Tutorial Guide: Recover from Frankenfirmware w/o upgrading to 10.3 or higher

[Xoo00o0o0o]

Hi there,

This guide has been edited to follow GBATemps rules on copyrighted material, this is an editted version of my post on that iso site. I also hope that this helps any community member that is looking to fix Frankenfirmware.

I did some testing on a theory after I had after the downgrade on several N3DS' crash with the "Error Has Occurred" screen. It is possible to finish the downgrade without upgrading back to 10.3 provided you have access to oothax. In theory this should work for Cubic Ninja/Ninjhax but I did not own it to test with. I tested this on 3 3DS's. I still would recommend that you have a hard mod anyway if you desire to test this yourself. I am also not responsible if your 3DS bricks after following this guide. The only thing I will assume in this guide that you know how the homebrew launcher works and where to copy the files seeing as you've attempted to downgrade at least once.
Requirements:

Another 3DS with Homebrew access
OoT3D
Homebrew Starter Pack (if you don't already have this)
MiniPasta
Sysupdater CIA w/o memchunkhax2
FBI .3dsx
The 9.2 CIAs for your model and region of 3DS (You'll need to find this on your own if you don't already have it)
Paitence

Step 1: Installing oothax with another 3DS

A. Launch the homebrew browser on the secondary 3DS and navigate to oothaxs installer.
B. Go through the prompts until it asks what type of 3DS. When prompted, select your 3DS model, 9.2.0, the browser from your previous firmware (so 24 for 9.6.0-24), and then your region of 3DS.
C. If it succesfully installs, you can move onto step 2. If not, you need to wipe the saves from your OoT copy by launching the game while holding a,b,x, and y. Then start over from part A of step 1.

Step 2: Launching minipasta and installing CIAs

A. Launch oothax on the 3DS with Frankenfirmware and navigate to minipasta and launch it. Minipasta may take a few times to actually patch signatures and reboot, if it freezes, shutdown your 3ds and try again.
B. Once minipasta has sucessfully softrebooted back to the home menu, launch oothax yet again.
C. Navigate to FBI and launch it. Use it to install sysupdater.cia
D. Once that is done, reboot the 3ds and move on to step 3.

Step 3: Launching minipasta again and running sysupdater

A. Launch oothax again and launch minipasta.
B. Sysupdater should be on your home menu, launch it.
C. Press Y to downgrade. It should only install a few titles and then reboot the 3DS.
D. Congrats, your 3DS will have a downgrade that will allow CFW access! You can check using Downgrade Check, there should be 1 title listed as an extra and 4 listed as mismatched versions. This is launched with the homebrew launcher.

Spoiler: This what Downgrade Check should look like for US consoles

Spoiler: This is a video showing that my N3DS can indeed boot to Reinand after setting it up

I want to thank several people, they are listed below.

Smea for providing the homebrew launcher
svanhuulen for providing Downgrade Check
Derrick for introducing the idea of Memchunkhax2
Steveice10 for producing a working build of Memchunkhax2 and FBI
Zoogie for posting minipasta
profi200 for sysupdater
That iso site for the post with the proper CIAs for downgrading
Nintendo for leaving vulns in OoT

And finally, my best friends Jesse and Josh for letting they're N3DS' be my test subjects


EDIT: Edited to reflect downgrade check findings. Added Video launching CFW and Downgrade check photos as well.

 

[SMVB64]

Excellent guide! This will help a lot of people who get an "Frankenfirmware".
I had that happened to me a few weeks ago.. not fun lol

 

[Nikolay]

Where were you a week ago man. lol. I had franken firmware on my N3DS, didn't know you could install oothax with another 3DS, so I just recovered to 10.5 assuming I was all out of options (tried updating to 9.8 with Happy Home Designer but no luck).

 

[Xoo00o0o0o]

Where were you a week ago man. lol. I had franken firmware on my N3DS, didn't know you could install oothax with another 3DS, so I just recovered to 10.5 assuming I was all out of options (tried updating to 9.8 with Happy Home Designer but no luck).

I really wish I would have discovered this a little earlier. I posted as soon as I thoroughly tested it (the 3 N3DS'). I'm sorry about your 3DS.

In all honesty though, this "should" be significantly safer than the initial downgrade process, so it is definitely possible to do this without a hardmod. I still recommend having the hardmod though.

 

[funnystory]

I did this and I ended up going from 9.2 to 9.5 for some odd reason. No idea how it happened,used the downgrade checked and realized I was on franken firmware,tried to correct it and now I am in an even worse spot lol.

Edit:By miracle sysupdater let me downgrade back to 9.2 lets try this again lol.

Edit 2:So I accidently updated to 9.5 downgraded back to 9.2,followed your tutorial again and downgrade check still tells me I am missing titles. I used the 9.2 pack on the iso site.

 

[Xoo00o0o0o]

I did this and I ended up going from 9.2 to 9.5 for some odd reason. No idea how it happened,used the downgrade checked and realized I was on franken firmware,tried to correct it and now I am in an even worse spot lol.

