Hacking Question Updating to 7.0

Chrisssj2 · Jan 29, 2019

So I always update with Chodoujour. With enable auto rcm checkbox on in the homebrew. and also having auorcm on in hekate.

Now i heard someone say on discord after. You could get a brick if you have too many burned fuses?
So i checked and hekate says burned fuses 7.

That at some point you wouldn't be able to boot normal firmware anymore, and just pure CFW?
Can someone enlighten me on this situation?

I want to know how to update safely to 7.0 without bricking my normal or custom firmware?!

Scubahood · Jan 29, 2019

Don't update to firmware 7 if you want to keep using CFW or Emunand.

nero99 · Jan 29, 2019

don't update. tsec and other stuff was changed again to block cfw

Chrisssj2 · Jan 29, 2019

nero99 said:
don't update. tsec and other stuff was changed again to block cfw

Ok I shouldve made it more clear. I mean when ofcourse approperiate SX OS update has followed.
I am not actually updating just yet.
Especially if im not sure about what im saying in my starting post.

SG911 · Jan 29, 2019

Wouldn't update to 7.0 yet until everyone or the main people. Say it's safe & what not.

Chrisssj2 · Jan 29, 2019

SG911 said:
Wouldn't update to 7.0 yet until everyone or the main people. Say it's safe & what not.

Thats not the point. I mean lets assume 7.0 is safe and made compatible withe very CFW.

That still doesnt answer my fuse question regarding being able to boot in original firmware.

Draxzelex · Jan 30, 2019

Do NOT update to firmware 7.0 until the all-clear has been given. There is no point in making a thread asking such a question.

SG911 · Jan 30, 2019

Chrisssj2 said:
Thats not the point. I mean lets assume 7.0 is safe and made compatible withe very CFW.

That still doesnt answer my fuse question regarding being able to boot in original firmware.

Absolutely right! Sorry, i should of answered that for ya but i cannot cause i don't know much about that.

xdarkmario · Jan 30, 2019

i was ninja updated when playing on lan play. i can launch my menu but cant boot into cfw, can i downgrade to my nand backup?

metal921 · Jan 30, 2019

Now that we’re on the topic of upgrading does the boot loader still work? I don’t really use cfw since Smash was released as that’s the only game I play. I do have autorcm tho

mrgarrison · Jan 30, 2019

All i know is what I've been reading the past 2 months, and my god theres alot of info out there. There was an issue with sleep mode and to many burned fuses not allowing the switch to wakeup while in downgraded CFW. This is no longer the case. For some light reading about fuses checkout https://switchbrew.org/wiki/Fuses
Copied from that page near the bottom:

If too many fuses are burnt the bootloader will panic immediately.

If too few are burnt, the bootloader will enable fuse programming and write the expected value to fuse indexes 0x3A and 0x3C. Afterwards, fuse programming is disabled and the panic value 0x21 is written to PMC_SCRATCH200 register (0x7000EC40). Finally, the watchdog timer is initialized and programmed to force a reset.

On a subsequent boot, after the anti-downgrade fuses are checked again, the PMC_RST_STATUS register (0x7000E5B4) is checked and if set to 0x01 (watchdog reset) the PMC_SCRATCH200 register (0x7000EC40) will be checked for the panic value 0x21. PMC_RST_STATUS will only be set back to 0 (power on reset) if the fuse count matches the new expected value, otherwise the system will panic.

EDIT:

Chrisssj2 said:
So I always update with Chodoujour. With enable auto rcm checkbox on in the homebrew. and also having auorcm on in hekate.

Now i heard someone say on discord after. You could get a brick if you have too many burned fuses?
So i checked and hekate says burned fuses 7.

That at some point you wouldn't be able to boot normal firmware anymore, and just pure CFW?
Can someone enlighten me on this situation?

I want to know how to update safely to 7.0 without bricking my normal or custom firmware?!

