Homebrew I would like to remove all traces of homebrew on my 3DS

[Heere]

I would like to remove all traces of homebrew on my 3DS. Yes, this is a precaution against getting banned. Before the inevitable "There's no point now, Nintendo has logs going back months!" argument, hear me out on my situation. I lent my 3DS to a friend in early 2016. I told him not to install any homebrew, but when I got my 3DS back a few weeks ago, I found out that he had anyway. I was a little annoyed by this, but decided I would find out how to remove it at some point.

Well, now is that time. The 3DS hasn't been connected to the Internet for at least 3 weeks, so there is a chance that if I remove everything it will never get flagged.

I have no knowledge of the 3DS scene (except what I have picked up in the past few hours), but I have some knowledge from the Wii scene. I also have a master's degree in computer engineering, so if you can give me instructions in generic terms I can work with you.

What I want is for all non-volatile memory on my 3DS to be in a state that would look like a clean Nintendo-compiled or Nintendo-delivered version that would be valid for my New 3DS XL. I am aware that these types of binary images are now encrypted machine-specific. I'm assuming that this is why a file called "OTP.bin" is featured in some homebrew guides. For those of you who haven't studied cryptography, OTP stands for "One Time Pad", which is a collection of random bytes (or a seed for a PSRNG to generate a collection of random bytes) used by a stream cipher (or sometimes just XOR) to create a binary with uncrackable encryption unless the OTP can be recovered. This would be analogous to keys.bin in the Wii scene, which was used to encrypt the NAND.

Speaking of the Wii scene, just a few years ago a tool was released that enabled the creation of machine-specific NAND images "from scratch": as long as you had keys.bin and the unencrypted binary components of the NAND image, you could use this tool to compile a fresh NAND image that booted on your Wii. Is there any similar tool or method for the 3DS?

If not, what should I do to completely erase all traces of homebrew from my 3DS?

If it helps, it looks like I have A9LH, Luma, and System Version 11.2.0-35U

My friend is not very careful, so I doubt he has a backup of my OTP or my clean NAND, although I will ask him. Back in university I was a Linux sysadmin for the department, so remote backups of anything important would have been my first priority if I had done this myself. I also would have turned off SpotPass immediately (which he did not). Can you tell that I'm a little bit pissed off about this whole situation? I bought a pristine New 3DS XL and never wanted to installed homebrew on it.

The reason I mention that is I see some guides on how to recover the OTP, so if there is such a tool I could follow one of those guides and recover my OTP.

Here are some additional questions:
Is there only one physical non-volatile memory on the 3DS?
Do boot-time exploits of the arm9 and arm11 modify firmware that resides on those chips themselves?

 

[Jhynjhiruu]

As far as I know, the 9.2.0 CTRTransfer image from the old 3ds.guide (use the web archive) is clean, but I don't know whether installing that would remove A9LH.

 

[Deleted User]

It's probably too late. If you want to be safe, get a homebrew launch point other than HBL (the cia) and delete all you "hacking" cias and try to get them as .3dsx
Don't play online and you're fine.

EDIT: Arm9 and B9s itself cannot be detected

 

[harambe]

It's probably too late. If you want to be safe, get a homebrew launch point other than HBL (the cia) and delete all you "hacking" cias and try to get them as .3dsx
Don't play online and you're fine.

EDIT: Arm9 and B9s itself cannot be detected

Just use NinjHax entrypoint, completely 100% safe.

 

[Deleted-379826]

Alrighty, so yes, this certainly is possible. It is also not hard at all to do. But, my question is, why? As you mention yourself Nintendo most likely has logs, you can unban yourself if ever needed and the community will surely find a fix or cause very soon. Also as the person above said I believe the exploits can't be detected, just what you actually have on your 3ds. So my question to you is why?

Having these mods allow you to do much more! For example cheats, rom hacks, emulators, if you're into piracy, homebrew apps, custom themes etc. Removing it will only take away from your experience but if you say so.

For removing A9LH, download the latest https://github.com/AuroraWright/SafeA9LHInstaller/releases < this. Then take the arm9loaderhax.bin and rename it to any button press you want_ I kinda forget what you put after the underscore, just check luma>payloads on your SD card. There will be all your other payloads and you should understand the naming convention for it . After this hold the button you chose in the filename on boot. It'll bring you into this application, the button you press should be start and it'll uninstall a9lh.(may not be start) After it is uninstalled just wipe all folders containing exploit stuff. So everything except "Nintendo 3DS" and "DCIM" I believe. Hope I helped!

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Just use NinjHax entrypoint, completely 100% safe.

Sure I guess it's undetectable but you can hardly do things with NinjHax and he probably doesn't have cubic ninja. Soundhax would be easier but again pretty useless stuff especially when he's got A9LH.

