Hacking Brand new N3ds and downgrading questions

drag0nscythe

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I took the plunge today and bought one of the newer Japanese n3ds to see if it had a firmware of 10.7 or lower. Turns out that it is 10.7 exactly. Now that I have it, I want to make sure I do everything to not mess up downgrading/ installing arm9h.

As the device hasn't even been turned on yet what should be the first few steps I take.

From what I have read, I need to format the n3ds at some point before downgrading.

Does this sound right,

1) Initial setup (do not update)
2) Transfer sdcard files to larger sdcard (64gb)
3) format n3ds
4) setup n3ds again
5) setup homebrew entry (via arm9h guide)
6) downgrade and clench buthole
 
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I took the plunge today and bought one of the newer Japanese n3ds to see if it had a firmware of 10.7 or lower. Turns out that it is 10.7 exactly. Now that I have it, I want to make sure I do everything to not mess up downgrading/ installing arm9h.

As the device hasn't even been turned on yet what should be the first few steps I take.

From what I have read, I need to format the n3ds at some point before downgrading.

Does this sound right,

1) Initial setup (do not update)
2) Transfer sdcard files to larger sdcard (64gb)
3) format n3ds
4) setup n3ds again
5) setup homebrew entry (via arm9h guide)
6) downgrade and clench buthole
Yea, easiest would be to just do the first time setup with the 64GB as that skips having to copy everything
 

drag0nscythe

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Sounds like a good plan. Thanks. I shall start there then.

First things first, I need to format the 64gb card as fat32
 

drag0nscythe

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I noticed the J9.2 from Plailect guide does not have the 004002002CA file that was requested to be deleted in many of the guides for Japanese n3ds downgrading. Was this done on purpose to help with the process? or is it missing some files and I should go for the J9.1 from that site?

Just making sure I don't screw this up.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Good luck, since its Japanese console i think its more prone to soft brick during downgrade. Forcing you to update to 11.0

I was able to do it twice on different 3ds with no problems (1 old and 1 new). but as 11 came out, I want to make sure nothing wrong happens this time.
 

drag0nscythe

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I tried to install menuhax on 10.7 but it threw an error. I have already changed the theme to build the database before I tried to install. Menuhax claims that the files are not present (e

Does 10.7 allow for menu hax? if not then I will skip and go into downgrading. I can install it once I go down to 9.2

edit: ok Ignore this i guess. Later on I will have to reinstall it anyway. I am using cubix ninja as my entrypoint so I don't really need it at the moment. I shall continue
 
Last edited by drag0nscythe,

drag0nscythe

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ok, So I tried to downgrade and ended up with an error halfway through (partial). for the last 2 hours, Ive been tyring to rerun PlaiSysUpdater but it always crashes on hex init....

Should I just keep trying and hope it works?
 

drag0nscythe

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I'm beginning to suspect that it won't work. I have been trying for 3.5 hours now and it always freezes on hax init...
I am reminded of a famous quote where trying the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.

Is there another way to finish the downgrade?

I'm using browserhax as my entry point, could this be causing the problem?
Should I install menuhax and use it as the entry point?

edit 2: ok, that worked. by installing menuhax and entering that way, It worked on the first try. How will I know if it fully downgraded, is there a way to check?
 
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I'm beginning to suspect that it won't work. I have been trying for 3.5 hours now and it always freezes on hax init...
I am reminded of a famous quote where trying the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.

Is there another way to finish the downgrade?

I'm using browserhax as my entry point, could this be causing the problem?
Should I install menuhax and use it as the entry point?

edit 2: ok, that worked. by installing menuhax and entering that way, It worked on the first try. How will I know if it fully downgraded, is there a way to check?

https://github.com/svanheulen/downgrade_check
https://gbatemp.net/threads/a-small-thread-on-how-to-tell-if-you-got-an-incomplete-downgrade.408937/

But you could just try to load an arm9 homebrew through the homebrew launcher (decrypt9, emunand9 etc...) to check if you have ARM9 access.
 

drag0nscythe

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Thanks, I was able to open decrypt9 and create a Sysnand.bin.

Looks like the most dangerous part is past, now onto to great things
 

drag0nscythe

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I noticed in the downgrade to 2.1.0 that one of the steps is "Cross your fingers". Does this mean that OTPHelper has a moderate chance of failing (20-30%)? How much should I be concerend about this step?
  1. Open OTPHelper
  2. Select "One Click Setup" and confirm (you do not need to do an extra backup if asked, but you should make sure that you have copied the backup you made earlier to your computer as youwill need it later). This can take a while.
    (If this fails or gives you an error do NOT continue or you may BRICK; you shouldfollow this troubleshooting guide)
  3. Cross your fingers
  4. Reboot
  5. If you get a black screen, boot with the SD card removed then reinsert when you see the home menu. If this fails, follow this troubleshooting guide
 

Temarile

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I noticed in the downgrade to 2.1.0 that one of the steps is "Cross your fingers". Does this mean that OTPHelper has a moderate chance of failing (20-30%)? How much should I be concerend about this step?
  1. Open OTPHelper
  2. Select "One Click Setup" and confirm (you do not need to do an extra backup if asked, but you should make sure that you have copied the backup you made earlier to your computer as youwill need it later). This can take a while.
    (If this fails or gives you an error do NOT continue or you may BRICK; you shouldfollow this troubleshooting guide)
  3. Cross your fingers
  4. Reboot
  5. If you get a black screen, boot with the SD card removed then reinsert when you see the home menu. If this fails, follow this troubleshooting guide

Nah OTP helper is perfect. It has triple checks on everything. It's just there as a kind of joke, as in the early days of A9LH you had to do a lot more come complicated steps. There used to be a severe chance of failure during the set up, but now it's (almost) 100%. I am saying almost because there is always, always, a risk involved when modifying your NAND. However small that may be, there is still a eeny little weeny chance.
 

vb_encryption_vb

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Nah OTP helper is perfect. It has triple checks on everything. It's just there as a kind of joke, as in the early days of A9LH you had to do a lot more come complicated steps. There used to be a severe chance of failure during the set up, but now it's (almost) 100%. I am saying almost because there is always, always, a risk involved when modifying your NAND. However small that may be, there is still a eeny little weeny chance.
Lol... you know how many bricks ive fixed because the 2.1 downgrade did complete properly... its there for a valid reason.
 

vb_encryption_vb

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Odds, I don't know, I've fixed plenty of bricks and they all happened when downgrading to 2.1 or restoring emunand. Hope for the best, as long as you have a back up of sysnand you can recover via hardmod.
 

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