Hacking 11.0.1 firmware and still no SXOS update

[Elliander]

Nintendo can detect CFW, SciresM went in to detail about it during one of his reverse engineering streams.

Well then, it's a good thing I never let my Switch sysNAND touch CFW. And I've been careful to only update officially, even when keeping the offline ones offline.

don't think French precedents would help in the US because they did successfully sue Max elsewhere but just failed in France.

Yeah, a French precedent wouldn't help. An English one might if it was somehow based on laws that predate the United States though. (believe it or not, that occasionally happens) Of course, the most relevant cases would be in regards to Sony vs Connectix. What makes Sony vs Connectix relevant is that Bleem! had the ability to allow users to play backed up games as ISO files, but it's primary use case was to allow physical discs to work on a PC or Mac so it's a bit different. The case example of EA reverse engineering the Sega Genesis and threatening to release their own license program might help, except that as far as I know that was never handled by the courts so there wouldn't have been a court precedent to lean on. The closest real cases that could come close to that would be one of the many IBM vs Microsoft cases. Remember that, originally, the IBM was the only PC and IBM did NOT like having competition on it's hardware.

As for arguing that the intended use of SX hardware is to enable user software, I think that point is moot because TX straight up embeded keys in SXOS. Sure the intention might be to enable user software but that doesn't change the fact that they included illegal numbers.

I would have to agree with you there. Since SXOS does use Nintendo's own copyrighted code - whereas Bleem! did not use any copyrighted code in it's final product it probably wouldn't survive on that count even IF most of it's users would shown to only use backups. The SX Core, in contrast, is a new piece of hardware that can do much more than run SXOS and could stand on it's own as a competing physical product. If the arrested members tried to focus on that angle it would probably make a difference. If the courts struck that hardware down it would set a very bad precedent overall.

One possible argument that they might be able to use is that they didn't know their devs were embeding keys since based on what little I know about TX their development teams are quite isolated, but I don't know if that would hold up in court.

That's actually a really good idea, and there are legal precedents to support such arguments. As a business owner myself, if someone I employed broke a law and I could establish that I didn't know they did so I could evade personal responsibility. The company would still have to pay damages in civil matters, or fines in criminal matters, but I'd avoid going to jail because in order for a crime to occur the act and the intent must coincide.

In this case, since the ones arrested were PR people, such an argument could go very well for them. Especially since their own forums have clear rules against linking to or even talking about piracy. These people could adamantly state that they do not believe any copyrighted code was used and that they do not support piracy in any way - only legal backups of software that people paid for - and then point out how their new hardware allows for an alternate OS to be installed to run instead of Nintendo. They could then cite cases that verified the legality of rooting phones to install software that users want installed even if smartphone makers don't like it and explain how similar the Nintendo Switch is to a Smartphone.

So now the only way i can play my backups is using atmosphere? no sign of sx os to give an update?

I mean, you can still use SXOS, you just won't be able to update beyond 11.0.0 unless and until they release an update supporting it.

on the latest firmware, I believe so. I don't think atmosphere was deterred by the arrests, but once Nintendo started interfering with their money by suing resellers, that's when things got serious.

Yes, that is the problem. With stores vanishing they are unable to sell product and if they cannot sell product they have no profit motive to release updates. If they release updates at all it would be at a reduced frequency unless they can find another way to sell their products.

They should consider alternate methods of raising money. One idea would be to allow people to purchase licenses directly from them. There are, for example, companies that will sell a product for Bitcoin or Dashcoin where once you send a set amount the transaction automatically completes. They could do something similar which would allow them to at least sell licenses which could be used with alternate methods of payload injection. Then they could sell their hardware under a different brand to get it back out there.