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It's probably too late. If you want to be safe, get a homebrew launch point other than HBL (the cia) and delete all you "hacking" cias and try to get them as .3dsx
Don't play online and you're fine.

EDIT: Arm9 and B9s itself cannot be detected

Well I don't think he wants any homebrew at all and Nintendo can't check the CIAs you have, that wouldn't make too much sense, so it would be fine to have them. Just don't go online with certain ones or put your favourite title as some of them, if you want to be safe. Although it's still pretty safe without doing this, so I'm not too sure. Plus completely avoiding online is probably what he doesn't want, he probably wants to play online.

 

[Deleted User]

Well nowadays we don't need the otp anymore to hack the 3ds since we now have arm11 access to the system thanks to b9s.We can still dump it when we need it however.

 

[BL4Z3D247]

Wow, so your friend didn't just put homebrew on your 3DS, they straight CFW'd it for you. That was ballsy of them. Anyway...

If I were you before removing A9LH I would clear the PTM and Activity Log data using GodMode9:

Use godmode9 and delete follow.
This will wipe your log and mini plaza records. Keep a nand backup if you mess up.
PTM and Activity Log savegames.
\data\{random id}\sysdata\00010022\
\data\{random id}\sysdata\00020212\(This is for a US 3DS. The ID for JPN is 00020202 and for EUR 00020222)

 

[thund3rstruck]

I don't understand all the hysteria personally. I have no idea if I'm banned or not and could care less. Why does everyone care so much about being banned? Are there MMOs on the 3DS that I'm not aware. The only game I've ever tried the online mode for was Pokemon Sun and I got bored of that after a half hour or so and promptly returned to the proper offline game.

 

[Deleted User]

I don't understand all the hysteria personally. I have no idea if I'm banned or not and could care less. Why does everyone care so much about being banned? Are there MMOs on the 3DS that I'm not aware. The only game I've ever tried the online mode for was Pokemon Sun and I got bored of that after a half hour or so and promptly returned to the proper offline game.

Resell value.Lets say you have a old 3ds that you want to sell at a decent price with b9s but its banned.Do you think it would go for anymore than what it's worth?

 

[The Catboy]

I would like to mention to the OP that I've have a Goat system running online since the banwave started and it still hasn't been re-banned since the first time it was banned (I lifted the ban btw.)
Still, it might actually be a better idea to keep your system hacked because there have been delayed bans. So you could end up removing all homebrews and suddenly get banned tomorrow for having your system hacked previously. We really don't know what Nintendo knows or how these bans are working, but we do believe we have a method of preventing the ban from happening to system that aren't banned. Just turn off "Spotpass" and turn off "Show online" in the friend's list. These seem to have kept other users (including myself) safe from the ban.

 

[Joshwraith]

I'm on the same boat here, my system is still unbanned (never banned), I do not use the cfw to play cias I just need the Layeredfs function and custom themes but with this ban wave Make me wish to return to stock, but the thing is: if a log from my system is already collected by N then there's no point in return to stock, and i'll be trapped without any entry point to return to cfw (just hardmod).

 

[Matalan]

I can see no other reason to return to stock unless gaming online means that much to you.
There's nothing that'll make me give up CFW simply because it allows me to do things Nintendo should have allowed me to do from the start.
There's absolutely no reason at all that themes and badges couldn't have been installed using an editor provided by Nintendo
Also there whole account system is a disgrace, I know it's fixed for Switch but the fact purchases are tied to the device puts me off buying anything from the eshop.

 

[Joshwraith]

I can see no other reason to return to stock unless gaming online means that much to you.
There's nothing that'll make me give up CFW simply because it allows me to do things Nintendo should have allowed me to do from the start.
There's absolutely no reason at all that themes and badges couldn't have been installed using an editor provided by Nintendo
Also there whole account system is a disgrace, I know it's fixed for Switch but the fact purchases are tied to the device puts me off buying anything from the eshop.

For me there is one reason to do it: Peace of mind.

 

[Matalan]

For me there is one reason to do it: Peace of mind.

I understand but I just can't give up injecting SNES roms such as SMRPG and Super Double Dragon or being able to tailor emulators like SNES9X to remove the dark filter and change screen size.
Also I can play games like pilotwings but use the faster processor of the NN3DSXL.
These things to me are all things that Nintendo should be providing but they don't.
Was it impossible for them to introduce a PS4 Pro like boost mode into the New N3DS?

 

[lefthandsword]

I understand but I just can't give up injecting SNES roms such as SMRPG and Super Double Dragon or being able to tailor emulators like SNES9X to remove the dark filter and change screen size.
Also I can play games like pilotwings but use the faster processor of the NN3DSXL.
These things to me are all things that Nintendo should be providing but they don't.
Was it impossible for them to introduce a PS4 Pro like boost mode into the New N3DS?

