Hacking SWITCH NOOB PARADISE - Ask questions here

[Chaosta]

I had a hacked switch that was lying around that I used to play old games on retroarch and PFBA, and when the Grand Theft Auto trilogy came out, I wanted to see if I could get it to work.

It is running OF 9.1.0, and was running a really old version of Atmosphere. I was able to successfully update Atmosphere to version 1.2.6 and update all the sigpatches to get my Nintendo Switch games to work with the exception of Smash Brothers, which I think is not working because I installed game updates before I updated Atmosphere.

None of my homebrews were working, so I updated retroarch to the latest version and tried opening retroarch using hb using the game + R method, and now I can get retroarch to work, but tinfoil, PFBA, and none of my other homebrew apps will open. My questions are:

1. Do you know what I have to do to get tinfoil to work?
2. Do I need to update all of my homebrew apps, including PFBA, in order to get them to work on Atmosphere 1.2.6?
3. Is there a repository somewhere of all current homebrew apps that will run on Atmosphere 1.2.6 that I can download externally, or do I have to set up an app on the switch to download current homebrew apps?

Any assistance anyone might be able to provide would be greatly appreciated!

View attachment 298174

update your fw for one. no reason to be on 9.1.0.
copy contents folder and any configs you use to your desktop. delete atmosphere folder, drag new atmosphere to sd, drag sigpatches, latest hbmenu. hekate stuff to sd.
if you have forwarders, you might need to remake them.

 

[impeeza]

I had a hacked switch that was lying around that I used to play old games on retroarch and PFBA, and when the Grand Theft Auto trilogy came out, I wanted to see if I could get it to work.

It is running OF 9.1.0, and was running a really old version of Atmosphere. I was able to successfully update Atmosphere to version 1.2.6 and update all the sigpatches to get my Nintendo Switch games to work with the exception of Smash Brothers, which I think is not working because I installed game updates before I updated Atmosphere.

None of my homebrews were working, so I updated retroarch to the latest version and tried opening retroarch using hb using the game + R method, and now I can get retroarch to work, but tinfoil, PFBA, and none of my other homebrew apps will open. My questions are:

1. Do you know what I have to do to get tinfoil to work?
2. Do I need to update all of my homebrew apps, including PFBA, in order to get them to work on Atmosphere 1.2.6?
3. Is there a repository somewhere of all current homebrew apps that will run on Atmosphere 1.2.6 that I can download externally, or do I have to set up an app on the switch to download current homebrew apps?

Any assistance anyone might be able to provide would be greatly appreciated!

View attachment 298174

You are missing the sigpatches

 

[shiverz]

Thank you for such a prompt response. Now I get the error while loading fss0:atmosphere/fusee-secondary.bin

I recall i can change where its pointed in hekate_ipl.ini but which bin should I have it directed to?

 

[Draxzelex]

Thank you for such a prompt response. Now I get the error while loading fss0:atmosphere/fusee-secondary.bin

I recall i can change where its pointed in hekate_ipl.ini but which bin should I have it directed to?

Fusee-secondary.bin was changed to package3. Go into your hekate_ipl.ini file and update all instances of fusee-secondary.bin to package3

 

[impeeza]

Thank you for such a prompt response. Now I get the error while loading fss0:atmosphere/fusee-secondary.bin

I recall i can change where its pointed in hekate_ipl.ini but which bin should I have it directed to?

as stated by draxzelex you need to edit your hekate_ipl.ini and change fusee-secondary.bin for package3 on it.

 

[blaisedinsd]

How would I change the override_config.ini so that my album opens up by default and I am required to hold a bumper when entering the album to do homebrew.

 

[Pantonio3]

Thank you all for the prompt responses.

I am definitely not missing the sigpatches, I made sure that I had loaded the newest sigpatches. I want to be able to run Tinfoil so that I can use the shop QuotaShare to download games. I am not sure why pFBA or Tinfoil aren't running but retroarch is. All my Nintendo Switch games are running fine, for some reason just some of the homebrew apps are not.

There is a post with the title "RetroArch and pFBA: Error 2144-0001 (0x290)" that kind of describes my issue. This post kind of describes my issue, but it seems that this poster was able to get their issue resolved - I still cannot load pFBA or Tinfoil, I have all the latest sigpatches and latest version of Atmosphere. I don't want to upgrade to the latest firmware until I can get things working they are right now because I am worried that upgrading to the newest firmware will break more things than it will fix.

 

[Aldorable]

Got my switch from my friends, and i accidentally update my mariko switch ofw to the latest and i cant boot to the cfw, so i try to upgrade my hekate and atmosphere, and i try to enter rcm, succeeded entering rcm, but now i cannot send payload to my switch, my laptop cannot detect my switch, so i try to send it with my phone, got detected but cannot read device id.

Now my switch still in rcm with blackscreen, anyone got solution to turn on my switch?

