Hacking Nintendo Switch Banning Hub & Warning

[rvnx]

I know the Switch isn't region locked, but could playing backups from different regions than your switch be an additional flag besides the existing invalid cert?

 

[RHOPKINS13]

I know the Switch isn't region locked, but could playing backups from different regions than your switch be an additional flag besides the existing invalid cert?

Since the Switch isn't region locked, I doubt it would have any additional bearing at all. Simply having an invalid cert is more than enough cause for a ban.

 

[blk_2sday]

Additional Comments[/B]
Haven't been banned yet, I don't use SX OS or LayeredFS. I started using Hekate when people first started using it to load homebrew, first used Jan4V's release back when that one was the only one with support for 5.0.2, then used CTCaer's 2.3 release (having sleep mode fixed plus AutoRCM is a godsend).

Now I'm using SwitchBlade 2.0.6. I could upgrade to CTCaer's 3.0 release, but I'm happy with where I'm at now, and I don't know if one of these newer versions (especially with LayeredFS support built-in) has something that is being used to detect bans.

I'm pretty much the same as this guy, I don't have layeredfs or SX I run homebrew and I play my eShop games and carts online. worth mentioning, I use SdfilesV1.2 since it supports everything I want to do.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk

 

[RHOPKINS13]

I'm pretty much the same as this guy, I don't have layeredfs or SX I run homebrew and I play my eShop games and carts online. worth mentioning, I use SdfilesV1.2 since it supports everything I want to do.

Yup! I use the old Sdfiles too!

I saw this on Team ReSwitched's Discord:

After seeing that, I don't want to update anything until SciresM officially releases Atmosphere with his custom error codes disabled. I have had nx-dreport as part of my Switchblade.ini for a long time now, and I figure at this point my chance of a ban probably wouldn't go down if I removed it, and if anything might go up.

 

[Draxzelex]

I haven't been as adventurous as some of you. Not banned but I figured more data is never a bad thing.

Given that some people have been banned with homebrew only, having people who neither use SX OS or LayeredFS can greatly help us understand why certain homebrew users were banned over others. Of note, you did clear error logs prior to going online but 5.X firmwares can supposedly track error logs being deleted so further investigation is required. Also, one of the homebrew only bans involved save editing.

 

[yadspi]

What about regions? Where do you live?

I live in Puerto Rico. My region is USA, most things (amazon, psn, xbox live etc.) treat PR as a state.

 

[RHOPKINS13]

Given that some people have been banned with homebrew only, having people who neither use SX OS or LayeredFS can greatly help us understand why certain homebrew users were banned over others. Of note, you did clear error logs prior to going online but 5.X firmwares can supposedly track error logs being deleted so further investigation is required. Also, one of the homebrew only bans involved save editing.

I'm kind of skeptical about the "homebrew-only" bans. We've only had 3 bans like this so far.

If you look at Dekirai's posts you can see that some of them contradict each other. In one post he claims all he did was save editing on Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle. However, if you look on some of his earlier posts you can see that he also edited his save files for Pokemon Quest and Splatoon 2, but what really invalidates his report for me is that on June 16th he posted that he got Hyrule Warriors working with LayeredFS using Fallout Shelter as the donor game. The earliest mention of a ban I see from him was June 20th, so unless he's got multiple Switches I think more explanation is needed.

PEKKA4597's posts show that he was banned on June 22nd, but if you look earlier you can see that he was trying to load ARMS using LayeredFS and a Skyrim cartridge back on June 15th.

So unless somebody tells me something different, I believe these two user's bans should be considered "LayeredFS" bans. ESPECIALLY since they both encountered errors with LayeredFS, and SciresM specifically says that in these unofficial builds he's using custom error codes that will get you banned.

The only homebrew ban report that I can't "debunk" is silverspring, a newbie user who's current post count is only 3. But let's give him the benefit of the doubt.

My suspicion is that perhaps even if you never try to use LayeredFS, if you're using a version of hekate that has been updated with LayeredFS support included you will likely end up banned. Perhaps silverspring was using Hekate with LayeredFS support built in, and just never tried to actually use LayeredFS.

An interesting note, SciresM's twitter account doesn't mention custom crash reports until June 25th, looking at the github commits seems to confirm this. The LayeredFS versions of Hekate have been floating around for longer than that though, and the bans I called out above pre-date that, so there has to be some other explanation for those LayeredFS bans.

 

[yadspi]

I'm kind of skeptical about the "homebrew-only" bans. We've only had 3 bans like this so far.