Edit:By miracle sysupdater let me downgrade back to 9.2 lets try this again lol.

Edit 2:So I accidently updated to 9.5 downgraded back to 9.2,followed your tutorial again and downgrade check still tells me I am missing titles. I used the 9.2 pack on the iso site.

Hmmm. I would redownload the cias from the iso site and reattempt the downgrade. Is the settings app able to be opened?

EDIT: I see what is happening. I may have been wrong about this being a fully clean downgrade. On my personal N3DS with which I did this same method (except the downgrade check apparently) I have a total of 5 titles that Downgrade Check prompts about. 1 is listed as an extra title and the other 4 are listed as mismactched titles that I imagine are from 9.6U which is what my 3DS came with. I can guarentee that this tutorial will allow for proper kernal access needed to boot CFW. I will update the guide to reflect this. I am deeply sorry for any confusion/hair pulling that was caused by this.

 

[funnystory]

Hmmm. I would redownload the cias from the iso site and reattempt the downgrade. Is the settings app able to be opened?

EDIT: I see what is happening. I may have been wrong about this being a fully clean downgrade. On my personal N3DS with which I did this same method (except the downgrade check apparently) I have a total of 5 titles that Downgrade Check prompts about. 1 is listed as an extra title and the other 4 are listed as mismactched titles that I imagine are from 9.6U which is what my 3DS came with. I can guarentee that this tutorial will allow for proper kernal access needed to boot CFW. I will update the guide to reflect this. I am deeply sorry for any confusion/hair pulling that was caused by this.

Don't worry about it I appreciate you helping out the community. I went from 9.2 to 9.5 back to 9.2 and it still shows In downgrade check that I have title mismatches,I can however launch reinand as I was always able to. Basically I am right back where I started so CFW works but I have no idea if I have a clean install. Is there anyway to pass the downgrade check,I downgraded from 10.3 so while I can access CFW perfectly fine,I am still a little bit OCD about passing the downgrade checks.

 

[Xoo00o0o0o]

Don't worry about it I appreciate you helping out the community. I went from 9.2 to 9.5 back to 9.2 and it still shows In downgrade check that I have title mismatches,I can however launch reinand as I was always able to. Basically I am right back where I started so CFW works but I have no idea if I have a clean install. Is there anyway to pass the downgrade check,I downgraded from 10.3 so while I can access CFW perfectly fine,I am still a little bit OCD about passing the downgrade checks.

I thank you for being the first person outside myself to test it! The only way to be able to gain a "perfect downgrade" would be to reference the TitleIDs listed in Downgrade Check, grab the signed CIAs of those titles and install them using Sysupdater. Unfortunately because Nintendo no longer hosts the files for anything less than their current firmwares, I do not believe a "perfect downgrade" will ever be possible.

I will be updating the guide momentarily once I copy photos and and a video over to my desktop.

 

[funnystory]

I thank you for being the first person outside myself to test it! The only way to be able to gain a "perfect downgrade" would be to reference the TitleIDs listed in Downgrade Check, grab the signed CIAs of those titles and install them using Sysupdater. Unfortunately because Nintendo no longer hosts the files for anything less than their current firmwares, I do not believe a "perfect downgrade" will ever be possible.

I will be updating the guide momentarily once I copy photos and and a video over to my desktop.

Why would those files be missing from the downgrade pack from the iso site though? So essentially everyone who downgraded has some sort of frankenfirmware?

 

[Xoo00o0o0o]

Why would those files be missing from the downgrade pack from the iso site though? So essentially everyone who downgraded has some sort of frankenfirmware?

It is possible. I can't say for sure.

 

[funnystory]

It is possible. I can't say for sure.

I will keep checking your guide,here is my logfile for downgrade checker if its any help. I appreciate your help.

Title ID 0x0004003000009e02
Extra title
Title ID 0x0004800f484e4841
Expected version 0x2c00
Installed version 0x5ba0
Title ID 0x0004000000193000
Extra title
Title ID 0x0004009b00010402
Expected version 0x1002
Installed version 0x1402
Title ID 0x0004001b00010802
Expected version 0x0000
Installed version 0x0400
Title ID 0x0004013000001b02
Expected version 0x0800
Installed version 0x0c01
Title ID 0x0004013000001a02
Expected version 0x1400
Installed version 0x1801

 

[Xoo00o0o0o]

I will keep checking your guide,here is my logfile for downgrade checker if its any help. I appreciate your help.

Title ID 0x0004003000009e02
Extra title
Title ID 0x0004800f484e4841
Expected version 0x2c00
Installed version 0x5ba0
Title ID 0x0004000000193000
Extra title
Title ID 0x0004009b00010402
Expected version 0x1002
Installed version 0x1402
Title ID 0x0004001b00010802
Expected version 0x0000
Installed version 0x0400
Title ID 0x0004013000001b02
Expected version 0x0800
Installed version 0x0c01
Title ID 0x0004013000001a02
Expected version 0x1400
Installed version 0x1801

I'll definitely look into it. I can't say that I'll actually be able to find the titles/a solution though. For now, I have added the photo of what Downgrade Check looks like on my N3DS as well as a video of my N3DS booting into Reinand.

