Hacking Question about Switch Hack

phuongbag

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I am blind or smt but I can not find any tutorial post that have full dictionary about these.

1. What is emuNAND and SysNAND? SysNAND is like switch local hardware / disk? and emuNAND is like sdcard ?

2.a. go online with CFW will have high chance to get you ban? I am getting mixing feedback here. Like just install CFW (atmosphere) will get you ban even You do not install any NSP?

2.b. if I do not get ban cuz not install any pirate Game then what kind of mod / edit is save to do? like save file edit is safe for offline and semi online? (online game like SSBU and Splat 2 isnt safe ik it). Is there any possible list that games i can modify?

3. Edit save file with OFW and might not get you ban correct? Source threads: 541081 "Edit OFW clean Switch save data from NAND backup/restoring via Fusee Gelee payloads" (I can not post link since new account just search it in tutorial)

4. TLDR: as long as I do not have any pirate file and do not hack/cheat games I should be safe? or I will get ban just by having CFW go online?
 

wiiNinja

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If you want a more definitive answer, the true source is Nintendo. Just call/write them and ask. Other than that, you'll get different answers because different people have different experiences with getting banned. You'll have to absorb that information and make your own decisions on things. From your first question, I gathered that you are very new to this stuff. It's best to do some reading. Plenty of guides out there describing the info you're seeking; here's one, and here's another one, and another one.
 

The Real Jdbye

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I am blind or smt but I can not find any tutorial post that have full dictionary about these.

1. What is emuNAND and SysNAND? SysNAND is like switch local hardware / disk? and emuNAND is like sdcard ?

2.a. go online with CFW will have high chance to get you ban? I am getting mixing feedback here. Like just install CFW (atmosphere) will get you ban even You do not install any NSP?

2.b. if I do not get ban cuz not install any pirate Game then what kind of mod / edit is save to do? like save file edit is safe for offline and semi online? (online game like SSBU and Splat 2 isnt safe ik it). Is there any possible list that games i can modify?

3. Edit save file with OFW and might not get you ban correct? Source threads: 541081 "Edit OFW clean Switch save data from NAND backup/restoring via Fusee Gelee payloads" (I can not post link since new account just search it in tutorial)

4. TLDR: as long as I do not have any pirate file and do not hack/cheat games I should be safe? or I will get ban just by having CFW go online?
1. emuNAND is essentially a copy of your sysNAND (internal firmware) on the SD card that is completely isolated from your sysNAND so anything you do there can't be detected on or affect your sysNAND, the main benefit of this is being able to go online in legit games on sysNAND since none of the evidence that you are a CFW user is present on the sysNAND and once you take the SD card out it's as if the console was never hacked. Although they don't even check the SD card that is something they could choose to do in the future so to be 100% safe from bans use a separate SD card for legit or just take it out. But I personally don't bother with that and I'm still 99.999999% safe.

2a. It's not the CFW itself that will get you banned, it's what you do with it. If you have installed any nsps whether they're games or homebrew, the NAND is now tainted and you'll likely get banned. Homebrew can also taint the NAND depending on what they do, you generally want to avoid anything that writes to the NAND (save managers also count here, while the saves you injected with them aren't necessarily detectable as being anything abnormal if you use hacked/modded saves especially in online games that can very much be detectable.
Also if you have gone online in a game previously and you restore an older save and then go online again they might be able to detect the mismatched data suggesting that the save was rolled back which would be impossible without a hacked console)
Just CFW use by itself and even custom sysmodules currently doesn't carry much risk of ban because Nintendo don't check for them. But in theory they could push a new firmware update that checks for those things and by the time people realized and did something to stop it, it would be too late for a lot of people as they would already be flagged or banned.

It's best just to stick to emuNAND for all your CFW stuff, and keep your sysNAND in fully original state, never even booted CFW on it, as then there is no way you could mess anything up that leads to your ban unless you accidentally went online in emuNAND.