If you look at Dekirai's posts you can see that some of them contradict each other. In one post he claims all he did was save editing on Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle. However, if you look on some of his earlier posts you can see that he also edited his save files for Pokemon Quest and Splatoon 2, but what really invalidates his report for me is that on June 16th he posted that he got Hyrule Warriors working with LayeredFS using Fallout Shelter as the donor game. The earliest mention of a ban I see from him was June 20th, so unless he's got multiple Switches I think more explanation is needed.

PEKKA4597's posts show that he was banned on June 22nd, but if you look earlier you can see that he was trying to load ARMS using LayeredFS and a Skyrim cartridge back on June 15th.

So unless somebody tells me something different, I believe these two user's bans should be considered "LayeredFS" bans. ESPECIALLY since they both encountered errors with LayeredFS, and SciresM specifically says that in these unofficial builds he's using custom error codes that will get you banned.

The only homebrew ban report that I can't "debunk" is silverspring, a newbie user who's current post count is only 3. But let's give him the benefit of the doubt.

My suspicion is that perhaps even if you never try to use LayeredFS, if you're using a version of hekate that has been updated with LayeredFS support included you will likely end up banned. Perhaps silverspring was using Hekate with LayeredFS support built in, and just never tried to actually use LayeredFS.

An interesting note, SciresM's twitter account doesn't mention custom crash reports until June 25th, looking at the github commits seems to confirm this. The LayeredFS versions of Hekate have been floating around for longer than that though, and the bans I called out above pre-date that, so there has to be some other explanation for those LayeredFS bans.

I'm not gonna say I'm not gonna get banned obviously but it seems layeredFS is almost the culprit here, emulating a cartridge in the slot, updating it and just being online doesn't seem like ban material, playing online multiplayer games, changing game certs, modding them do...same as emulators, they don't leave a trail since they are not Switch software. Right now I'm still fine being online.

 

[lukhart]

Is there any "extra" ban risk on using auto rcm? I'm tired of using my paperclip everytime I wanna go into rcm.

In theory the switch can collect data the boot0 partition. If it's not what they expect, it can report back to Nintendo.

I'm at this same situation... but seeing that I will restore my nand and boot files to clean ones in the future when going online maybe I'm worrying too much

 

[yadspi]

I'm at this same situation... but seeing that I will restore my nand and boot files to clean ones in the future when going online maybe I'm worrying too much

I'm on auto RCM since it was "released" was more scared of damaging the joy-con rail than a ban.

 

[Draxzelex]

I'm kind of skeptical about the "homebrew-only" bans. We've only had 3 bans like this so far.

If you look at Dekirai's posts you can see that some of them contradict each other. In one post he claims all he did was save editing on Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle. However, if you look on some of his earlier posts you can see that he also edited his save files for Pokemon Quest and Splatoon 2, but what really invalidates his report for me is that on June 16th he posted that he got Hyrule Warriors working with LayeredFS using Fallout Shelter as the donor game. The earliest mention of a ban I see from him was June 20th, so unless he's got multiple Switches I think more explanation is needed.

PEKKA4597's posts show that he was banned on June 22nd, but if you look earlier you can see that he was trying to load ARMS using LayeredFS and a Skyrim cartridge back on June 15th.

So unless somebody tells me something different, I believe these two user's bans should be considered "LayeredFS" bans. ESPECIALLY since they both encountered errors with LayeredFS, and SciresM specifically says that in these unofficial builds he's using custom error codes that will get you banned.

The only homebrew ban report that I can't "debunk" is silverspring, a newbie user who's current post count is only 3. But let's give him the benefit of the doubt.

My suspicion is that perhaps even if you never try to use LayeredFS, if you're using a version of hekate that has been updated with LayeredFS support included you will likely end up banned. Perhaps silverspring was using Hekate with LayeredFS support built in, and just never tried to actually use LayeredFS.

An interesting note, SciresM's twitter account doesn't mention custom crash reports until June 25th, looking at the github commits seems to confirm this. The LayeredFS versions of Hekate have been floating around for longer than that though, and the bans I called out above pre-date that, so there has to be some other explanation for those LayeredFS bans.

I'd prefer to believe Nintendo wouldn't ban users simply due to homebrew. We also have to acknowledge that while everything we have is confirmed, there could be other users banned that don't care or are unaware of this effort. While the homebrew bans are much more questionable than the SX OS bans, I'd prefer not to reject someone's report without the full story (i.e. they forgot they used LayeredFS). Anyway, this place is not really the type of place to discuss how valid or invalid someone's reports are; that should be handled in person, er, directly via PM or something.

