Hacking Question Going from CFW to OFW

[Yoshimark]

Hello,

Okay so here's the situation : Unpatched switch, started to use cfw on 5.1 (clean NAND backup made with Hekate right before that), updated on 6.2 without burning fuses. The switch has never been connected to internet since i joined the dark side, airplane mode constantly on.

And i enjoy it everyday, but, a friend of mine recently got a switch and i wish to play Monster Hunter with him, online (It doesnt have LAN mode, so no lan-play without kip file, and my friend doesnt want to hack his switch).

So, i understand i need to downgrade from 6.2>5.1, restore my clean NAND backup, and then update to the latest firmware and use my switch in a fully legal way. (Any additional advice here is welcome)

My first question is : Is it possible, once i restored my clean 5.1 nand backup, to update >8.0.1 without burning fuses, and go online? I can't find a clear answer to that anywhere.

I am worried because i keep seeing peoples having issues with hack on the latest firmware, and i want to hack my switch again whenever my friend and I are tired of MHGU. So having a way to go back to 5.1 later would just make it a little bit more pleasing.

If not, can someone clarify, is 8.0.x still problematic ? If i remember correctly i've seen problems with corrupted saves, themes not working, nsp not starting.

 

[Hayato213]

Without burning fuse no.

 

[Kafluke]

You may want to consider SX OS. Yeah you need to pay 30 bucks but you'll get emunand on SD card. Then you can have a clean untouched nand for online play and an emunand on any firmware you want to CFW stuff.

 

[makazula]

The only way I see you doing that, is enabling autorcm and booting stock through hekate. That will bypass fuse checks. However, ninty can detect this, so it´s not completely ban free. To this point, doesn't seem people are being banned because of that, but still..

Other possibilities are what was told to you, about the emunand (you can also wait a little bit for free emunand soon™)

 

[pLaYeR^^]

Theoretically, you can enter RCM right after the update to 8.0.1 is finished. If you miss it, the fuses will be burnt. Then inject hekate and install autoRCM. Keep in mind that‘s probably detectable by Nintendo. I am not sure if anyone has been banned for that yet.

 

[Yoshimark]

Thank you very much for your answers.

I'd rather keep the ban risks at a minimum, so let's forget fuses. I mean, i'll hack it back later, so getting ban would not annoy me that much, but i need to play online for atleast a few months so..

Now about Emunand. Basically i can have my sysnand running on the latest firmware, for my online needs, and have my emunand in a lower firmware like 7.x, to avoid current 8.0.x problems with cfw?

I'm confused about the possibility of getting emunand on a lower firmware if fuses are burnt. I'm not sure how it works.

I think i'll wait a little bit to see if free emunand comes out. I don't feel like buying sx os.

 

[pLaYeR^^]

Thank you very much for your answers.

I'd rather keep the ban risks at a minimum, so let's forget fuses. I mean, i'll hack it back later, so getting ban would not annoy me that much, but i need to play online for atleast a few months so..

Now about Emunand. Basically i can have my sysnand running on the latest firmware, for my online needs, and have my emunand in a lower firmware like 7.x, to avoid current 8.0.x problems with cfw?

I'm confused about the possibility of getting emunand on a lower firmware if fuses are burnt. I'm not sure how it works.

I think i'll wait a little bit to see if free emunand comes out. I don't feel like buying sx os.

Of course, you can keep SysNAND on the latest firmware (8.0.1) and EmuNAND on a lower firmware (7.0.1). You simply update SysNAND with official system update and EmuNAND with the homebrew app ChoiDujourNX. One thing you should know: Your EmuNAND will never burn fuses no matter which firmware it is. You always boot to EmuNAND with custom payload (SX OS) and therefore your fine. My switch is for example on SysNAND 2.1.0 and EmuNAND 7.0.1 and only 2 fuses are burnt.
If you don't care about downgrade, you can update SysNAND with official update and let the fuses burn at the next boot.

 

[Kafluke]

If you want to play online with minimal risk of ban you have to burn fuses on sysnand. It's hard to have both worlds. Downgrade later? Or play online? That's your choices.

 

[Yoshimark]

It's clear now, i appreciate the help.

I don't care much about a better kind of hack on lower firmwares in the futur, i simply don't want to have troubles running .nsp on 8.0.x. So downgrade is not so important.

So, if i resume, my switch being in 6.2 CFW atm, i need to downgrade to 5.1, then restore my clean NAND (Made in 5.1), then connect my switch to internet and update normally to the latest firmware. So at this point, my switch will be fully clean, with no way to downgrade later, but ready to play online.

And there is two solutions if i want to enjoy cfw again : Stop playing online, go back to airplane mode, use cfw and stay this way like i used to. OR using Emunand, to keep my sysnand constantly updated, ready for online, and enjoy cfw at the same time on my sdcard. That solution sure is appealing.

I did some research on sxos. Since i can already go to rcm with my dongle, inject payloads n all, i only need to buy an sxos license for ~30€, nothing else, to get emunand right now, yes? This or wait for atmos emunand but that may come today or in years, who knows.

Thanks again for all the infos. If i'm correct about everything, i'll update my switch today and stay clean until a new game i'm interested in comes out.

 

[pLaYeR^^]

It's clear now, i appreciate the help.