 

[binkinator]

How would I change the override_config.ini so that my album opens up by default and I am required to hold a bumper when entering the album to do homebrew.

you are describing exactly how I have mine set up:
Remove the !
A ! means NOT

 

[binkinator]

Hello I'm a new to homebrew development and i have already set up devkit pro and i am able to make simple command line programs in c. But i want to be able to make a program with a UI, and i am having trouble trying to use borealis for c++ programming.

I have downloaded the source code to a directory and installed glfw, mesa, and glm and all other prerequisites through msys2.

I'm trying to compile the demo and then work from there, but when i run "make -j" to compile for switch, it throws errors at me saying that there is no such file or directory as GLFW/glfw3.h.

And when i run "meson build" to build for windows it says cmake was not found and glfw3 was not found.

I don't know how to set up the demo to work properly, do I need to make the borealis library a system variable? How can I compile the demo properly cuz the readme doesn't help me at all.

I need help getting the demo to work and from there i can finally making a homebrew application.

I have bad news. I wasn’t able to duplicate your issue. It almost dropped right in.

The only issues I had was missing headers
# include <optional>
and a deprecated keybd command that all worked once resolved.



How did you install glfw, glm and mesa? pacman -S?

It feels like your missing headers are due to the way the packages were installed.

 

[miash]

Hello there, ultra noob here with switch hacking, I have a few questions.

I do have a v2 switch, but would really like to have a v1 that I can hack. When looking on ebay, I can find them them, then compare the serial number to the 'is my switch patched' site. Is that all thats needed? Would it matter what version of firmware is installed on the switch?

Realistically, I would want the v1 switch only to dump physical carts I own, and hopefully my digital purchases to play on yuzu. WIth something like the new mario kart 8 booster packs, is this possible? Like can I dump this dlc (when it comes out) and have it run on yuzu? I just wasnt sure exactly how that worked.

Also, with regard to digital purchases, if I get a v1 switch, would I just log in to my nintendo account and download my purchases/updates then dump them? Or is it not that straightforward? Like could my account then get banned? There just seems to be alot more to this then when used the browser hack on my wii u to dump my games for cemu.

I have alot more questions, but these will do for now, thanks for reading.

 

[gukingofheart]

[01# Inf Health]
040A0000 0326C108 00000001

[Inf Health (off)]
040A0000 0326C108 00000000

^ Got search tips on how to get this same result? I am using the "SX Cheat Code Tool", but these codes feel like they used a different search method.

 

[binkinator]

Hello there, ultra noob here with switch hacking, I have a few questions.

I do have a v2 switch, but would really like to have a v1 that I can hack. When looking on ebay, I can find them them, then compare the serial number to the 'is my switch patched' site. Is that all thats needed? Would it matter what version of firmware is installed on the switch?

thats all you need. Firmware version is irrelevant on a V1. its a hardware exploit and is forever unpatchable.

Realistically, I would want the v1 switch only to dump physical carts I own, and hopefully my digital purchases to play on yuzu. WIth something like the new mario kart 8 booster packs, is this possible? Like can I dump this dlc (when it comes out) and have it run on yuzu? I just wasnt sure exactly how that worked.

Switch has pretty much been cracked wide open. Anything you can install can be dumped. I won’t vouch for everything’s compatibility with Yuzu but I hear really good things.

Also, with regard to digital purchases, if I get a v1 switch, would I just log in to my nintendo account and download my purchases/updates then dump them? Or is it not that straightforward? Like could my account then get banned? There just seems to be alot more to this then when used the browser hack on my wii u to dump my games for cemu.

Not exactly. Games are stored on your switch. You don’t log into your Nintendo account. You would dump the content of your switch storage. To shorten the process and reduce complexity, most of the content dumps have already been done for you in the form of .nsp and .xci files. These dumps are typically found in the shops or straight downloads/torrents from various sites. No Nintendo account involved. Heck if you’re using Yazu, you could skip the V1 altogether.

Bans are another topic and there is a sticky’d thread where you can dive deep into what is more or less likely to earn you a ban of your Switch hardware from accessing Nintendo resources. It’s rare that your account would be banned unless you are doing credit card fraud or something big and direct like that.

I have alot more questions, but these will do for now, thanks for reading.

Good deal. Lots of information to be found here. Read read read and anything that doesn’t make sense…ask away.

 

[binkinator]

Thank you all for the prompt responses.

I am definitely not missing the sigpatches, I made sure that I had loaded the newest sigpatches. I want to be able to run Tinfoil so that I can use the shop QuotaShare to download games. I am not sure why pFBA or Tinfoil aren't running but retroarch is. All my Nintendo Switch games are running fine, for some reason just some of the homebrew apps are not.

