Homebrew [Release] [Multi-platform GUI] HiyaCFW Helper

Rawf · Nov 14, 2018

mondul said:
You need to configure that version to auto-boot the hiya.dsi file instead of the file manager or the internal NAND. Try to boot it to the file manager and run hiya to test.

I already do, actually. And when I try running hiya.dsi from the file manager, the same happens...

Edit: I also know that the custom firmware is indeed being loaded, since when I hold select while booting, it brings me to the config screen.
Edit: I'm also able to enable Hiya's splash screen, which works as expected. Attempting to enable autoboot results in a black screen that reads "An error has occurred. Press and hold the Power Button to turn the system off. Please see the Nintendo DSi Operations Manual for help troubleshooting."
In the guide I was following, it's also mentioned that it might mean that "the helper isn't applying the CFW's patches properly". Any clues?

mondul · Nov 14, 2018

Tested on one of my DSis (one with unlaunch 1.4):

heres what i did step by step

formatted my sdcard, downloaded unlaunch 1.8, extracted it to the root of the sd and renamed it to bootcode.dsi, extracted the sd and inserted it in the DSi. Booted it, installed unlaunch, shut it down from the unlaunch menu and turned it on again to check if it was working, got the unlaunch file manager, so powered it back off. Removed the sd from the DSi and insterted it back to the laptop to delete bootcode.dsi. Meanwhile I downloaded the latest release of my helper and ran it (I'm on a mac so did it from the command line). Chose my nand dump and clicked on start. After finished moved the contents of the out folder to the SD card, setted the TWLCFG0.dat and TWLCFG1.dat files in the shared1 folder as read-only (locked in macos) due mac and linux don't translate file permissions to FAT attributes, added a couple of roms to test, extracted the SD and inserted it back to the DSi.
Turned it on and the unlaunch file manager showed back again. Went to "OPTIONS", chose HiyaCFW (SDMC://HIYA.DSI) for no button and selected save & exit. Got the file manager back so chose hiyacfw and got the black configuration screen. Selected splash on and autoboot title, pressed start and voila!

Will test on another one tomorrow

Rawf · Nov 14, 2018

mondul said:
Tested on one of my DSis (one with unlaunch 1.4)

Will test on another one tomorrow

I didn't know that linux couldn't keep the read-only files as read-only when moved to fat32. I've redone the steps, and indeed the files had the permission 655 (write access enabled). I tried to set it to 555 but I still had the same outcome, no TWiLight Menu++ on the DSi menu with autoboot turned off, and the same black error screen with it turned on.

It could still be that the files in the shared1 folder are still somehow marked as read-write before I take out the SD card. It'd be helpful if someone knows about this and, if so, how to force the files to be kept read only, but I'll leave to look into it tomorrow as well.

xxNathanxx · Nov 14, 2018

mondul said:
Installed it on VirtualBox and the helper worked. Anyhow I updated the code with some error detection for that case. You can get it from the repo (direct link) using wget or curl.

Thanks very much! It's working now. I wonder what's different about my installation compared to a clean install.

Rawf · Nov 14, 2018

Apparently this is a little bit more complicated than I thought yesterday. Just using chmod to set the file as read-only might not work on FAT filesystems.

I did try to use a program called fatattr, to specifically mark the file on the FAT partition as read-only from Linux (and ls -l did show me it was set to 444), but after that I still had the same problem. When I turned the DSi on, it gave me the black config screen for Hiya, but after pressing start it booted me back into the system's NAND again, and so it happens every time I reboot.

I have no idea what could be going wrong...

raxadian · Nov 14, 2018

Rawf said:
Apparently this is a little bit more complicated than I thought yesterday. Just using chmod to set the file as read-only might not work on FAT filesystems.

I did try to use a program called fatattr, to specifically mark the file on the FAT partition as read-only from Linux (and ls -l did show me it was set to 444), but after that I still had the same problem. When I turned the DSi on, it gave me the black config screen for Hiya, but after pressing start it booted me back into the system's NAND again, and so it happens every time I reboot.

