Homebrew Manually deleting ticket files from my Wii U

[linguafreak]

I installed a game through WUP Installer I'd already purchased from the eShop before, because I forgot it was already installed on my Wii U. If I deleted the game through system settings, the bad ticket that WUP Installer installed together with the game would still be there. Thus it wouldn't be possible for me to redownload the game from the eShop. How can I manually delete a ticket from my Wii U without formatting all the console? Where can I find the installed ticket files?

 

[nexusmtz]

I installed a game through WUP Installer I'd already purchased from the eShop before, because I forgot it was already installed on my Wii U. If I deleted the game through system settings, the bad ticket that WUP Installer installed together with the game would still be there. Thus it wouldn't be possible for me to redownload the game from the eShop. How can I manually delete a ticket from my Wii U without formatting all the console? Where can I find the installed ticket files?

Ticket bucket files are under /storage_slc/rights/ticket/apps. You have to be careful though, because there might be more than one ticket in the bucket file. Read the Error 105-3687 and how to fix it thread for more info.

 

[linguafreak]

Thanks a lot for linking that thread I couldn't find on my own. Although the info there is not quite well-arranged, I managed to get an idea how to delete ticket files and where to find them.

 

[nexusmtz]

Thanks a lot for linking that thread I couldn't find on my own. Although the info there is not quite well-arranged, I managed to get an idea how to delete ticket files and where to find them.

No problem. Are you all set? If you get stuck, let me know the specifics.

 

[linguafreak]

Thanks in advance for your offer. I will try to get an overview over the installed tickets in my NAND with the help of tik2sd as soon as it won't be too busy at work. I installed New Super Mario Bros. U without the Luigi-DLC (which I legitimately bought from the eShop) and The Legend of Zelda - Wind Waker HD with the help of WUP Installer although I had previously bought both games on the eShop. So I assume I will have one good and one bad ticket for either game stored on my NAND. I will still have to figure out the correct EUR Title Keys of the files. 0005000010101e00 for Mario and 0005000010143600 for Wind Waker is all I know, but no idea how the file names continue. In the above mentioned thread the ticket files had additional information. What I don't know either is how to split a ticket file in case such a file would have stored more than one ticket I want to delete.

 

[nexusmtz]

I installed New Super Mario Bros. U without the Luigi-DLC (which I legitimately bought from the eShop) and The Legend of Zelda - Wind Waker HD with the help of WUP Installer although I had previously bought both games on the eShop. So I assume I will have one good and one bad ticket for either game stored on my NAND.

That's correct.

I will still have to figure out the correct EUR Title Keys of the files. 0005000010101e00 for Mario and 0005000010143600 for Wind Waker is all I know, but no idea how the file names continue.

Tik2SD correlates the title ID with the ticket bucket file in the keys.txt file that it creates. It does also include the title key, but you won't have to change that. Once you have keys.txt, you should open it with something that understands Unix linefeeds, like Notepad++. Keys.txt will tell you the starting offset for each ticket within each file.

Keep in mind that games are 00050000, and DLC is 0005000C. They're usually in different ticket bucket files, and your desired end state is different for each. With games, you want the legit eShop ticket to be the only ticket. For DLC, you want both the legit and fake tickets, but the legit one needs to be first in the file (if you want to run the game without signature patching.)

Raphamotta wrote a tutorial for my DLC fixing process at Tutorial: Play all unlocked on sysnand without CFW. That thread has good information regarding tickets.

What I don't know either is how to split a ticket file in case such a file would have stored more than one ticket I want to delete.

You need a hex editor like HxD for that. From there, it's a matter of recognizing what a complete ticket looks like (or counting bytes / finding offsets) and copy/paste.

 

[linguafreak]

Well, I extracted my tickets with Tik2SD and now I know in which ticket bucket files the relevant tickets are stored. Both of the files are 1544 bytes long and according to the keys.txt file contain 2 tickets each - these must be the good one and the bad one. The keys.txt file tells me that they start at tik@0x0 and tik@0x350 in both ticket bucket files. I opened the corresponding files with a hex editor on my Mac but the problem is that I have absolutely no idea which ticket ist the fake one and what "0x0" and "0x350" mean. I know that these numbers refer to the starting byte of each ticket, but given the fact that I don't understand hexadecimals I am completely lost here...

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Stupid me! I've just googled the hexadecimal numbers and found the decimal conversion - 0x350 means 848 That means that the first ticket in the bucket file is 848 bytes and the second one 696 bytes long. All four tickets in both bucket files begin with "00010004" assuming I found the correct starting points for each ticket?! Now all I still need to know is which ticket is the bad one that I have to delete Thanks for your help in advance.

