just swap the fat16 partition after installing the correct native firm etc and it should be good to go afaik, if the donor was a standard 3ds you would have troubles as it would be all old3ds titles etc in the ticket.db etc

so easiest method would be a region swap between 2 n3ds consoles, gets more complicated working with a old3ds donor

I just thought about something. I thought the idea was to patch for region-free, not region-swapping?

yeah i presume region free is already done, but region swapping is a bonus feature....which would allow people to make US standard n3DS consoles....or access eshop etc for other regions, handy if people rushed to import a japanese n3DS, plus region free isnt perfect some games require text imput and the missing keyboard options can cause issues....region free is good for 99% of games, but a full region swap should have 100% compatibility

 

[Wowfunhappy]

What if the 3DS was linked with a NNID, but was since removed via a system transfer? I'm assuming you wouldn't know for sure, but in theory, do you think it would work?

 

[Hashtastrophe]

What if the 3DS was linked with a NNID, but was since removed via a system transfer? I'm assuming you wouldn't know for sure, but in theory, do you think it would work?

It should. afaik it's the same as having Ninty manually move it over to a new system but faster (7 day wait times woooooo so fun)