Which is why you have stuff like 90DNS (now DNs redirection built into Atmosphere, and enabled by default so you don't actually have to change anything, this basically blocks Nintendo servers so you can still use wifi in homebrew without the console calling back to Nintendo) or Incognito (now PRODINFO blanking also built into Atmosphere, enabled via exosphere.ini, this basically anonymizes your Switch so it will still try to connect but Nintendo's servers will not be able to recognize it and will simply refuse the connection, so it can't be linked back to your sysNAND).

You only need one or the other but it's a good idea to use both as it adds an extra layer of protection if something were to go wrong. For example if Nintendo adds new domains to the list the Switch tries to call home to and people don't realize in time and you update, then DNS redirection would not help you but the Switch would still be anonymized thanks to PRODINFO blanking so you would be safe. Or vice versa if you accidentally overwrite the exosphere.ini with the default while updating Atmosphere leading to PRODINFO blanking to be disabled, the console still wouldn't be able to connect to Nintendo servers because they are blocked by the DNS redirection. It's unlikely for both things to happen at the same time, and using both doesn't hurt anything, so best to use both.

2b) I said in 2a that save managers are best avoided on sysNAND but the actual chance of getting banned by modifying saves in offline games is pretty miniscule. It's just not worth taking the chance when you could just be playing those offline games on your emuNAND and not have to worry about the risk,, however small it is. If they are offline anyway you lose nothing by playing them on emuNAND. When it comes to online games though, there was a big ban wave recently over modified saves so that is something they can and do check in online games, although I don't know if there are only specific games they check that on, and exactly what they check for, only Nintendo knows that. So you might get away with modifying a save and playing online with it, but there's too much uncertainty, I can't really say with any confidence what the risk of getting banned if you do this is, I can only say that there is a definite risk and getting banned over modified saves is something that does actually happen.
Splatoon would definitely be one of the games where Nintendo actually cares more about cheaters - it's one of the only games on the Wii U where people actually got banned for modified saves. Nintendo cares more about that in Splatoon because it's so online focused. In Smash you're generally not doing anything with a save manager other than unlocking content which you could otherwise obtain, so it might be reasonably hard for Nintendo to tell that a save is modified. And to name a couple others. For Pokemon it's really obvious if you make a Pokemon that is "illegal" that you have either modified your save or traded locally with someone that has (online trades don't allow illegal mons), if you know what you are doing that means you can probably avoid bans if you don't make any dumb mistakes. And for Mario Kart, again there's not much you can do with save editing other than unlock everything and give yourself fake 3 star ratings on every track but that isn't something Nintendo would probably be able to tell the difference between legit and not, since the data is effectively the same.
But overall, if you care about not being banned just don't use save managers on your sysNAND. If you absolutely need save editing do it on your emuNAND where you are isolated from Nintendo servers and can't do any harm and avoid using it on online games altogether.

3) Covered pretty well above already

4) You'll probably be safe, but there's no way anyone can 100% guarantee that, Nintendo could push an update tomorrow that makes it detect if CFW is running and it could take days for the check to be spotted and removed, by which point the damage is already done, some people are in a rush to update and do so without checking if the update is fully working and compatible yet.
 
Last edited by The Real Jdbye,

phuongbag

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1. emuNAND is essentially a copy of your sysNAND (internal firmware) on the SD card that is completely isolated from your sysNAND so anything you do there can't be detected on or affect your sysNAND, the main benefit of this is being able to go online in legit games on sysNAND since none of the evidence that you are a CFW user is present on the sysNAND and once you take the SD card out it's as if the console was never hacked. Although they don't even check the SD card that is something they could choose to do in the future so to be 100% safe from bans use a separate SD card for legit or just take it out. But I personally don't bother with that and I'm still 99.999999% safe.

2a. It's not the CFW itself that will get you banned, it's what you do with it. If you have installed any nsps whether they're games or homebrew, the NAND is now tainted and you'll likely get banned. Homebrew can also taint the NAND depending on what they do, you generally want to avoid anything that writes to the NAND (save managers also count here, while the saves you injected with them aren't necessarily detectable as being anything abnormal if you use hacked/modded saves especially in online games that can very much be detectable.
Also if you have gone online in a game previously and you restore an older save and then go online again they might be able to detect the mismatched data suggesting that the save was rolled back which would be impossible without a hacked console)
Just CFW use by itself and even custom sysmodules currently doesn't carry much risk of ban because Nintendo don't check for them. But in theory they could push a new firmware update that checks for those things and by the time people realized and did something to stop it, it would be too late for a lot of people as they would already be flagged or banned.

