Hi everyone, I've been troubleshooting a Switch that won't boot for a while and I'm running out of ideas. Detailed timeline below.
Console info:
How this started:
I had downloaded two games — Cuphead and Life is Strange Remastered — both via the Telegram bot "NSW Torrent Library." I only launched Life is Strange. It crashed twice. After the first crash I was able to power the console back on normally. After the second crash, the console has not booted since (current state).
Original problem:
Console doesn't boot into OFW or CFW — immediate black screen, no logo at all, on either. Hekate itself opens fine via RCM (menu works normally, RCM access is stable). While investigating possible causes, I found that Hekate was reporting it couldn't decrypt
New finding:
When trying to launch OFW, I now get:
Why I don't think this is a hardware issue:
Steps taken so far:
Current state:
Any guidance on what to check next would be hugely appreciated — especially regarding the pkg1 error specifically, since that seems like a more direct lead than what I was chasing with
Console info:
- Nintendo Switch V1, reconditioned unit, Erista board (original/pre-Mariko)
- Software-unlocked via RCM + jig + dongle (no modchip)
- Always used emuNAND setup, never ran CFW directly on sysNAND
- Package1 timestamp found in BOOT0:
20240808143957(Aug 8, 2024 firmware) - Firmware 22.5.0
How this started:
I had downloaded two games — Cuphead and Life is Strange Remastered — both via the Telegram bot "NSW Torrent Library." I only launched Life is Strange. It crashed twice. After the first crash I was able to power the console back on normally. After the second crash, the console has not booted since (current state).
Original problem:
Console doesn't boot into OFW or CFW — immediate black screen, no logo at all, on either. Hekate itself opens fine via RCM (menu works normally, RCM access is stable). While investigating possible causes, I found that Hekate was reporting it couldn't decrypt
pkg2 — since Package2 is a critical piece of the boot chain, I suspected this was the root cause and focused my investigation there.New finding:
When trying to launch OFW, I now get:
No mandatory pkg1 files provided! Failed to launch HOS!Why I don't think this is a hardware issue:
- Hekate reads all eMMC chip info correctly
- BootROM instructions/fuse info read correctly
- SD card is original, healthy, no bad sectors
- RCM access is fully stable, no intermittent failures
Steps taken so far:
- Ran all three levels of NandFixPro — none resolved the boot issue. Ran them in order 1→2→3, then re-ran Level 1 againafter Level 3 (read that some people needed to re-run Level 1 after Level 3) — didn't help either.
prodinfo.binandprod.keysused for Level 3 were both from my own console, but from different times:prodinfo.binfrom 2019 (shortly after first unlocking the console),prod.keysfrom 2025 (recently dumped).
- Also tried the
SystemRestoreV3.tescript in TegraExplorer — did not resolve the issue. - Extracted full backups (BOOT0, BOOT1, RAW GPP) via NxNandManager over USB, later also via a fresh dump directly through Hekate to SD.
prod.keysfreshly generated viaLockpick_RCMon-console — confirmed complete and loading correctly (verified againsthactool/hactoolnet, no missing critical keys).- Confirmed BOOT0 dump is genuine/intact (correct size 4MB, structured data, valid Package1 timestamp string found at expected offset).
- Initial attempts to decrypt
BCPKG2-1-Normal-Main.bin(and the other 5 copies) viahactool/hactoolnet -t pk21failed with "Package2 Header is corrupt!" /FindKeyGenerationfailure. - Investigated and found the extracted
BCPKG2files had the first0x4000bytes as zero padding, with real (non-zero) data only starting at offset0x4000. Consistent across both NxNandManager and TegraExplorer extractions. - EmmcHaccGen reproduced the exact same
0x4000 offsetwhen generating a fresh NAND image from stock OFW + these same keys — raising the possibility that this offset might be expected/by-design rather than an extraction bug (still unconfirmed). - As a test, trimmed the leading
0x4000 bytesand re-padded at the end to preserve partition size (8MB/0x800000). This decrypted successfully: RSA signatureGOOD, all section hashesGOOD(verified viahactool -y), kernel size matched header exactly (2,904,064 bytes/0x2c5000), plausible ARM64 opcode at kernel start. - Wrote the "corrected"
BCPKG2-1back to the console via NxNandManager. Testingpkg1/pkg2extraction via Hekate on-device: extractedBCPKG2-1fine, then crashed with a colorful/static pixel crash screen when reaching the second package. - Tried writing all 4 relevant corrected partitions (
BCPKG2-1through 4, leaving 5/6 Repair copies untouched — confirmed all-zero/unused on this console). Same crash behavior. - Reverted everything — restored the original, unmodified
BCPKG2dumps back to the console. - After reverting: console behavior is identical to the original problem — black screen / "
No mandatory pkg1 files provided!" on both OFW and CFW launch attempts, Hekate itself still functions normally.
Current state:
- eMMC restored to original (pre-troubleshooting) dumps.
- Hekate boots/functions normally, RCM access works.
- Console still won't boot OFW or CFW.
- Have full, verified backups of BOOT0/BOOT1/GPP and a working prod.keys available.
Any guidance on what to check next would be hugely appreciated — especially regarding the pkg1 error specifically, since that seems like a more direct lead than what I was chasing with
pkg2. Happy to provide more logs/dumps/hex excerpts as needed.