There is a post with the title "RetroArch and pFBA: Error 2144-0001 (0x290)" that kind of describes my issue. This post kind of describes my issue, but it seems that this poster was able to get their issue resolved - I still cannot load pFBA or Tinfoil, I have all the latest sigpatches and latest version of Atmosphere. I don't want to upgrade to the latest firmware until I can get things working they are right now because I am worried that upgrading to the newest firmware will break more things than it will fix.

if all your other games work you are potentially good with your setup. Have you tried deleting Tinfoil and reinstalling?

 

[ngoctung91]

I’m not aware of any that would move your games around that would require moving less data than just reinstalling from scratch.

1) Use JKSV on source switch to backup your unique game saves.
2) Reinstall games on target switch and then copy and restore previous game saves with JKSV on new switch.

You still have to reinstall legit or not, even if you are legit if you transfer your profile you still need to reinstall your games.

Thank guys, I reinstalled all the games. There is no other way indeed.

 

[oli200110]

appreciate you humoring me. That was my long shot.

at this point I have to concede @Draxzelex had it right the first time. I hope you’re able to use the thread he sent to recover some games off the corrupted card before you reformat.

You were right! I managed to reach my files @Draxzelex's way, but using NXNandManager to read my files on the SD card's partition.
Everything is working fine now! Thank you!!
I have another question though: i backed up my precious save files from the USER partition using NxNandManager's WIP "Explore partition" feature before formatting my card again.
However, after some research i realized all of them might be "unsigned" if i'm not mistaken, as the files' names are just ascending hex numbers, without any other data.

So my question is: can i somehow re-sign them (or do i even need to do that) to get them working with a save editor like Checkpoint for example? Or what should i do in order to successfully have them again on my newly reformatted sd card?

I'll attach pictures below so you can see the situation.
I backed them up in two ways: just the savefiles extracted from the folders, and the other way was just simply getting a 1:1 copy of the 'save' and 'saveMeta' folders from the USER partition.

I'd appriciate any kind of help!!!! Thank you so much!!

 

[Draxzelex]

You were right! I managed to reach my files @Draxzelex's way, but using NXNandManager to read my files on the SD card's partition.
Everything is working fine now! Thank you!!
I have another question though: i backed up my precious save files from the USER partition using NxNandManager's WIP "Explore partition" feature before formatting my card again.
However, after some research i realized all of them might be "unsigned" if i'm not mistaken, as the files' names are just ascending hex numbers, without any other data.

So my question is: can i somehow re-sign them (or do i even need to do that) to get them working with a save editor like Checkpoint for example? Or what should i do in order to successfully have them again on my newly reformatted sd card?

I'll attach pictures below so you can see the situation.
I backed them up in two ways: just the savefiles extracted from the folders, and the other way was just simply getting a 1:1 copy of the 'save' and 'saveMeta' folders from the USER partition.

I'd appriciate any kind of help!!!! Thank you so much!!

This is the tricky part that may involve some trial & error. You don't need to sign them, you can just import the save data as files straight into the new USER partition. The issue here are the hex numbers. These are randomly assigned and generated per Switch console. However with a little bit of ingenuity, we can figure out which save file is which. The first thing you should do is run the games of the save data you want import at least once so there is already existing save data. Then open up the way you did, I guess in your case you used NXNandManager which is fine. What you're going to do is compare the sizes of the new save data that you created with the ones you backed up. If any of the sizes match, then you have found the correct save data for that title. From there, you will overwrite the save data you just created with the one you backed up. You'll rename the save data you backed up to match the file name of the recently created save data then replace it. Do this for all of your backed up save data and you're done.

 

[The-Nile]

I have bad news. I wasn’t able to duplicate your issue. It almost dropped right in.

The only issues I had was missing headers
# include <optional>
and a deprecated keybd command that all worked once resolved.



How did you install glfw, glm and mesa? pacman -S?

It feels like your missing headers are due to the way the packages were installed.

View attachment 298196

I got it!

i dont know why it wasnt able to find the header files so i manually copied them over to /borealis/library/include/

then i got that "swkbdConfigSetStringLenMaxExt(&config, 1);" isnt declared, so i remove Ext from it and now it finally compiled.

i used pacman -S switch-glfw switch-mesa switch-glm to install the packages so i dont think that was the issue. i still dont know why it couldnt find the header files.

 

[binkinator]

I got it!

i dont know why it wasnt able to find the header files so i manually copied them over to /borealis/library/include/

then i got that "swkbdConfigSetStringLenMaxExt(&config, 1);" isnt declared, so i remove Ext from it and now it finally compiled.

i used pacman -S switch-glfw switch-mesa switch-glm to install the packages so i dont think that was the issue. i still dont know why it couldnt find the header files.

Awesome! From the threads I was reading it sounds like the main dev is taking a break so all the errata for newer libnx is in the PRs. Glad you hacked and slashed your way through!

 

[hyperfire21]

Are there any reliable OLED switch modchip installers in North America? Would like an estimate on how much this will cost.