Hacking Can't access/use different region DLC with Luma3DS/arm9

[Tayruu]

I recently bought a new New 3DS, and discovered with luck it was on an old 9.9 version of some sort. After some nerve-wracking work, I now have a CFW'd 3DS through which I can play games without worrying about regions. However, I am still having some problems and I can't seem to find a solution. I'm not sure if I'm just not searching for the right thing.

I'm not sure where the actual issue is, so I'll explain what I'm trying to do:

I have two OFW 11.1 old 3DSes - one for EU/AUS/NZ, and one for the US. The new 3DS is EU, but I can play US carts now because of Luma3DS. (And also had the old EU 3DS profile system transferred onto it.)
I still have the old 3DS with the US profile, and a small handful of DLC tied to the games I bought:

• Shin Megami Tensei IV
• Etrian Odyssey Untold 2
• SMTIV Apocalypse

I would like to rescue the DLC from this device and load it onto my other 3DS. Luma3DS states it has a function to help run out-of-region DLC, but I can't get it to work for me.

I found a CIA with all SMTIVA's DLC. If I install it, I can see the DLC fine on my save file. But I don't want all the DLC. However, my conclusion from that is that I can get the DLC to be recognised, but it rejects something just copypasted from another SD Card. (Due to ticket stuff I guess?) So I maybe need a way to produce my own CIA containing what I have downloaded? (Especially for other games.)

But there's still problems. When I try to go to the add-on purchase screen, I get the system error: "The add on content could not be recognised, returning to the internet connection screen..." Thus, even if I can load DLC, I cannot access the listing for more DLC.

• This message appears for both SMTIV and SMTIV:A.
• EOU2 is a little different, as it gives an in-game message: "No add-on content has been released yet."
  
• Additionally, EOU2 claims to have an update, but downloading does nothing, and looking on the eshop it can't find it. (It is on there, but downloading it does nothing, due to regional mismatch I guess.)

Luma3DS claims to enable "out-of-region DLC" to work, but I don't understand what this means. The games themselves already all run without the need to specify a region and language in sd:/luma/locales/. Thus it doesn't seem like the function redirects DLC downloading to the region's eshop (or wherever DLC is stored). If that is what it's supposed to do, it's not working.

I do apologise if I've over-explained things, so here's the tldr:

• I have DLC on a non-CFW different region/profile O3DS I want to access on a CFW'd N3DS.
• When I try to access DLC or get a software update, the files can't be found due to region differences. (Probably.) I'm pretty sure EOU2 and SMTIV are on the EU/AUS eshop, and yet they're not finding their files either.
• Installing a CIA of pre-packaged (not mine) DLC works fine, but doesn't really solve the problem.
  
• I'm not sure what Luma3DS's DLC-supporting function is actually supposed to do, so as to know how I'm doing this wrong.

I also have the following thoughts:

• My searches commonly found stuff that talked about NTR, or userland homebrew, or other things. I also see the claim that NAND altering isn't needed (or really risky) when Luma3DS can do it per-game.
  
• I can't seem to boot into EmuNAND (i.e. holding L regardless of setting, the version remains prefixed by "Sys"), so I don't know if a US EmuNAND would help me, but supposed risks put me off.
  
• I suspect if I want to copy over my DLC, I might have to CFW my US Old 3DS, then create CIAs from there. Though being able to do it from my already-CFW'd device would be nice.
• If I can create CIAs just from the SD contents and the right keys/IDs, that would be good, but most of my searches have given me programs that make no sense to me, due to directions requiring use of older CFW/homebrew.

Thanks for any help or clarification~.

 

[justln]

DLC aren't region free, use LumaLocaleSwitcher and set the correct region for that specific game. Enable the region settings in Luma Configuration screen, the one where you hold select before boot.

 

[KunoichiZ]

In your Luma3DS settings, do you have the Enable region setting (can't remember the full name right off hand) enabled? That needs to be enabled. I don't believe you can use the other region's in-game eShop through this however (it'll probably result in an error since the region of the game and system don't match). You also can't move DLC to a different device without a system transfer, as DLC is console specific. You also can't use the eShop on the Home Menu to download any updates the out-of-region game might have. You'll have to either use freeShop or that iso site to download the updates.

 

[Tayruu]

@justln: Even having set the games to "USA EN", and the Luma on-boot option turned on, I don't seem to see any effect from it.

@KunoichiZ: I was wondering if it would come down to that. I do have freeshop, but I guess I'll have to give it the right DLC/update titlekeys.

 

[KunoichiZ]

@justln: Even having set the games to "USA EN", and the Luma on-boot option turned on, I don't seem to see any effect from it.

@KunoichiZ: I was wondering if it would come down to that. I do have freeshop, but I guess I'll have to give it the right DLC/update titlekeys.

Yeah that's the downside to using out-of-regions games and DLC. Since the regions don't match, all eShop functionality is gone so outside resources have to be used instead. You can't give freeShop the right titlekeys, though. If the update/DLC isn't on that title keys site, then it won't be on freeShop until someone uploads the update to the site and then the guy who runs it has to do whatever he had to do to update the site. If that's the case, then just use that iso site.

 

[Tayruu]

Oh, I was under the impression freeshop was an open-source front-end for the eshop - therefore it was connecting to the eshop and had anything that was on there as long as you provided the titlekeys. Not that it was a different server entirely.

 

[Redferne]

The region change feature in Luma only allows you to use a different language than the one use by default on the 3DS system. Of course the language needs to exist in the game.
For example if your 3DS language is Spanish and you want to play your games in English, with this feature you can. This is nice when the game doesn't give you the choice.
It doesn't make a game from region A into a game from region B.