To be clear:
Updating to 7.0 will kill CFW.
Downgrading OFW on the NAND will cause a no-boot (fuse mismatch), you will have to always boot with CFW to ignore fuses.
Be safe, use emunand. Stay on 6.2.
Once 7.0 CFW is ready you can update however you wish. (official = burn fuses, choidujournx+autorcm = no burn)

Wow sorry this post got so long.

garyopa · Jan 30, 2019

@mrgarrison - Finally a good post with info, sadly most people will just skip over it, and complain about being semi-bricked and whine!

wurstpistole · Jan 30, 2019

Chrisssj2 said:
So I always update with Chodoujour. With enable auto rcm checkbox on in the homebrew. and also having auorcm on in hekate.

Now i heard someone say on discord after. You could get a brick if you have too many burned fuses?
So i checked and hekate says burned fuses 7.

That at some point you wouldn't be able to boot normal firmware anymore, and just pure CFW?
Can someone enlighten me on this situation?

I want to know how to update safely to 7.0 without bricking my normal or custom firmware?!

You're not bricking anything by updating. You're burning fuses if you're booting OFW after updating, be it willfully or by accident. Then you won't be able to go lower than 7.0 on OFW anymore.

garyopa said:
@mrgarrison - Finally a good post with info, sadly most people will just skip over it, and complain about being semi-bricked and whine!

Weird seeing you getting involved in anything that's not TX related, but you're right - most of the people here just read the title and spammed "DON'T UPDATE" without regarding the actual question.

Chrisssj2 · Jan 30, 2019

mrgarrison said:
All i know is what I've been reading the past 2 months, and my god theres alot of info out there. There was an issue with sleep mode and to many burned fuses not allowing the switch to wakeup while in downgraded CFW. This is no longer the case. For some light reading about fuses checkout https://switchbrew.org/wiki/Fuses
Copied from that page near the bottom:

If too many fuses are burnt the bootloader will panic immediately.

If too few are burnt, the bootloader will enable fuse programming and write the expected value to fuse indexes 0x3A and 0x3C. Afterwards, fuse programming is disabled and the panic value 0x21 is written to PMC_SCRATCH200 register (0x7000EC40). Finally, the watchdog timer is initialized and programmed to force a reset.

On a subsequent boot, after the anti-downgrade fuses are checked again, the PMC_RST_STATUS register (0x7000E5B4) is checked and if set to 0x01 (watchdog reset) the PMC_SCRATCH200 register (0x7000EC40) will be checked for the panic value 0x21. PMC_RST_STATUS will only be set back to 0 (power on reset) if the fuse count matches the new expected value, otherwise the system will panic.

EDIT:

To be clear:
Updating to 7.0 will kill CFW.
Downgrading OFW on the NAND will cause a no-boot (fuse mismatch), you will have to always boot with CFW to ignore fuses.
Be safe, use emunand. Stay on 6.2.
Once 7.0 CFW is ready you can update however you wish. (official = burn fuses, choidujournx+autorcm = no burn)

Wow sorry this post got so long.

Thanks sir! this seems clear to me. Just to double verify. When 7.0 CFW is ready. Update via choidujournx+autorcm and proceed like normal.
I won't ever update via official path. But just to know what would happen. If I would, I will burn another fuse which will cause certain downgrade problems but i should be able to boot in OFW at all times if I understand the posts correctly?

Deathwing Zero · Jan 30, 2019

Chrisssj2 said:
Thanks sir! this seems clear to me. Just to double verify. When 7.0 CFW is ready. Update via choidujournx+autorcm and proceed like normal.
I won't ever update via official path. But just to know what would happen. If I would, I will burn another fuse which will cause certain downgrade problems but i should be able to boot in OFW at all times if I understand the posts correctly?

