Hacking Interesting Switch Ban...

[Kingfield]

Hey guys,

As a bit of background, purchased a switch roughly 2 years ago, its been offline ever since, with a clean nand backup of 3.0.1. In the meantime, been using SXOS etc.

Last week, I restored this switch to the clean NAND backup and then connected online with no problems. The one thing to note here is that I restored saves using checkpoint on Super Smash Bros, Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (as well as Zelda I think?). I've also had

Couple of days ago, I got Nintendo Switch Online and everything has been fine (using it for Pokemon Sword). Last night i played Tetris 99 (from the Switch Online)

This morning, I noticed I was banned. Called up Nintendo and they said that it was for using pirated software.

Heres the interesting part:
They said they could reverse the ban if I sent in my switch with the games I played recently and they could determine the ban was a mistake? I plan to do this as there's nothing much to lose. Not like they can confiscate my shit. The only thing that could possibly tick them off is a mismatch in play time between my switch profile and the save files? However this could be a result of clearing play data I assume?

My question is, has anyone ever been asked by Nintendo to do this and has anyone tried? what happened?

TLDR: Ban with (almost) all precautions taken. Will send in to Nintendo to see what they say.

 

[Astoria]

Interesting...so they may be checking if saves were modified outside the games themselves...

Probably Switch OS has a function that checks if saves were modified since the last time you used the game, as it wouldn't make sense to your save to magically change without actively playing the game and without making a transfer / restoring from the cloud.

 

[lolcatzuru]

Hey guys,

As a bit of background, purchased a switch roughly 2 years ago, its been offline ever since, with a clean nand backup of 3.0.1. In the meantime, been using SXOS etc.

Last week, I restored this switch to the clean NAND backup and then connected online with no problems. The one thing to note here is that I restored saves using checkpoint on Super Smash Bros, Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (as well as Zelda I think?). I've also had

Couple of days ago, I got Nintendo Switch Online and everything has been fine (using it for Pokemon Sword). Last night i played Tetris 99 (from the Switch Online)

This morning, I noticed I was banned. Called up Nintendo and they said that it was for using pirated software.

Heres the interesting part:
They said they could reverse the ban if I sent in my switch with the games I played recently and they could determine the ban was a mistake? I plan to do this as there's nothing much to lose. Not like they can confiscate my shit. The only thing that could possibly tick them off is a mismatch in play time between my switch profile and the save files? However this could be a result of clearing play data I assume?

My question is, has anyone ever been asked by Nintendo to do this and has anyone tried? what happened?

i was, they told me to use google to get more results, so i did, and i found all the answers i needed.

 

[epicmartin7]

Hey guys,

As a bit of background, purchased a switch roughly 2 years ago, its been offline ever since, with a clean nand backup of 3.0.1. In the meantime, been using SXOS etc.

Last week, I restored this switch to the clean NAND backup and then connected online with no problems. The one thing to note here is that I restored saves using checkpoint on Super Smash Bros, Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (as well as Zelda I think?). I've also had

Couple of days ago, I got Nintendo Switch Online and everything has been fine (using it for Pokemon Sword). Last night i played Tetris 99 (from the Switch Online)

This morning, I noticed I was banned. Called up Nintendo and they said that it was for using pirated software.

Heres the interesting part:
They said they could reverse the ban if I sent in my switch with the games I played recently and they could determine the ban was a mistake? I plan to do this as there's nothing much to lose. Not like they can confiscate my shit. The only thing that could possibly tick them off is a mismatch in play time between my switch profile and the save files? However this could be a result of clearing play data I assume?

My question is, has anyone ever been asked by Nintendo to do this and has anyone tried? what happened?

Well, when you restore a NAND backup, don't the saves automatically get restored as a result? So if that's the case, why did you restore your saves using checkpoint? Was it to keep your progress up to date?

 

[Kingfield]

Well, when you restore a NAND backup, don't the saves automatically get restored as a result? So if that's the case, why did you restore your saves using checkpoint? Was it to keep your progress up to date?

Yeah - exactly was to keep my progress. Didn't wanna lose progress and based on most anecdotes from other people, they all said they did the same thing without getting banned so thought I'd take the risk (couldn't find a single example where someone said they got banned for ONLY restoring saves, and several occasions of people saying that they DIDN'T get banned for restoring saves).

Not sure if that's actually what triggered the ban, however. The ban was shortly after doing the following things for the first time on the clean NAND (the night before):

1. Udpating my Mii and profile picture (surely this can't be it, unless it somehow triggered identifying the play time mismatch)
2. Playing Tetris 99(?) which could be the culprit since I downloaded this - maybe it's somehow been mistakenly identified as the 'pirated' game?

 

[wurstpistole]

Heres the interesting part:
They said they could reverse the ban if I sent in my switch with the games I played recently and they could determine the ban was a mistake? I plan to do this as there's nothing much to lose.

If you send that unit in, they'll patch it and there goes your hackable switch.

 

[Paulsar99]

I wonder are those save files from pirated nsp games? Most likely you synced your saves on your account from games you didn't bought and it got detected by nintendo.

 

[Chocola]

@Kingfield If they are asking for your recent activity, it's because they see that you play shared nsp or xci, they can trace easy the shared images because it have the same certs and are running on multiple devices at same time.

If you send your unit, they gona replace the motherboard and ipatch it, so say bye to CFW and scene stuff waiting for new exploits for ipatched units.

Before emuMMC have relased, I use the backup and restore method always offline to switch on OFW and CFW, they never ban me, but I never play pirated games and never restore anything (including saves) on OFW.