I have no idea what could be going wrong...

Windows and Linux use different ways to set a file as read only. That's probably your problem. Try to extract the file directly to the SD card and it might keep the read only tag until you open it with a Linux program.

If that doesn't work, set it to read only in Windows or in a Windows program using PlayonLinux in Linux. Maybe one of the many Norton Commander clones for Windows.

And remember it has to be FAT32 and MBR.

The Disks program on Linux can tell you if it's MBR or not And also can format it to MBR if needed. On Ubuntu and Mint the USB Formater has the FAT32 option and has worked well for me so far.

If you use SD Formater on Windows use 3.1 or 3.0 since never versions are crap.

And 3DS Hacks Guide has a link to a Windows GUI version of fat32format.

I hope this helps.

Rawf · Nov 14, 2018

@raxadian Apparently the files that need to be set as read-only, in the shared1 folder, are already generated as read-write by the helper. I've tried doing everything from the SD anyway, and setting the files to read-only with fatattr, but I'm still getting the same outcome.

I have no way of trying it on native Windows (I might be able to borrow a Windows laptop on the weekend) but I could try running something on Wine if that'd work. But I don't know which program could help me do this.

Either way, that's exactly what "fatattr +r <filename>" is supposed to do, change a FAT file to read-only from Linux. So either that program isn t working as expected, in which case trying a different one, maybe a native Windows one on Wine, or waiting until the weekend, might be worth a try, or the problem is something else entirely, in which case I'd have no idea what to do from here.

raxadian · Nov 14, 2018

Rawf said:
@raxadianStuff

Any Norton Commander clone for windows should work.

Like Double Commander, it has a Windows version.

PlayonLinux is Wine made easy,

Rawf · Nov 14, 2018

I've managed to run that on Wine, I could see no option to set the file as read-only, but in the process I managed to open a Wine command prompt on the SD folder, which I used to run "attrib +R filename" (which is apparently the Windows command to do the same thing). After that, both ls -l and Double Commander saw the files as read-only, but when I tried the SD on the DSi, I still got to the internal NAND menu on boot after configuring Hiya, and a black error screen when setting autoboot.

It seems like the system is indeed setting the files as read-only, but is still booting to the internal NAND instead of the SD's, indicating that the problem is indeed something else.
If I'm still having trouble by the weekend, I can try doing it from a Windows machine, but I'm not getting my hopes up. Meanwhile, any other suggestions are appreciated...

raxadian · Nov 14, 2018

Rawf said:
I've managed to run that on Wine, I could see no option to set the file as read-only, but in the process I managed to open a Wine command prompt on the SD folder, which I used to run "attrib +R filename" (which is apparently the Windows command to do the same thing). After that, both ls -l and Double Commander saw the files as read-only, but when I tried the SD on the DSi, I still got to the internal NAND menu on boot after configuring Hiya, and a black error screen when setting autoboot.

It seems like the system is indeed setting the files as read-only, but is still booting to the internal NAND instead of the SD's, indicating that the problem is indeed something else.
If I'm still having trouble by the weekend, I can try doing it from a Windows machine, but I'm not getting my hopes up. Meanwhile, any other suggestions are appreciated...

It might be the DSi firmware since you have the last one.

Did you made sure to do everything again this time with all the files as read only? The DSi might be altering the files as part of it's anti piracy measures.

Rawf · Nov 14, 2018

Well, now it's getting interesting...

I hadn't tried setting all of the files as read-only, but that gave me the idea to try to turn on that little read-only switch that some SD cards have after doing everything again and before putting it back into the DSi. And again, nothing was changed!

Unless the DSi has magical powers to override that physical switch, that shows that the problem is not the DSi changing the SD's files. Sadly, again, I'm at a loss...