Yes and no. It has nothing to do with updating via choidujournx or by downloading it officially. Most firmware versions burn a fuse, some don't but each version expects a certain number to be burned. If the number expected is higher than what is currently burned, then the correct amount will be burned when booting stock. This happens in the bootloader phase of OFW. Even if you update using CFW via the internet method and not ChoiDuJourNX you CAN still interrupt the fuse burning by immediately going into RCM. This is a risky way of doing it because if you miss it, your fuses are burned. Permanently. Updating the official way also removes autorcm. That is why ChoiDuJourNX is recommended because it keeps/reapplies autorcm. If at any point in future you boot without using a CFW or bootloader (Hekate) or if you boot using a very old version of sxos, your fuses will be burned.

If you have too many fuses burned and try to boot a lower number firmware, the bootloader will panic and "brick". Brick is really not the correct term. You still have access to RCM and thus you can use a CFW or Hekate to boot the system as these will bypass the fuse check and it will work. You can then update to the expected firmware with ChoiDuJourNX if you wanted to.

Chrisssj2 · Jan 30, 2019

Deathwing Zero said:
Yes and no. It has nothing to do with updating via choidujournx or by downloading it officially. Most firmware versions burn a fuse, some don't but each version expects a certain number to be burned. If the number expected is higher than what is currently burned, then the correct amount will be burned when booting stock. This happens in the bootloader phase of OFW. Even if you update using CFW via the internet method and not ChoiDuJourNX you CAN still interrupt the fuse burning by immediately going into RCM. This is a risky way of doing it because if you miss it, your fuses are burned. Permanently. Updating the official way also removes autorcm. That is why ChoiDuJourNX is recommended because it keeps/reapplies autorcm. If at any point in future you boot without using a CFW or bootloader (Hekate) or if you boot using a very old version of sxos, your fuses will be burned.

If you have too many fuses burned and try to boot a lower number firmware, the bootloader will panic and "brick". Brick is really not the correct term. You still have access to RCM and thus you can use a CFW or Hekate to boot the system as these will bypass the fuse check and it will work. You can then update to the expected firmware with ChoiDuJourNX if you wanted to.

Ah so this only happens if your firmware is too low. If ever for some reason you can't boot into OFW. it can be fixed by updating in CFW. If for example I always keep firmware up to date.
Then OFW will keep working.

Deathwing Zero · Jan 30, 2019

Chrisssj2 said:
Ah so this only happens if your firmware is too low. If ever for some reason you can't boot into OFW. it can be fixed by updating in CFW. If for example I always keep firmware up to date.
Then OFW will keep working.

That's not necessarily true either. If something goes wrong somewhere and your nand becomes corrupted CFW won't save you and make the console boot. A nand backup might though. If the only problem is fuse count you're good, but any other number of problems won't necessarily be solved by just booting CFW. Basically, always make nand backups and keep them safe, and update via ChoiDuJourNX if you care about preserving fuses.

Chrisssj2 · Jan 30, 2019

Deathwing Zero said:
That's not necessarily true either. If something goes wrong somewhere and your nand becomes corrupted CFW won't save you and make the console boot. A nand backup might though. If the only problem is fuse count you're good, but any other number of problems won't necessarily be solved by just booting CFW. Basically, always make nand backups and keep them safe, and update via ChoiDuJourNX if you care about preserving fuses.

Idk if I should care about fuses?
This is just all too confusing for me.
ALL i care about is a working switch CFW and OFW.

I got a nandbackup but its from way back when i bought it.

pLaYeR^^ · Jan 30, 2019

Chrisssj2 said:
Idk if I should care about fuses?
This is just all too confusing for me.
ALL i care about is a working switch CFW and OFW.

I got a nandbackup but its from way back when i bought it.

You should care about fuses if you ever want to downgrade your switch

MasterJ360 · Jan 30, 2019

Thing is nobody is willing to sacrifice their cfw just to give you/us the ok or a definite answer. All we can say is wait as a precaution. I hope more ppl read this thread so they wont have to make similar threads asking the same question.

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