I agree with @Unleanone999, probably you restore save of a pirated game and they see it when your Switch sync the data, as I said before, they trace and blacklist all shared certs.

 

[eyeliner]

You tampered with saves from online games, bro.
Not really rocket science, here.

They detected a mismatch, and did what they usually do.

 

[linuxares]

Dude, Super Smash Bros and Let's Go are like ban traps if you modify the saves.
Plus they can see play time for your games. So you probably didn't meet the criteria...

So rip Switch online! Enjoy your banned Switch as it is.

 

[aarti]

Dude, Super Smash Bros and Let's Go are like ban traps if you modify the saves.
Plus they can see play time for your games. So you probably didn't meet the criteria...

So rip Switch online! Enjoy your banned Switch as it is.

What about Sword/Shield?

 

[Chocola]

What about Sword/Shield?

Same I think, Pokemon Sword/Shield are peering whole time when you come online, but have one thing different, isn't compatible with Switch Online Cloud Save.

 

[linuxares]

What about Sword/Shield?

General rule, if you touch any of the bigger games with online. You will enjoy a ban.
The pokemon series is known to have anti-tamper on Pokemons because of cheating. So restoring a save is very dumb to do, even if it's legit.

 

[Kingfield]

If you send that unit in, they'll patch it and there goes your hackable switch.

Yeah, you're right. After doing a bit more research looks like that's the case and in that case I guess I'll just leave it offline. On the bright side I guess I can go ham in relation to hacking pokemon, etc. and save a hell of a lot of time on breeding for or tryna farm the Pokemon that I wanted, and just trade it over to a clean switch after that - could be many many more hours saved in the long run... but don't know if its worth shelling out that much money just to play switch online these days as I'm getting old.

Would've just been interested to know what actually identified the ban. How savefiles have worked (or at least in the majority of cases) don't actually identify anything from the game itself (or system details etc.) so it's just a bit surprising if this is the cause (the game itself keeping a record of the system when it has been played)? I mean the system keeps that kind of information but savefiles as far as I know just relate to the internal game itself.

 

[aarti]

Same I think, Pokemon Sword/Shield are peering whole time when you come online.

Damn, was thinking of using pkhex with the save from the NAND backup to get a 6*31DV ditto ._.

 

[Kingfield]

Dude, Super Smash Bros and Let's Go are like ban traps if you modify the saves.
Plus they can see play time for your games. So you probably didn't meet the criteria...

So rip Switch online! Enjoy your banned Switch as it is.

For anyone interested or wanting more information - IF it was a save issue - 99% chance it was SSBU (as this was being backed up to the save cloud).

I was just interested since the reason they gave me when they called was that I was "playing pirated ROMs" which I am 100% sure there should be no record of.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Damn, was thinking of using pkhex with the save from the NAND backup to get a 6*31DV ditto ._.

This is literally what I will do for sure (assuming I end up getting another switch), but trading with the banned switch.

TBH I don't think that modding save files using pkhex would be that dangerous. As I mentinoed above, SSBU uploaded a save file to the cloud but since sword and shield doesn't support that then I find it even more unlikely that they would scour your game for a hacked Pokemon and ban you based on that. (And how would they distinguish trading somebody versus modifying the save yourself? That's a very high level of granularity to go into for monitoring saves..)

 

[Chocola]

Damn, was thinking of using pkhex with the save from the NAND backup to get a 6*31DV ditto ._.

I don't know the risk of this because I hate the cheats and save mod tools, but I think the most safe way (but can't trust the totally safe of this) it's modify the save with a banned Switch and trade on local with your legit Switch.

With these method they can't ban you I guess, you can't verify if the pokemons that you trade with others are legit and they can't say that you have your Switch hacked because you don't modify anything with your console

 

[linuxares]

They might be able to see SXOS for all we know. Since 9.X they added new cartridge firmware, so who knows?

 

[Chocola]

For anyone interested or wanting more information - IF it was a save issue - 99% chance it was SSBU (as this was being backed up to the save cloud).

I was just interested since the reason they gave me when they called was that I was "playing pirated ROMs" which I am 100% sure there should be no record of.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------


This is literally what I will do for sure (assuming I end up getting another switch), but trading with the banned switch.

TBH I don't think that modding save files using pkhex would be that dangerous. As I mentinoed above, SSBU uploaded a save file to the cloud but since sword and shield doesn't support that then I find it even more unlikely that they would scour your game for a hacked Pokemon and ban you based on that. (And how would they distinguish trading somebody versus modifying the save yourself? That's a very high level of granularity to go into for monitoring saves..)

The save of Pokemon aren't hadled by Switch Cloud Save (atleast for now) correct, but I think that Game Freak have their own anticheats system, Game Freak it's a big company that always work with N hand by hand, so it's possible that they can send the data to N and ban your Switch.

Honestly, I don't recomend edit the Pokemon save on a legit and connected to Internet unit.

 

[Kingfield]

The save of Pokemon aren't hadled by Switch Cloud Save (atleast for now) correct, but I think that Game Freak have their own anticheats system, Game Freak it's a big company that always work with N hand by hand, so it's possible that they can send the data to N and ban your Switch.

Honestly, I don't recomend edit the Pokemon save on a legit and connected to Internet unit.

Oh yes agreed. not saying that its guaranteed to be safe by any means, but just saying im 99% sure that in my case if the ban was regarding a save file, it would have been because the save file in the cloud got scrubbed