An easier approach would be to shift to the crowd funding route. Rather than selling the license files, require that each update requires X dollars to have been raised before it will be worked on. Since the updates are paid for by new sales under the current model, shifting in that direction would allow them to be paid for the work they do rather than how much is sold.

lucky me i have a sx pro dongle, so i have a way to move to atmosphere with more ease

Yeah, it can be used for that. Of course, anyone who wants to use a new dongle for SXOS will need to do so before their websites shut down because if that happens you won't be able to. So, in my case, I have 4 Switches and 4 dongles. Only two of the dongles have ever been used. I found one of the others still sealed, still looking for the 4th. I wasn't planning on using them on the two "online Switches" until after a Switch Pro came out. My plan then was to buy two pros and turn those online ones into offline ones. I may have to step that up though, and if I can't find my 4th dongle I will have to find a place to buy a 4th license. I could then just dump the nand on the online ones, then after setting of the emuNAND restore the NAND so they will never have touched CFW.

 

[bostonBC]

Completely unnecessary. You can just install the XCIs with Tinfoil and be done with it.

Absolutely and it works nicely. Just a PITA to have to install the games before running them. Was the big selling point for SX OS for me.

But super glad the Atmosphere folks keep updating. Hopefully Nintendo won't shut them down.

 

[wurstpistole]

But super glad the Atmosphere folks keep updating. Hopefully Nintendo won't shut them down.

They can't. CFW that allows homebrew is not illegal unless it needs copyrighted material to run. SX included Nintendo's keys in their CFW. Atmosphere derives them from the console on the fly. The piece of software that is Atmosphere contains nothing illegal that Nintendo could use to shut it down. I'm pretty sure they already would have done so if it was possible.

 

[Agusto101]

Press f for sx os

 

[iKing_PR]

TX's future is uncertain due to their legal issues, and they haven't issued an update for 11.0.1 (a very minor update) in quite a long time. It is recommended that you at least explore migrating to Atmosphere at this point.

the thing is that im not a pro on moving or hacking "stuff" Ive alway used the sx dongle so I can play, also my switch is banned and now this happened....Idk what to do tried to play hyrule warriors when the update automatically pop up and now I only get black screen whenever I put the dongle...also I saw an tutorial on how to downgrade but its really tedious for me sorry for being a noob but thats reality for me :/

 

[x3n0]

Migrate to Atmosphere

 

[Lacius]

the thing is that im not a pro on moving or hacking "stuff" Ive alway used the sx dongle so I can play, also my switch is banned and now this happened....Idk what to do tried to play hyrule warriors when the update automatically pop up and now I only get black screen whenever I put the dongle...also I saw an tutorial on how to downgrade but its really tedious for me sorry for being a noob but thats reality for me :/

You should switch to using Atmosphere. Alternatively, you can load Atmosphere and then use Daybreak to downgrade from 11.0.1 to 11.0.0.

 

[LucioDragon]

but using daybreak can kill your switch, downgrade always result in death

 

[Lacius]

but using daybreak can kill your switch, downgrade always result in death

That's not even close to true. A downgrade might not work properly without reinitializing the Switch, but with it being a minor downgrade from 11.0.1 to 11.0.0, the odds of that are near zero.

 

[Elliander]

SX included Nintendo's keys in their CFW. Atmosphere derives them from the console on the fly.

Out of curiosity, why couldn't SXOS do that? Or, alternatively, take a page out of the book of PC emulators and make the user responsible for providing their own keys, the way many emulators require a BIOS to function? Similar to how tools for converting NSP to XCI requires a keys.txt file? They could even have provided the tools in their boot menu to extract the keys from the Switch and onto the SD card. In such a scenario, if they could do it that way, there would be nothing Nintendo could do to stop them, right?

What would happen if the team that remains went that route, purging copyrighted keys from their software and updates and requiring users to find them on their own and add them to a keys.txt file? And, without those keys, it would still boot, but not play any backed up games only being useful for homebrew?

Such a scenario might make things marginally more difficult for the average user, but do you suppose it would get them out of their current legal issues and/or avoid new ones going forward?