The reason I've been thinking it's something to do with the helper, is this section of the guide I'm following. I quote:
"If you do not see TWiLight Menu++ on the System Menu, or if you see the “An error has occured” screen after installing TWiLight Menu++ as a System Menu replacement, then the HiyaCFW Helper isn’t applying the CFW’s patches properly. Please wait for a fix in the helper."
I also seem to recall reading somewhere that it means it's booting to the internal NAND instead of the SD's. Which reminds me, do I need to copy any files over for Hiya to boot from the SD, other than the ones in the "out" folder, generated by the helper? It could be I'm skipping a step...

Some more info that could be useful: I'm using a micro SD to SD adapter, with a 2GB micro SD formatted as FAT32. Unlaunch can see it properly, and I was able to run a few .nds files from it that don't require Hiya to work (even with the read-only switch on), such as fwTool, the Unlaunch installer (I haven't tried to reinstall it, but the install menu does come up if I select it), and even TWiLight Menu++, but any roms I try to select that require the firmware to work just show me two blank screens if I try to select them.

Ryccardo · Nov 14, 2018

Rawf said:
Unless the DSi has magical powers to override that physical switch,

In probably well over 99% of SD cards (100% of miniSD/microSD adapters), over 99% of SD readers (and over 96% of floppy drives) the lock switch only results in a signal being generated, which the operating system/applications may or may not implement!

Rawf said:
I also seem to recall reading somewhere that it means it's booting to the internal NAND instead of the SD's

Just today I decided to switch to Unlaunch 1.8 + Hiya only (great excuse to update), and I can confirm this claim - creating a nand backup (with 1.4.5 E and Unlaunch 1.8 installed), removing Unlaunch via the advanced options of the helper, and using that to build Hiya+emunand does indeed result in Hiya end up running the launcher from sysnand (easily demonstrable by removing the SD, moving icons around, and rebooting from SD)

Worth mentioning that the helper seems to extract the tmds of non-matching region launchers (though they're not the cause), while the correct region gets both 02.app and the originally installed version (with the TMD pointing at the latter)
Maybe I should try replacing the TMD with the right one for v512 = 02.app...

----

@Rawf
Yep, go to sd:/title/00030017/484e41??/content, delete the title.tmd, and replace it with one obtained from nusdownloader (for the right titleID and version 512)!

Rawf · Nov 14, 2018

Ryccardo said:
In probably well over 99% of SD cards (100% of miniSD/microSD adapters), over 99% of SD readers (and over 96% of floppy drives) the lock switch only results in a signal being generated, which the operating system/applications may or may not implement!

Interesting... Once I get this done, I'm curious about whether the DSi ignores that signal...

Ryccardo said:
@Rawf
Yep, go to sd:/title/00030017/484e41??/content, delete the title.tmd, and replace it with one obtained from nusdownloader (for the right titleID and version 512)!

This sounds like it might work, but I've never used NUSDownloader before. I've managed to find the title and version 512, but after downloading, I only get three files: 000000002, cetk, and tmd.512. At sd:/title/00030017/, I have four folders with names starting with 484e41, all of which have a "content" folder with a title.tmd file in it.

I'm sorry for having to ask, but which file do I want to replace, and with what...?

Ryccardo · Nov 14, 2018

Rawf said:
This sounds like it might work, but I've never used NUSDownloader before. I've managed to find the title and version 512, but after downloading, I only get three files: 000000002, cetk, and tmd.512.

Rename tmd.512 to title.tmd, then...

Rawf said:
At sd:/title/00030017/, I have four folders with names starting with 484e41, all of which have a "content" folder with a title.tmd file in it.

3 of them are for the wrong region and useless (the ones that lack "content/00000002.app" and "data/"), remove them

From the remaining one (which should match the title you downloaded in NUSDownloader), remove the existing title.tmd, and replace it with the title.tmd you renamed from 512.tmd

Rawf · Nov 14, 2018

Ryccardo said:
Rename tmd.512 to title.tmd, then...

3 of them are for the wrong region and useless (the ones that lack "content/00000002.app" and "data/"), remove them

From the remaining one (which should match the title you downloaded in NUSDownloader), remove the existing title.tmd, and replace it with the title.tmd you renamed from 512.tmd

That indeed did the trick! I did that and on my next boot, I could see TWiLight Menu++ on my stock launcher, which I assume means I'm now properly booting from the SD Card.

