Hacking Luma3D weird... stuff

[Tattorack]

Alright, so I got bit of a head scratcher here.
Its been a while since I last touched my 3DS, but recently I wanted fiddle around with it again.
I went ahead and checked on the internet if there was a new version of Luma3D and a new version of the 3DS firmware. There were, on both counts.
So I updated my Luma3D CFW with the Luma3D updater. Everything went fine.
Then I proceeded to get the latest 3DS firmware update, making sure I was still in my EmuNAND, of course.
The update went fine.
Then I rebooted my 3DS and found out I lost all my apps. No Themely, no Homebrew, no Luma3D Updater, nothing.
My theme was also gone. I thought I booted into my SysNAND, so I went ahead and checked that.
Turns out my SysNAND got updated to version 11.6, but I still have a working EmuNAND at version 11.4, only without any of my stuff.
I can still do stuff on my EmuNAND; I just reinstalled Themely via a .cia and re-applied my theme with no problems.
Sooo.... what exactly happened??

 

[Quantumcat]

Does your sysNAND work? If it boots into a black screen you are probably using A9LH and need to follow https://3ds.guide/a9lh-to-b9s

If you get it working again, dump your emuNAND since as you can see it just gives you trouble for no gain. Follow https://3ds.guide/move-emunand - but if all your stuff is on sysNAND, only follow the steps that remove emuNAND from your card, not the ones that flash emuNAND to sysNAND (otherwise it would overwrite your stuff).

 

[Tattorack]

Does your sysNAND work? If it boots into a black screen you are probably using A9LH and need to follow https://3ds.guide/a9lh-to-b9s

If you get it working again, dump your emuNAND since as you can see it just gives you trouble for no gain. Follow https://3ds.guide/move-emunand - but if all your stuff is on sysNAND, only follow the steps that remove emuNAND from your card, not the ones that flash emuNAND to sysNAND (otherwise it would overwrite your stuff).

Both EmuNAND and SysNAND work fine, which is how I found out that my SysNAND got updated instead of my EmuNAND somehow.
I've successfully updated my EmuNAND to the latest firmware. Now both my SysNAND and EmuNAND are 11.6. I'm also still able to install .cia files and use them just fine in my EmuNAND, so everything is working as it should be, except that I lost everything I had installed and all my saves prior to all this. This whole situation is really confusing.

 

[Quantumcat]

Oh ok, so your stuff isn't in sysNAND either? What do you see if you go to System Settings -> Data Management -> 3DS software? Do your games appear but greyed out with an X? Or not at all?

 

[Tattorack]

Oh ok, so your stuff isn't in sysNAND either? What do you see if you go to System Settings -> Data Management -> 3DS software? Do your games appear but greyed out with an X? Or not at all?

Nothing at all, except for the things I installed just now (Homebrew Launcher, Themely and MarioMaker 3D).

 

[Quantumcat]

How big is your Nintendo 3DS folder? Just wondering if the games are deleted or not.
If they aren't deleted, do you have a NAND backup from when they were working? It kind of sounds like you formatted your system or something.

 

[Tattorack]

The "3ds" folder on my SD card root is 31MB big, so I'm guessing there isn't anything there. Though there is a folder named "Nintendo 3DS" that I'm sure wasn't there before that is taking up 5GB of space.

 

[Quantumcat]

The Nintendo 3DS folder is where your games are stored. Looks like they haven't gone but your console is acting like it has been formatted. Restore any NAND backups you have, that will at least have the Nintendo 3DS folder working, you may just have to reinstall tickets for any games you installed between when the backup was made and now.

 

[Tattorack]

Alright, I will try.

 

[Giodude]

Also do me a favor. When you hold select while booting, does it say autoboot emunand on to or autoboot sysnand?

 

[Tattorack]

Also do me a favor. When you hold select while booting, does it say autoboot emunand on to or autoboot sysnand?

None of the Luma3D shortcuts and controls work anymore.

 

[Giodude]

None of the Luma3D shortcuts and controls work anymore.

Do you have boot.3dsx on the sd card or boot.firm out of curiosity?

 

[Tattorack]

Do you have boot.3dsx on the sd card or boot.firm out of curiosity?

Yes, I got both of those on the root of my SD card.
I also got something called boot.firm.bak on my SD card root.

 

[Giodude]

Yes, I got both of those on the root of my SD card.
I also got something called boot.firm.bak on my SD card root.

Hrm, you probably have b9s then. In that case, what happens if you delete both the .firm and .bin files? (back them up beforehand).

 

[Tattorack]

Hrm, you probably have b9s then. In that case, what happens if you delete both the .firm and .bin files? (back them up beforehand).

Is doing this safe? What could go wrong if I do this experiment.

 

[Purple_Heart]

Is doing this safe? What could go wrong if I do this experiment.

dont worry @Giodude knows what he says

 

[Giodude]

Is doing this safe? What could go wrong if I do this experiment.

When the 3ds boots up through b9s, it checks the sd card to make sure boot.firm is there to load into whatever that boot.firm is (in most cases luma3ds). If you delete boot.firm, the 3ds will give up looking and turn itself off. I just want to make sure 100% that the 3ds still has b9s installed by making sure the 3ds doesn't boot up without that file. If you put the file back everything else goes back. It's like removing the .exe for a PC game. Doesn't work without it, but if you put it back the game works fine.

 

[Tattorack]

dont worry @Giodude knows what he says

Yeah, alright. I just wanted to be sure.

 

[Tattorack]

When the 3ds boots up through b9s, it checks the sd card to make sure boot.firm is there to load into whatever that boot.firm is (in most cases luma3ds). If you delete boot.firm, the 3ds will give up looking and turn itself off. I just want to make sure 100% that the 3ds still has b9s installed by making sure the 3ds doesn't boot up without that file. If you put the file back everything else goes back. It's like removing the .exe for a PC game. Doesn't work without it, but if you put it back the game works fine.

Alright, the 3DS boots into SysNAND (I know this because in the settings app it will say "Sys 11.6 E" and in the EmuNAND it wont have "Sys" infron of it). No errors or anything of particular note happened.

 

[Giodude]

Alright, the 3DS boots into SysNAND. No errors or anything of particular note happened.

..... Did you somehow remove b9s? You weren't using menuhax or anything right?