As for your DLC issue you can't use DLCs from region A if your game is from region B.

 

[annson24]

Use freeshop to update and download dlcs with out of region games.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

 

[Sketchy1]

It's the dlc, you can't use dlc for out of reigon games because the dlc is built to only work with only 1 title Id, but diffrent region games have diffrent id's, even if the games have the same name so you could say it's kind of a ticket problem, cause the 3ds is saying 04800 is installed but the dlc says it only works for 04700. You get the idea

 

[Tomy Sakazaki]

The region change feature in Luma only allows you to use a different language than the one use by default on the 3DS system. Of course the language needs to exist in the game.
For example if your 3DS language is Spanish and you want to play your games in English, with this feature you can. This is nice when the game doesn't give you the choice.
It doesn't make a game from region A into a game from region B.

As for your DLC issue you can't use DLCs from region A if your game is from region B.

OP is trying (actually if I understand right OP already accomplished) to use USA DLC on USA Game in Euro console.

It's the dlc, you can't use dlc for out of reigon games because the dlc is built to only work with only 1 title Id, but diffrent region games have diffrent id's, even if the games have the same name so you could say it's kind of a ticket problem, cause the 3ds is saying 04800 is installed but the dlc says it only works for 04700. You get the idea

You're right, but even installing same region Game+Update+DLC set is insufficient if you don't use NTR language+region patching (prolly OP found it also) or Luma3DS locale system when using "foreign games" (USA games in Euro system as example).

@Tayruu Sorry for long post but trying to be as useful as possible here to solve some of your doubts. And from what I get, you already got the downloaded DLC CIA from USA region working with your USA carts in the Euro console so I'll stick to concepts that you have doubts.
I can't guarantee that all the info are correct, that's what I've gathered from using the tools and reading some release threads.

Unfortunately with the tools available for now you can't have a DLC CIA that will unlock exactly what you want, with the tools available you can either generate a DLC CIA that will unlock everything or one with the contents that were actually bought by the person who generated the ticket.db file loaded on tools like CDN-FX, so if you want to use exactly the DLCs you bought you would need either to dump your own ticket.db from your USA console or have someone who have exactly the same "DLC set" dump their ticket.db to run on CDN-FX while disabling the DLC patch. Essentially, you either hack your USA console (viable but maybe not desired), or pay someone to buy exactly the same DLC that you wanted (not easily viable and certainly not desired). Essentially having a DLC CIA that unlocks everything for a given game is the easiest way to go.

freeShop is a tool that uses a cached copy of eShop listing of titles, a title key dump file and it'll get the actual game contents from ninty content servers, so the access that you have to titles on freeShop are limited to what freeShop actually cached and matches the titlekey file offered. I think that it's contents tend to match what's uploaded and verified at that 3ds title keys site.

From what I get (I didn't analyze the source code, only guessing here) Luma standard region free patching makes the game appear as a region free game to the console and ignore the region of the console update files included in the cart (there are some flags that are checked in the game files to see what region the game is - https://www.3dbrew.org/wiki/Home_Menu#Region_Lockout ) or it actually deactivate the region checking routines, the Locale system works in the other way, patching the console's region and language values in the RAM, so when it looks for DLC and game's locale file it will load the proper way. However this isn't enough to make the game search for it's updates and DLC storefront on the proper eShop region that it requires so that's why your USA games launch errors while trying to search contents on eShop in your Euro console.

You can try to create and dump a emunand and region change it, but I don't think that the effort to do it is actually worthy (I hadn't performed this myself), and I dunno if eShop will actually properly work (letting you make actual purchases on it).

tentative tl;dr
CIA DLC's will have either everything unlocked or what was actually bought from the console that dumped the ticket.db used to generated it.
freeShop will only show contents that are cached by it's developer, and most of times it'll have the contents that are found in "that 3ds title key site"
Luma have 2 kinds of region patching, by default it either flag all games as region free or disable region checking, this is insufficient to make the game recognize DLCs from foreign regions (in console perspective). The other, the locale system, force some console flags to appear as different region+language, this suffice to force some game's official translations loading (multi lang carts that doesn't have language selection menus) and to make foreign region DLC CIA and Updates CIA work, but is insufficient (by itself) to make the game have proper access to it's region eShop (that's why the update download fails and game throws errors while trying to list/buy DLC).

 

[Tayruu]

Thanks for the clarification. I think I remember reading that DLC was in itself region locked, but guess I was unsure how it applied to loading it once you've bypassed the region stuff for carts already. (That, or the CIAs I've encountered so far have been pre-region-freed.)

In the future I could try to CFW my US 3DS too (though right now it's maybe harder to do), such I can dump my own DLC sets/ticket database. Since it sounds more difficult to do at this time, I'm probably not going to rush ahead to attempt it.

 

[Sketchy1]

Thanks for the clarification. I think I remember reading that DLC was in itself region locked, but guess I was unsure how it applied to loading it once you've bypassed the region stuff for carts already. (That, or the CIAs I've encountered so far have been pre-region-freed.)

In the future I could try to CFW my US 3DS too (though right now it's maybe harder to do), such I can dump my own DLC sets/ticket database. Since it sounds more difficult to do at this time, I'm probably not going to rush ahead to attempt it.

1) im pretty sure you can dump dlc the same way you can dump a CIA rom
2) tickets can be generated with the push of a button
3) they are technicly region free as you Can install them on any system, but the problem is getting them to work on a diffrent region game

 

[Redferne]

I'm not sure that DLC are region free but you can make them region free when you dump them like any CIA.
I guess that would solve the OP problem.