 

[nexusmtz]

Stupid me! I've just googled the hexadecimal numbers and found the decimal conversion - 0x350 means 848 That means that the first ticket in the bucket file is 848 bytes and the second one 696 bytes long. All four tickets in both bucket files begin with "00010004" assuming I found the correct starting points for each ticket?! Now all I still need to know is which ticket is the bad one that I have to delete.

Two things will tell you which is fake and which is real.

First, real eShop game tickets are 696 bytes. The fake ones are 848, because they're modeled after the disc tickets.

Second, almost all of the fake ticket generators use the same strings of bytes in the areas that become irrelevant once you have signature patching enabled. You'll notice that the hex letters toward the top of the fake ticket look like they spell DISEASED ISABELLA (D15EA5ED 15ABE11A) and later FEEDFACE. In real tickets, those areas look like random characters (but aren't random at all.)

And yes, you have the right starting points. Looks like you're almost there.

 

[linguafreak]

Thanks a lot! Very helpful information. None of the fake tickets contains "D15EA5ED 15ABE11A" or "FEEDFACE" but I guess that the first ticket being 848 bytes long is indeed the fake one I'll have to delete. Next thing I'll try in the coming days is setting up a connection between my Mac and my WiiU using ftpiiu for Mocha and deleting the fake tickets with a hex editor. I'll let you know if other questions or problems occur.

 

[nexusmtz]

Thanks a lot! Very helpful information. None of the fake tickets contains "D15EA5ED 15ABE11A" or "FEEDFACE" but I guess that the first ticket being 848 bytes long is indeed the fake one I'll have to delete.

Ok. What program did you use to download the games (was it on a Mac?), and how did you obtain the tickets? (just trying to figure out why the fake tickets aren't visually identifiable.)

 

[nexusmtz]

Thanks a lot! Very helpful information. None of the fake tickets contains "D15EA5ED 15ABE11A" or "FEEDFACE" but I guess that the first ticket being 848 bytes long is indeed the fake one I'll have to delete.

Ok. What program did you use to download the games (was it on a Mac?), and how did you obtain the tickets? (No website links - just trying to figure out why the fake tickets aren't visually identifiable.)

 

[linguafreak]

I downloaded the games with WiiU USB Helper on a friend's Windows PC because this was the most convenient and fastest way to download the games. In this program I entered the link to the well known site for WiiU title keys so that the tickets should come from there...

 

[nexusmtz]

There's the info I needed. Both of the titles you installed are available on disc, so when you grabbed them with Wii U USB Helper (with the key site entered) you got the legit disc tickets. That's why they don't look fake - they're not fake. They are perfectly legit. You could delete either ticket, or just leave them.

 

[linguafreak]

I see. So I could easily redownload both of my games via the eShop without receiving an error code because both tickets in either bucket file are legit ones?! So the whole problem of not being able to redownload purchased games via the eShop only occurs when these games are not available on disc?

By the way, what would happen if I downloaded and installed DLC via WiiU USB Helper and bought this DLC afterwards on the eShop? There would be a fake ticket for DLC and the eShop would generate a legit one and place it before the fake one in a bucket file, right? So I could delete and redownload the DLC via the eShop without having to delete the fake ticket beforehand?

 

[nexusmtz]

I see. So I could easily redownload both of my games via the eShop without receiving an error code because both tickets in either bucket file are legit ones?! So the whole problem of not being able to redownload purchased games via the eShop only occurs when these games are not available on disc?

I'll try the eshop download off a disc ticket when I get a chance, and let you know. Deleting the disc ticket would be safe, now that you have a backup of it.

By the way, what would happen if I downloaded and installed DLC via WiiU USB Helper and bought this DLC afterwards on the eShop? There would be a fake ticket for DLC and the eShop would generate a legit one and place it before the fake one in a bucket file, right? So I could delete and redownload the DLC via the eShop without having to delete the fake ticket beforehand?

The problem there comes from the installation that happens at the time that you make the purchase. You should have your purchased content only, because no other content is there that's looking for tickets.

Normally, you'd buy the game, buy the single dlc, decide you want it all, load the DLC with the fake ticket. Then you have to either always run that game with patching, or you have to swap the tickets after the first run of it.

 

[linguafreak]

Thanks a lot for all this extremely useful information. Although I don't have to delete tickets now, I learned a lot through our conversation and by playing around with various programs.