I don't care much about a better kind of hack on lower firmwares in the futur, i simply don't want to have troubles running .nsp on 8.0.x. So downgrade is not so important.

So, if i resume, my switch being in 6.2 CFW atm, i need to downgrade to 5.1, then restore my clean NAND (Made in 5.1), then connect my switch to internet and update normally to the latest firmware. So at this point, my switch will be fully clean, with no way to downgrade later, but ready to play online.

And there is two solutions if i want to enjoy cfw again : Stop playing online, go back to airplane mode, use cfw and stay this way like i used to. OR using Emunand, to keep my sysnand constantly updated, ready for online, and enjoy cfw at the same time on my sdcard. That solution sure is appealing.

I did some research on sxos. Since i can already go to rcm with my dongle, inject payloads n all, i only need to buy an sxos license for ~30€, nothing else, to get emunand right now, yes? This or wait for atmos emunand but that may come today or in years, who knows.

Thanks again for all the infos. If i'm correct about everything, i'll update my switch today and stay clean until a new game i'm interested in comes out.

You don't even need to downgrade to 5.1.0. If you restore your clean 5.1.0 backup, your switch will be downgraded to 5.1.0 automatically.
If you already own a dongle, you can simply buy an SX OS license and start using EmuNAND.

 

[Yoshimark]

Oh, alright. Those are two very good news.

Huge thanks to everyone who helped me on this thread.

 

[jajamundo]

If you are going to do this, just make sure to backup first all your saves files.

 

[Yoshimark]

Yes, i did that, just in case. But tbh, there's no save file i absolutely want to keep since i'm done with every switch games i played until now.

Thank you for the reminder, appreciated.

 

[CanIHazWarez]

If you want to play online with minimal risk of ban you have to burn fuses on sysnand. It's hard to have both worlds. Downgrade later? Or play online? That's your choices.

Source for this? Fuses only get checked during boot. There is no ban risk from unburnt fuses.

 

[smf]

If you already own a dongle, you can simply buy an SX OS license and start using EmuNAND.

Or wait for atmosphere emunand for free, although it depends on how desperate you are for it as we don't know when that will be.

Source for this? Fuses only get checked during boot. There is no ban risk from unburnt fuses.

I think it's a theoretical "nintendo could detect this in a future fw version"

 

[RHOPKINS13]

Emunand for Atmosphere is probably coming out really soon™.

https://gbatemp.net/threads/open-source-emunand-very-soon.537969/

I don't think there will ever be a 100% guaranteed ban-safe way of playing online without burning fuses. Sure, right now Nintendo doesn't seem to be banning based on fuse counts or autorcm alone. In the future they could. And maybe somebody could write a lightweight CFW that only patched out those fuse checks, and left the rest of the system stock. And then Nintendo would release a patch to detect said CFW. It would become a cat and mouse game, and a lot of switches would probably get banned in the middle of it.

You have to decide what's more important to you, being able to play online, or one day getting an untethered exploit. If playing online is that important to you, and you really don't want to get banned, burn those fuses. It's the only safe way. Go ahead and restore your clean nand backup, remove autorcm if you have it, update to the latest firmware, and play online. And I feel like emunand is right around the corner, I'd probably wait until that's out before playing with CFW again.

 

[Kafluke]

Source for this? Fuses only get checked during boot. There is no ban risk from unburnt fuses.

The point is that if your OFW fuse count doesn't match actual burnt fuses then you have to first use a custom bootloader to boot into OFW and at that point it is likely that you will be detected as having used a custom boot loader and banned. I don't think Nintendo checks fuses but we have proof in the ban thread that they can detect a custom boot using a RCM and a custom bootloader.

 

[ZachyCatGames]

The point is that if your OFW fuse count doesn't match actual burnt fuses then you have to first use a custom bootloader to boot into OFW and at that point it is likely that you will be detected as having used a custom boot loader and banned. I don't think Nintendo checks fuses but we have proof in the ban thread that they can detect a custom boot using a RCM and a custom bootloader.

lol what. Current custom bootloaders aren’t detectable.

 

[Yoshimark]

I am currently trying to restore my clean nand, but i'm a bit confused about autorcm.

I only used ReiNX, and once everything was installed i used the option for autorcm in ReiNX toolkit.

Now if i'm correct : I simply have to reboot my switch(auto rcm enabled), inject hekate, restore my clean nand, and once that's done, i have to inject reinx one last time to remove autorcm with the toolkit, reboot my switch one last time and voila, clean ofw. Also have to think about formating the sd card after all that. But since i need to go on a cfw after restoring the clean nand, is it still clean? Not sure if i'm clear.

I'm a bit lost here. I can't remove autorcm first or i'll burn my fuse after rebooting. Or i need to disable it and reboot with my jig but if i remember correctly rcm doesnt show up 100% of the time so that would be risky.

EDIT : After some research it seems that auto rcm basically works by corrupting the nand. So i guess, restoring my clean nand will remove autorcm. So, i reboot my switch with autorcm enabled -> hekate -> restore clean nand -> format my micro sd card -> done. If anyone can confirm this, i'll appreciate it.

 

[makazula]

Yes, restoring a clean nand will remove auto rcm. Good luck.