Setup an unlinked emunand (ideally with an already banned seed) with connections to Nintendo servers blocked for SNES, Luma's LayeredFS and clock speed override should be online safe in theory.

 

[Deleted User]

Just use NinjHax entrypoint, completely 100% safe.

If you want to be safe, get a homebrew launch point other than HBL (the cia)

 

[e398]

Resell value.Lets say you have a old 3ds that you want to sell at a decent price with b9s but its banned.Do you think it would go for anymore than what it's worth?

I agree on that topic. With the resent ban wave there's a lot of folks on the market asking if the 3DS that you are selling is banned or not. I think i'm probably switching my LFSC to a public one or even a banned one since i can put the unbanned one to safety and still use the FTP feature and freeshop, cause having to unscrew the fucking SD card every-time i wanna put a game on is annoying.

 

[petethepug]

I don't think it's possible to know if your being tracked by Nintendo and be 150% sure about it. Same with being banned, or switching to no CFW.

No one has enough information at the moment to actually detirmine what causes these bans, the only thing we know is that these bans are for using "unauthorized software" and we don't even know what is true or not about how Nintendo has been tracking modded consoles.

People have reported Spotpass is the reason, but people have also said they have never had spotpass on and still got banned, the same with Internet being turned on/off, as people have also reported even with the console off people would still be banned. So even if you do remove everything its highly likely you would still be banned anyway, and not being on CFW (also Homebrew) would make it even worse, becuase there is a way to unban your own 3ds IF you have Custom Firmware.

My recommendation is to not delete any important apps like FBI, Luma CFW (assuming you have CFW.) And any important apps. And Just enjoy the new features basically, when the ban comes and Nintendo is no longer carrying bans, you can follow this guide.

https://gbatemp.net/threads/all-3-methods-to-get-unbanned-from-recent-ban-wave.450679/ as this would be your ticket out of the ban once they stop (becuase they cannot afford running it 24/7.)

And this does not ban your Nintendo Network ID, as you still have access to eShop even if banned, and this does not ban all your other Nintendo consoles with Nintendo network ID's. Just your 3DS.


However if you truly believe you don't want CFW, or Homebrew, you can probably call them on the phone with a representative or Nintendo support, and work out how to get another 3ds unit without Homebrew. But no promises though that they would comply. But i'm sure they also would at the same time as they were willing to unlink my old nnid from my broken 3ds, and relink it to my new one, without deleting it, in one day, yeah.


Best of luck tho.
Edit: Oh yeah, you can also probably sell it for a reasonable higher price as well. Since you can't mod 11.4 consoles without a hardmod, and even if your console is banned as I said before and as long as you unlink your nnid safely if you have one (Or it wouldn't matter if you didn't care and just wanted them to have it.) You can also sell it.

 

[Deleted User]

I don't think it's possible to know if your being tracked by Nintendo and be 150% sure about it. Same with being banned, or switching to no CFW.

No one has enough information at the moment to actually detirmine what causes these bans, the only thing we know is that these bans are for using "unauthorized software" and we don't even know what is true or not about how Nintendo has been tracking modded consoles.

People have reported Spotpass is the reason, but people have also said they have never had spotpass on and still got banned, the same with Internet being turned on/off, as people have also reported even with the console off people would still be banned. So even if you do remove everything its highly likely you would still be banned anyway, and not being on CFW (also Homebrew) would make it even worse, becuase there is a way to unban your own 3ds IF you have Custom Firmware.

My recommendation is to not delete any important apps like FBI, Luma CFW (assuming you have CFW.) And any important apps. And Just enjoy the new features basically, when the ban comes and Nintendo is no longer carrying bans, you can follow this guide.

https://gbatemp.net/threads/all-3-methods-to-get-unbanned-from-recent-ban-wave.450679/ as this would be your ticket out of the ban once they stop (becuase they cannot afford running it 24/7.)

And this does not ban your Nintendo Network ID, as you still have access to eShop even if banned, and this does not ban all your other Nintendo consoles with Nintendo network ID's. Just your 3DS.


However if you truly believe you don't want CFW, or Homebrew, you can probably call them on the phone with a representative or Nintendo support, and work out how to get another 3ds unit without Homebrew. But no promises though that they would comply. But i'm sure they also would at the same time as they were willing to unlink my old nnid from my broken 3ds, and relink it to my new one, without deleting it, in one day, yeah.


Best of luck tho.

That's why I think the ban was unstable.Some people got hit(including me) and some people didnt.Lets not forget that there where a few reports about ofw users being banned as well even though the ban was ment for a majority of people with cfw,which is what the ban has done.It seems like eather Nintendo or white hats where testing the water.

 

[Brutalanda]

Does restoring a full NAND backup work, that doesn't have arm9loaderhax/boot9strap installed?