Hacking Attempting Plailect Guide arm9loaderhax & Cakes and I'm stuck

[gamecaptor]

I’ll start by saying I followed wurstpistole guide to get me through downgrading and setting up emuNAND on my old 3DS (which takes me to Part 4 of Plailect’s guide). I was able to follow Part 4 without a problem but I am having some issues with Part 5.

I followed the instructions carefully up to the “Installing arm9loaderhax” section, step 9. It states it should reboot into the CakesCFW menu, it did not, but rather the actual CakesCFW (I was looking at what appeared to be my emuNAND). I turned off the O3DS and held down the L button and this brought me to the CakesCFW menu (this was purely a guess).

I then followed all of the steps under the “Configuring CakesFW” section. At step 9 it states to select ‘Select "Boot CFW" to enter CFW SysNAND’. Again, it did not, but rather it booted me into MenuHax and tries to boot the normal way (snow on the top screen and the bottom screen is black, followed by the boot menu). Then when it tries to load Cakes it then says “Err: Couldn’t load arm9 payload… Press any key to continue…”. I am able to press a key and load HomeBrewMenu ok.

If I am following the instructions correctly there shouldn’t be a cakes.dat on the root of my SD any longer (instead it should be in the a9lh folder). I tried putting the cakes.dat back to the root of the SD and it will just lock up when it tries to load the CakesCFW.

Some notes:
I am not able to power on the 3DS without a SD Card inserted.
I am able to boot into CakeCFW menu by holding down the L when I boot the O3DS. If I then select Boot CFW it brings me back to MenuHax.
I AM able to load Decrypt9WIP by holding down X when booting the O3DS (but I haven’t progressed any further).

So my question is how do I get it to load into CakesCFW now? I do not wish to continue onto Copying EmuNAND data to SysNAND section until I get this figured out.

Just as a side note, I already had CakesCFW setup and running, but I am following these instructions very closely (therefor probably doing double work) so it helps me get a better understanding of the process. Once I am comfortable with it I will move onto my New 3DS.

Regards

 

[LinkFan16]

My guess would be that Menuhax is conflicting with loading Cakes in some way, especially since you skipped the following paragraph of the "Get started" section from Plailect’s guide:

If you already have a CFW setup on any version between 9.0.0 and 9.2.0, change menuhax to type 1, set your menuhax trigger to dpad down, then start the guide at Part 4.

You can still access the homebrew launcher, right? So maybe the following will help solve your problem:
- Load the menuhax manager from HBL
- change menuhax to type 1 and set it's trigger to dpad down
- restart your 3ds and see if cakes is loading fine

Edit:
If you give me a few minutes I will try and confirm my theory. Right now I'm in the process of finishing my install of A9LH and while I was going to use Aureinand at first, Cakes seems the better option for installing and playing GBA titles.

 

[gamecaptor]

My guess would be that Menuhax is conflicting with loading Cakes in some way, especially since you skipped the following paragraph of the "Get started" section from Plailect’s guide:

That actually makes a lot of sense.

So I did just what you said and I'm looking at my SysNAND now.

I rebooted holding down on the d-pad and I'm back at the boot menu (I can load Cakes, which freezes, or HomeBrewMenu).

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll keep playing with it.

 

[LinkFan16]

Do you get any error message while loading cakes or does it just freeze at a black screen? Make sure you have configured cakes correctly, for example enabling autoboot under more options so that cakes enabled sysnand will boot by default while holding L at boot will bring up it's configuration menu. Other than that try and see if certain files are missing or in the wrong place. Cakes seems to boot fine for me after following the guide every step of the way, although I still need to write my former emunand to sysnand and see how that goes.

Edit: Maybe this part of the trouble shooting section can help.

 

[gamecaptor]

ok, good call on the trouble shooting section. I went through each section and everything checks out:

Spoiler

1. Ensure you have a working payload.
   1. Check for the existence of arm9loaderhax.bin in the root of your SD card. Verified file exists
      
   2. If you are following the CakesFW guide, check that
      1. /arm9bootloader.bin exists; Verified file exists
         
      2. /Cakes/firmware.bin and /Cakes/firmkey.bin exist and are the correct ones for your console; and Verified file exists and recopied the files over just in case
         
      3. /boot_config.ini exists. Verified file exists
2. Test booting Decrypt9
   1. On CakesFW, hold X on boot Verified it works
3. Try this test payload (mirror).
   1. Rename /arm9loaderhax.bin, if it exists, to something else.
   2. Place the arm9loaderhax.bin from the archive linked above in your SD root.
   3. Insert your SD card into your 3DS and power on.
   4. Press A. Your 3DS should power off; this means arm9loaderhax is working and something else is broken; your device is not bricked. 3DS shuts off by pressing A.

So according to the troubleshooting section it should be working?

Here is where I'm at:
Booting 3DS normally: Boots into sysNAND
Booting 3DS holding down L: Boots into CakesCFW menu
Booting 3DS holding down X: Boots into Decrypt9WIP
Booting 3DS holding d-pad down: Boots into Menu Hax. If I try and load Cakes from there it freezes

UPDATE: I went back into CakesCFW menu and re-activated "Enable emuNAND" option (it instructs you to Deactivate it in step 2) and then I chose Boot CFW and it loaded my emuNAND correctly.