 

[frostii]

but using daybreak can kill your switch, downgrade always result in death

I accidentally updated to 11.0.1... Switched over to Atmosphere, used Daybreak to go back to 11.0.0, switched back to SX OS.
Everything is working fine.
However, as more and more updates are requiring the latest FW to run, I've moved my library from xci to nsp in preparation for the eventual permanent move to Atmosphere.

 

[Adran_Marit]

but using daybreak can kill your switch, downgrade always result in death

I have never seen daybreak break a console, I've seen people brick their chipped consoles with choidujourNX but not daybreak, it's likey as @Lacius said and the console need to be initialized again

 

[Lacius]

I have never seen daybreak break a console, I've seen people brick their chipped consoles with choidujourNX but not daybreak, it's likey as @Lacius said and the console need to be initialized again

11.0.1 to 11.0.0 probably won't require a reinitialization, since the difference between them is so minor.

 

[volosgus]

Anyone has a link where I can download Atmosphere and instructions how to install it?

 

[linuxares]

Anyone has a link where I can download Atmosphere and instructions how to install it?

https://nh-server.github.io/switch-guide/

 

[DPyro]

Does the last update for immortals fenyx rising require 11.0.1?

 

[godreborn]

Does the last update for immortals fenyx rising require 11.0.1?

Dunno. Haven't seen a game require latest, but updates yes.

 

[iKing_PR]

Does SX Team still arrested? Doubt there would be an 3.1.1 update from them

 

[Elliander]

Their forum has been down for 2 days, which isn't a good sign, but the domain where you download their files from and activate license files still works at least.

Does SX Team still arrested? Doubt there would be an 3.1.1 update from them

The PR people being arrested doesn't in and of itself mean anything, but Nintendo going after the stores selling their product does. Then again, I read threads on their forum from retailers trying to buy, so they probably are trying to avoid direct communication for the time being. Personally, I am hoping they try going the route of just selling license files online for the time being so that they continue to have the profits neccessary to justify updates.

Does the last update for immortals fenyx rising require 11.0.1?

No. I have the official game cart and it works in my unmodded Switch on 11.0.0. However, I don't know which firmware is on the cart. I'm hoping the on cart firmware is 11.0.0 so that I can update the Switches officially after clearing the downloaded update files. (normally "Match Local Users" will work, but when jumping multiple versions I've had to use on cart updates in the past)

As a side note, even if a game later released for 11.0.1 can be patched to a lower version I don't know how we'd actually be able to rip the game on a lower firmware. When I put that game into an SXOS Switch on 10.0.1 it cannot rip the game at all.

_______
EDIT: Just wanted to add that the actual criminal charges the two members of Team Xecutor are facing are actually not related to piracy:

"Both men face severe prison time if convicted, including 20 years for each charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering, with up to five years for some of the lesser charges. No trial date has been set."

(My guess is that these are drummed up charges to hold them in custody under the "high flight risk" argument, since I don't see how any of these charges have anything to do with what they are trying to stop. Really, if they murdered a Nintendo CEO they'd be facing less time in prison, that's how crazy the charges are.)

The allegations of piracy are related to the lawsuit which Nintendo is filing. That's a civil matter, rather than a criminal one. It seems that the goal of Nintendo is to get an injunction filed against the sale of their new hard mods which would be neccessary for ANYONE to do any modding of any kind on newer Switch consoles and as such is a weaker argument based on legal precedents. I mean, if their hardware is illegal simply for making piracy possible so too is a DVD burner or a VHS copier.

They stand to make too much money on their hard mods to leave now which is why I don't really see them giving up. Unlike the situation with Gateway3DS, where the existence of free alternatives made things unprofitable.

 

[DPyro]

No. I have the official game cart and it works in my unmodded Switch on 11.0.0. However, I don't know which firmware is on the cart. I'm hoping the on cart firmware is 11.0.0 so that I can update the Switches officially after clearing the downloaded update files. (normally "Match Local Users" will work, but when jumping multiple versions I've had to use on cart updates in the past)

I mean I already have the game on emunand 11.0.0 but they released a new DLC which I'll eventually want to play and I think it needs the update to work.