Thanks for all the help and patience, everyone! (:

xxNathanxx · Nov 15, 2018

Ryccardo said:
In probably well over 99% of SD cards (100% of miniSD/microSD adapters), over 99% of SD readers (and over 96% of floppy drives) the lock switch only results in a signal being generated, which the operating system/applications may or may not implement!

Just today I decided to switch to Unlaunch 1.8 + Hiya only (great excuse to update), and I can confirm this claim - creating a nand backup (with 1.4.5 E and Unlaunch 1.8 installed), removing Unlaunch via the advanced options of the helper, and using that to build Hiya+emunand does indeed result in Hiya end up running the launcher from sysnand (easily demonstrable by removing the SD, moving icons around, and rebooting from SD)

Worth mentioning that the helper seems to extract the tmds of non-matching region launchers (though they're not the cause), while the correct region gets both 02.app and the originally installed version (with the TMD pointing at the latter)
Maybe I should try replacing the TMD with the right one for v512 = 02.app...

----

@Rawf
Yep, go to sd:/title/00030017/484e41??/content, delete the title.tmd, and replace it with one obtained from nusdownloader (for the right titleID and version 512)!

I believe I'm running into the same issue of HiyaCFW booting to SysNAND instead of SDNAND. I downloaded the files you mentioned with NUSDownloader, backed up the title.tmd from its original folder and replaced it with the newly downloaded tmd.512 file (renamed to title.tmd). Now when I start HiyaCFW (either through autoboot or through selecting it in Unlaunch), I get the splash screen, but afterwards I just get a black "An error has occurred" screen. Am I missing something?

It's a 1GB SD card, btw.

xxNathanxx · Nov 15, 2018

xxNathanxx said:
I believe I'm running into the same issue of HiyaCFW booting to SysNAND instead of SDNAND. I downloaded the files you mentioned with NUSDownloader, backed up the title.tmd from its original folder and replaced it with the newly downloaded tmd.512 file (renamed to title.tmd). Now when I start HiyaCFW (either through autoboot or through selecting it in Unlaunch), I get the splash screen, but afterwards I just get a black "An error has occurred" screen. Am I missing something?

It's a 1GB SD card, btw.

Problem solved. Some file must have gotten corrupted somehow, preventing a proper boot. I wiped the SD card and started over again (or rather I restored a backup of the contents I'd made yesterday), then tried replacing the title.tmd with the new one, and this time it all works as expected. Hopefully whichever file had corrupted won't do that again, but I'll keep a backup of the current contents to be safe. Hopefully this will also solve the problem for anyone else running into it.

BLsquared · Nov 15, 2018

I'm having similar issues to @Rawf and @xxNathanxx as well; I'm trying the proposed solutions and I'll get back to ya. I find it interesting we all had the issue at the same time, I was just trying it last night myself.

mondul · Nov 15, 2018

Tested on another DSi and got the black screen with the error message. Tried with a different SD and worked. Noticed something that I was suspicious of: apparently HiyaCFW works better if the extracted NAND files are on the first sectors of the SD, so updated the helper with the option to choose the output destination after pressing "Start". The new release can be downloaded from the releases page of the repo.

EDIT: As extraction to SD is now possible, I had to use the method I am using for the NAND mode to set the read-only FAT attribute, so for MacOS I'm using chflags and Linux fatattr (binary included). If you opt for using another output folder, I recommend when you copy that to the SD to copy everything but the hiya, roms and the bootcode.dsi | hiya.dsi first, and those folders and file afterwards.

BLsquared · Nov 15, 2018

Tried some things:
DSi 1.4.4U
Unlaunch 1.8
Grabbed the title.tmd from NUSDownloader for 512, deleted the empty title folders.
Before, I was getting the "Error: ..." with a black screen, now it just freezes at a white screen when booting to HiyaCFW, right after the first splash.
Any ideas?

EDIT:
Ninja'd me there, @mondul! I'll have to take a look at the new version, if you think that would help.

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