It's best just to stick to emuNAND for all your CFW stuff, and keep your sysNAND in fully original state, never even booted CFW on it, as then there is no way you could mess anything up that leads to your ban unless you accidentally went online in emuNAND.

Which is why you have stuff like 90DNS (now DNs redirection built into Atmosphere, and enabled by default so you don't actually have to change anything, this basically blocks Nintendo servers so you can still use wifi in homebrew without the console calling back to Nintendo) or Incognito (now PRODINFO blanking also built into Atmosphere, enabled via exosphere.ini, this basically anonymizes your Switch so it will still try to connect but Nintendo's servers will not be able to recognize it and will simply refuse the connection, so it can't be linked back to your sysNAND).

You only need one or the other but it's a good idea to use both as it adds an extra layer of protection if something were to go wrong. For example if Nintendo adds new domains to the list the Switch tries to call home to and people don't realize in time and you update, then DNS redirection would not help you but the Switch would still be anonymized thanks to PRODINFO blanking so you would be safe. Or vice versa if you accidentally overwrite the exosphere.ini with the default while updating Atmosphere leading to PRODINFO blanking to be disabled, the console still wouldn't be able to connect to Nintendo servers because they are blocked by the DNS redirection. It's unlikely for both things to happen at the same time, and using both doesn't hurt anything, so best to use both.

2b) I said in 2a that save managers are best avoided on sysNAND but the actual chance of getting banned by modifying saves in offline games is pretty miniscule. It's just not worth taking the chance when you could just be playing those offline games on your emuNAND and not have to worry about the risk,, however small it is. If they are offline anyway you lose nothing by playing them on emuNAND. When it comes to online games though, there was a big ban wave recently over modified saves so that is something they can and do check in online games, although I don't know if there are only specific games they check that on, and exactly what they check for, only Nintendo knows that. So you might get away with modifying a save and playing online with it, but there's too much uncertainty, I can't really say with any confidence what the risk of getting banned if you do this is, I can only say that there is a definite risk and getting banned over modified saves is something that does actually happen.
Splatoon would definitely be one of the games where Nintendo actually cares more about cheaters - it's one of the only games on the Wii U where people actually got banned for modified saves. Nintendo cares more about that in Splatoon because it's so online focused. In Smash you're generally not doing anything with a save manager other than unlocking content which you could otherwise obtain, so it might be reasonably hard for Nintendo to tell that a save is modified. And to name a couple others. For Pokemon it's really obvious if you make a Pokemon that is "illegal" that you have either modified your save or traded locally with someone that has (online trades don't allow illegal mons), if you know what you are doing that means you can probably avoid bans if you don't make any dumb mistakes. And for Mario Kart, again there's not much you can do with save editing other than unlock everything and give yourself fake 3 star ratings on every track but that isn't something Nintendo would probably be able to tell the difference between legit and not, since the data is effectively the same.
But overall, if you care about not being banned just don't use save managers on your sysNAND. If you absolutely need save editing do it on your emuNAND where you are isolated from Nintendo servers and can't do any harm and avoid using it on online games altogether.

3) Covered pretty well above already

4) You'll probably be safe, but there's no way anyone can 100% guarantee that, Nintendo could push an update tomorrow that makes it detect if CFW is running and it could take days for the check to be spotted and removed, by which point the damage is already done, some people are in a rush to update and do so without checking if the update is fully working and compatible yet.
Thank you very helpful. But is there any case that player get ban while edit save file in semi-online games? like ACNH or Pokemon (assume only legal stuff / mons that currently available)

Like if I go battle online with friend with those mons (legal / should be able to get in the game / from save editor) then I should be fine?

Or I play online with friend in ACNH will be fine right?