So now I'm confused. When in step 9 it says 'Select "Boot CFW" to enter CFW SysNAND' should it be loading me into my sysNAND or my emuNAND setup?

 

[gkoelho]

So now I'm confused. When in step 9 it says 'Select "Boot CFW" to enter CFW SysNAND' should it be loading me into my sysNAND or my emuNAND setup?

Not sure right now, but probably emunand as u didnt de-activated it

 

[gamecaptor]

Right, so then if I deactivate it and choose "Boot CFW" what should load? Right now I get nothing?

 

[gkoelho]

Right, so then if I deactivate it and choose "Boot CFW" what should load? Right now I get nothing?

If I load cakes via HBL I get nothing too. Dont know if its a bug or not, however if I enter cakes by pressiing L on boot i go to my sysnand.

 

[gamecaptor]

If I load cakes via HBL I get nothing too. Dont know if its a bug or not, however if I enter cakes by pressiing L on boot i go to my sysnand.

Are you also following Plailect’s guide? Have you continued on to the Copying EmuNAND data to SysNAND section?

 

[frosty5689]

Try using aureinand? Much easier to setup with almost no configuration

 

[jimbo13]

I'm in a similar situation, I mucked something up going through the guide and can't launch HBL. Is there any danger just starting the guide over after starting?

 

[frosty5689]

I'm in a similar situation, I mucked something up going through the guide and can't launch HBL. Is there any danger just starting the guide over after starting?

As long as its not retrying dowmgrade to 2.1 or install arm9loaderhax there shouldn't be much harm in trying.. Oh and system updates too.. Becareful when it comes to steps involving nand backup and restore.

Imo I think you are missing a file somewhere or accidentally deleted it.

 

[jimbo13]

As long as its not retrying dowmgrade to 2.1 or install arm9loaderhax there shouldn't be much harm in trying.. Oh and system updates too.. Becareful when it comes to steps involving nand backup and restore.

Imo I think you are missing a file somewhere or accidentally deleted it.

Ditto, I confirmed I am in Sysnand (just remove the SD does it) and think I am missing Menuhax is the reason I can no longer launch HBL but I rather just start over instead of being a pest.

 

[gamecaptor]

And I'm back! I'm re-reading Part 5 of Plailect's Guide to make sure I didn't miss anything .

So I went back into the CakesCFW menu and disabled 'Enable emuNAND'. Rebooted the 3DS and it boots me into the sysNAND.

I'm thinking I'm reading this section wrong. Where it says:
Configuring CakesFW
9. Select "Boot CFW" to enter CFW SysNAND

What should I be seeing when I turn on my 3DS? Should I be looking at my sysNAND desktop [original theme with a 'S' folder on the desktop] or my emuNAND desktop [blue theme with all of my games installed]?

 

[funnystory]

use aureinand why cakes???

 

[gamecaptor]

use aureinand why cakes???

Good question. I have been completely out of the 3DS scene until now, so since I'm jumping in head first I figured I'll start with the harder method on my first attempt so I could get a feel for this process and obstacles. A friend "donated" his O3DS XL to me to test out after I successfully get this one working and I was planning on using AuReiNAND for that one.

At this point I'm at the home stretch, I just need to figure out this one obstacle. And I'm not clear on how I would make the switch to AuReiNAND and keep everything from my existing emuNAND?

 

[richardparker]

I don't know what to do....I really want to do this(install a9lh) but I'm scared to a brick because I live in India and I can't get anyone to do a hardmod if I brick...and I can't do it myself...I'm in a big dilemma can anyone please help...or like...assure me?

 

[gamecaptor]

I don't know what to do....I really want to do this(install a9lh) but I'm scared to a brick because I live in India and I can't get anyone to do a hardmod if I brick...and I can't do it myself...I'm in a big dilemma can anyone please help...or like...assure me?

I'll say this so far, the process has been fairly smooth. Check and re-check everything before you actually DO something. I'm hitting this one last little obstacle and I'll be done.

There are also some video tutorials that I would recommend watching before starting. The process is slightly different then the guide, but at least it will give you a visual reference to certain points and will hopefully help you feel more comfortable.

How to Downgrade Any 3DS from 10.7 to 9.2



How to Install CFW on Your Old 3DS & 2DS | rxTools Custom Firmware Tutorial



How to Setup & Install Arm9LoaderHax on All 3DS Models

 

[Zanoab]

The big question is what you want. If you want CFW sysNAND, then Cakes should be booting into sysNAND. You can then follow the next part and copy your emuNAND data to sysNAND.

If you want to keep using CFW emuNAND, then have Cakes automatically boot into emuNAND.

 

[gamecaptor]

The big question is what you want. If you want CFW sysNAND, then Cakes should be booting into sysNAND. You can then follow the next part and copy your emuNAND data to sysNAND.

If you want to keep using CFW emuNAND, then have Cakes automatically boot into emuNAND.

So that is where my confusion is. When you say "CFW sysNAND", when I turn on my 3DS and I'm looking at what appears to be my sysNAND (my formatted original NAND with nothing on it) is the really the "CFW sysNAND"? (I think it's the terminology that is confusing me).