I agree that there is something more to the LayeredFS bans. Too many people have gone not being banned despite how long it was around for. Some of those people were still not banned when we first learned of the news (although they could be banned now). Its possible only people with crashes got banned but there are still some people who had it crash and have not been banned yet (which could be explained that they either used nx-dreport or did not go online to check their ban status a second time).

 

[yadspi]

I'd prefer to believe Nintendo wouldn't ban users simply due to homebrew. We also have to acknowledge that while everything we have is confirmed, there could be other users banned that don't care or are unaware of this effort. While the homebrew bans are much more questionable than the SX OS bans, I'd prefer not to reject someone's report without the full story (i.e. they forgot they used LayeredFS). Anyway, this place is not really the type of place to discuss how valid or invalid someone's reports are; that should be handled in person, er, directly via PM or something.

I agree that there is something more to the LayeredFS bans. Too many people have gone not being banned despite how long it was around for. Some of those people were still not banned when we first learned of the news (although they could be banned now). Its possible only people with crashes got banned but there are still some people who had it crash and have not been banned yet (which could be explained that they either used nx-dreport or did not go online to check their ban status a second time).

So we are basically clueless still

 

[lukhart]

So we are basically clueless still

These mass bans just started in less than a month, so yeah we're still at the beginning of understanding more about this.
I believe if Atmosphere comes with anti-telemetry tools then we'll make more progress about this subject.

 

[Draxzelex]

So we are basically clueless still

To be fair, I never stated there are definitive causes to this bans. I'll admit, I wanted to see a pattern by compiling the data, but now that its organized, I can say Nintendo is one step ahead of us still.

 

[yadspi]

To be fair, I never stated there are definitive causes to this bans. I'll admit, I wanted to see a pattern by compiling the data, but now that its organized, I can say Nintendo is one step ahead of us still.

Yeah I'm not criticizing just thinking out loud...thae bans, with the data that we have doesn't seem to have a pattern, even if I'm biased towards layeredFS.

 

[lukhart]

To be fair, I never stated there are definitive causes to this bans. I'll admit, I wanted to see a pattern by compiling the data, but now that its organized, I can say Nintendo is one step ahead of us still.

The fact that are people still not banned for using LayeredFS online just proves that Nintendo wants to drive us nuts

 

[Draxzelex]

Yeah I'm not criticizing just thinking out loud...thae bans, with the data that we have doesn't seem to have a pattern, even if I'm biased towards layeredFS.

As much as I would love to defend LayeredFS, everyone and their mother has denounced LayeredFS already. The damage has already been done. People have accepted that everyone who touched LayeredFS is either banned already or will be banned soon enough. Wish that kind of thinking applied to anything else like its supposed to...

 

[RHOPKINS13]

I'd prefer to believe Nintendo wouldn't ban users simply due to homebrew. We also have to acknowledge that while everything we have is confirmed, there could be other users banned that don't care or are unaware of this effort. While the homebrew bans are much more questionable than the SX OS bans, I'd prefer not to reject someone's report without the full story (i.e. they forgot they used LayeredFS). Anyway, this place is not really the type of place to discuss how valid or invalid someone's reports are; that should be handled in person, er, directly via PM or something.

What I called out was information from these user's posts prior to being banned. I would think it's logical to go ahead and change the reports of those two users to at least say that LayeredFS was used, and take them off of the "homebrew-only" ban list. Then PM them and see if you can get an explanation.

Finally, as annoying as it is I I think it would be worth asking what version(s) of Hekate / SwitchBlade / Other were used, specifically whether or not LayeredFS support was built-in (regardless of whether they tried to use it).

 

[Draxzelex]

What I called out was information from these user's posts prior to being banned. I would think it's logical to go ahead and change the reports of those two users to at least say that LayeredFS was used, and take them off of the "homebrew-only" ban list. Then PM them and see if you can get an explanation.

Finally, as annoying as it is I I think it would be worth asking what version(s) of Hekate / SwitchBlade / Other were used, specifically whether or not LayeredFS support was built-in (regardless of whether they tried to use it).

I'll go down the middle and just put a sticky note next to their names explaining the details (you'd be surprised how little people actually check that section).

As useful as that would be, it won't do much in changing people's minds that LayeredFS is the devil, which is the only reason I would put it in there. I just might remove most LayeredFS questions since no one considers it safe in any capacity. Despite it not having the most reliable track record, it still remains the number one cause for bans.

I've removed Dekirai since I cannot PM this person for further clarification so all I'm waiting on are the other two users.

 

[Wiiunator]

with SX OS 1.3 out and in the implementation of layeredFS and devmenu to install .NSP files and people going crazy downloading stuff on the CDN I'm expected a big surge in banning in the next few days...