Thank you. I can not find a lot of post about these kind of semi-online and save editor. Just want to learn about it before do it.
 

MK73DS

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It's not the CFW itself that will get you banned, it's what you do with it. If you have installed any nsps whether they're games or homebrew, the NAND is now tainted and you'll likely get banned. Homebrew can also taint the NAND depending on what they do, you generally want to avoid anything that writes to the NAND (save managers also count here, while the saves you injected with them aren't necessarily detectable as being anything abnormal if you use hacked/modded saves especially in online games that can very much be detectable.

First, thank you for that detailed answer. I have a question about this part. I have the new dock for my Switch, which is now always connected to the internet while docked. I'm using CFW only for overclock and graphics mods for offline games (mainly 60fps patches and/or resolution bump). This doesn't tamper with the NAND as far as I know, so will I get banned if I go online with my Switch ?
And if yes, will my account be banned or only my hardware ? I have the same Nintendo account on my regular and OLED Switch so I can transfer (locally) save files.

Thank you very much !
 

The Real Jdbye

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Thank you very helpful. But is there any case that player get ban while edit save file in semi-online games? like ACNH or Pokemon (assume only legal stuff / mons that currently available)

Like if I go battle online with friend with those mons (legal / should be able to get in the game / from save editor) then I should be fine?

Or I play online with friend in ACNH will be fine right?

Thank you. I can not find a lot of post about these kind of semi-online and save editor. Just want to learn about it before do it.
I can't say for sure, but I wouldn't risk it.
First, thank you for that detailed answer. I have a question about this part. I have the new dock for my Switch, which is now always connected to the internet while docked. I'm using CFW only for overclock and graphics mods for offline games (mainly 60fps patches and/or resolution bump). This doesn't tamper with the NAND as far as I know, so will I get banned if I go online with my Switch ?
And if yes, will my account be banned or only my hardware ? I have the same Nintendo account on my regular and OLED Switch so I can transfer (locally) save files.

Thank you very much !
Don't 60 FPS patches etc. require modifying the game files? I would think that would be something Nintendo would potentially be able to detect.
Usually account doesn't get banned.
 

phuongbag

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I can't say for sure, but I wouldn't risk it.

Don't 60 FPS patches etc. require modifying the game files? I would think that would be something Nintendo would potentially be able to detect.
Usually account doesn't get banned.
@The Real Jdbye So my switch currently updated lastest OFW is it able to check RCM ? or I need to have a switch at X version :v I am confusing when reading guide.
 

pcwizard7

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I can't say for sure, but I wouldn't risk it.

Don't 60 FPS patches etc. require modifying the game files? I would think that would be something Nintendo would potentially be able to detect.
Usually account doesn't get banned.

I wouldn't use any mods for online games and should be use with games on your emunand that should remain offliceline

you can setup a host file for your emunand, so it will block all Nintendo server, but you still be able to access local network and Internet things
 

MK73DS

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Don't 60 FPS patches etc. require modifying the game files? I would think that would be something Nintendo would potentially be able to detect.
From what I understand, Atmosphere dynamically loads the patch when needed, without modifying any file in the NAND (plus my games are all on cartridge which are read only). It's more like a redirection, if the game asks for folder/file, Atmosphere intercepts
it and gives the patched one from my SD card instead. At least, that what I understand from patches in atmosphere.

Usually account doesn't get banned.

That's a relief, I actually don't mind my original switch to be banned now that I have my OLED one, I just want to keep the same account to transfer saves between them. Thanks.
 

The Real Jdbye

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From what I understand, Atmosphere dynamically loads the patch when needed, without modifying any file in the NAND (plus my games are all on cartridge which are read only). It's more like a redirection, if the game asks for folder/file, Atmosphere intercepts
it and gives the patched one from my SD card instead. At least, that what I understand from patches in atmosphere.



That's a relief, I actually don't mind my original switch to be banned now that I have my OLED one, I just want to keep the same account to transfer saves between them. Thanks.
I know, but it would not be hard to tell that the files don't match what is expected. I guess Nintendo maybe don't check, but it would be very easy to check, that's something they might do for online games.
 

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