 

[headless]

Why would those files be missing from the downgrade pack from the iso site though? So essentially everyone who downgraded has some sort of frankenfirmware?

It is possible. I can't say for sure.

Pretty much that seems the case, there appears to be 4 titles that are updated on firmware past 9.2 at some point and so the N3DS comes with the new updated titles pre-installed. The old titles aren't included in the 9.2 N3DS firmware because as far as nintendo are aware there is no update for them as the update is for a pre 9.2 system and so already has the latest version. There would be no point in nintendo including titles that are already installed on the 3DS in the firmware pack if the 3DS already has the latest version installed and so they don't hence the reason they are missing in the 9.2 N3DS firmware people are using

This is all based on my limited understanding of the good discussion and work going on in this thread:

http://gbatemp.net/threads/potential-reason-for-random-errors-on-n3ds-after-downgrading.410075/

The titles that should have a mismatched version in a 9.2 N3DS downgrade are (on a European downgrade at least!):

Title ID 0x0004009b00010402
Expected version 0x1002
Installed version 0x1402

Title ID 0x000400300000b902
Extra title

Title ID 0x0004001b00010802
Expected version 0x0000
Installed version 0x0400

Title ID 0x0004013000001b02
Expected version 0x0800
Installed version 0x0c01

Title ID 0x0004013000001a02
Expected version 0x1400
Installed version 0x1801


People have successfully found the correct version of the titles and replaced them so it definitely seems possible Another good bit of news is that if the 9th character in the title is a 0, its a universal title and doesn't matter if it comes from a O3DS or a N3DS. Again this is from that thread so don't just take my word for it in case i have misunderstood something! Also well done on the tutorial, i could of done with it a few days ago! I was in the same boat with a frankenfirmware that included a bricked browser and system settings! I managed to also run the OOThax and get sysupdater to attempt the downgrade again which installed the missing cia's from my first failed downgrade attempt when it crashed!

 

[plaxz]

I've encountered the same issue but here's what i did:

Recover from Frankenfirmware w/o upgrading to 10.3 or higher (CUBIC NINJA VER.)

Tested on 9.9 N3DS FW.

- After you get the "error has occured screen" while downgrading, switch off the 3ds
- when you switch "on" the 3ds you will get a black screen
- switch off the 3ds and pull out the MMC
- you will notice that it will boot into the home menu but you cant access anything (settings, browser, etc)
- switch off the 3ds and go to "recovery mode"
- try updating but "only to set up the internet connection". DO NOT UPDATE.
- once wireless settings has been enabled, switch off the 3ds.
- switch it back on, once you see the home menu, reinsert your mmc and launch cubic ninja and launch ninjahax
- once you have access to the Homebrew channel, reinstall menuhax and install pasta cfw or mini pasta (I 've installed Pasta cfw)
- launch pasta cfw and relaunch homebrew
- downgrade again
- be happy

 

[Xoo00o0o0o]

I've encountered the same issue but here's what i did:

Recover from Frankenfirmware w/o upgrading to 10.3 or higher (CUBIC NINJA VER.)

Tested on 9.9 N3DS FW.

- After you get the "error has occured screen" while downgrading, switch off the 3ds
- when you switch "on" the 3ds you will get a black screen
- switch off the 3ds and pull out the MMC
- you will notice that it will boot into the home menu but you cant access anything (settings, browser, etc)
- switch off the 3ds and go to "recovery mode"
- try updating but "only to set up the internet connection". DO NOT UPDATE.
- once wireless settings has been enabled, switch off the 3ds.
- switch it back on and launch cubic ninja and launch ninjahax
- once you have access to the Homebrew channel, reinstall menuhax and install pasta cfw or mini pasta (I 've installed Pasta cfw)
- launch pasta cfw and relaunch homebrew
- downgrade again
- be happy

This will definitely achieve the same goal. I don't have Cubic Ninja so I couldn't write a guide for it. Thanks for posting!

 

[mrbits]

Got a second n3ds XL today (first one is a bit broken but still sort of works) and hit by the frankenfirmware.

I have a sky3ds to use oot and cubic, anyone had any luck with this? I tried the oot installer on it but it failed to write

 

[Xoo00o0o0o]

Got a second n3ds XL today (first one is a bit broken but still sort of works) and hit by the frankenfirmware.

I have a sky3ds to use oot and cubic, anyone had any luck with this? I tried the oot installer on it but it failed to write

This link should get you up and running for oothax on Sky3DS

 

[mrbits]

This link should get you up and running for oothax on Sky3DS

Thanks! I tried with one copy of oot but it just froze (testing on my previous 3ds before I do anything I regret on the new one)

 

[mrbits]

No luck. I just get a black top screen and white bottom screen when launching the exploit using the save marked GATEWAY

 

[Xoo00o0o0o]

No luck. I just get a black top screen and white bottom screen when launching the exploit using the save marked GATEWAY

You could try using Cubic Ninja instead of OoT. @plaxz posted above how he was able to use it instead.