Hacking N3DS with Luma keeps removing applications from ./Nintendo 3DS/

[PeacefulDreams]

Hi guys! First of all thanks for taking the time to read my post - I hope to help you out some time when you run into something.

After searching the forum for a while I found no solution to this problem I'm running into repeatedly. Here's the situation: I recently decided to softmod my 3DS through 3ds.guide with SoundHax, boot9strap and then installed Luma CFW. I used a 32GB SD card and recently got a good deal on a 128gb one. As I'm not using emunand, I read that properly formatting the card with GUI Format or GodMode9 with a cluster size of 32k or 64k and copying the files from one sd to the other should be enough.

My N3DS does boot and it seems to work okay when I do so. The problem is that I suddenly can't install CIAs anymore through FBI, and when I use FreeShop it keeps saying "Failed to install ticket 0x****." For some reason, when I attempt to install something through either FBI or FreeShop, it corrupts my titles folder inside the Nintendo 3DS folder and then every application says "Error, the SD had been removed." After rebooting, all applications disappear, including FBI so I'm unable to install anything anew.

Is this a problem that some of you have encountered and is it easy to solve? I thought maybe it deletes the titles and db's to start fresh on an SD card, but what would be the point of copying the files then?

I hope someone can help! I had plenty of games backed up and every time I try to put them on it takes about 5 hours to copy everything to the SD, just to see it disappear once again

Thank you in advance,

PeacefulDreams

 

[proflayton123]

Check over the sd card with h2testw https://3ds.guide/h2testw-(windows)

 

[BL4Z3D247]

Hi guys! First of all thanks for taking the time to read my post - I hope to help you out some time when you run into something.

After searching the forum for a while I found no solution to this problem I'm running into repeatedly. Here's the situation: I recently decided to softmod my 3DS through 3ds.guide with SoundHax, boot9strap and then installed Luma CFW. I used a 32GB SD card and recently got a good deal on a 128gb one. As I'm not using emunand, I read that properly formatting the card with GUI Format or GodMode9 with a cluster size of 32k or 64k and copying the files from one sd to the other should be enough.

My N3DS does boot and it seems to work okay when I do so. The problem is that I suddenly can't install CIAs anymore through FBI, and when I use FreeShop it keeps saying "Failed to install ticket 0x****." For some reason, when I attempt to install something through either FBI or FreeShop, it corrupts my titles folder inside the Nintendo 3DS folder and then every application says "Error, the SD had been removed." After rebooting, all applications disappear, including FBI so I'm unable to install anything anew.

Is this a problem that some of you have encountered and is it easy to solve? I thought maybe it deletes the titles and db's to start fresh on an SD card, but what would be the point of copying the files then?

I hope someone can help! I had plenty of games backed up and every time I try to put them on it takes about 5 hours to copy everything to the SD, just to see it disappear once again

Thank you in advance,

PeacefulDreams

There's a couple things that could be causing this.

1. You have the max 300 titles installed to the Home Menu and you're trying to install more.
2. Your SD card is corrupted or fake.

How many titles do you have installed to the Home Menu? If that's not the issue try backing up your entire SD card and test it with H2testw to see if it's corrupt or fake.

 

[Joom]

recently got a good deal on a 128gb one

Never trust these. Ripoff vendors always market high capacity cards for low prices, and the advertised capacity is typically a lie. The 3DS already has problems with 128 GB because they can't be formatted properly due to FAT32 filesystem limitations. Even if you get a legitimate 128 GB card the console will still have problems with playing games, especially GBA titles. Test your card to see if it's fake or not, because it sounds like it is. Also, always, ALWAYS, format your SD to use a 32k byte cluster.

 

[PeacefulDreams]

Never trust these. Ripoff vendors always market high capacity cards for low prices, and the advertised capacity is typically a lie. The 3DS already has problems with 128 GB because they can't be formatted properly due to FAT32 filesystem limitations. Even if you get a legitimate 128 GB card the console will still have problems with playing games, especially GBA titles. Test your card to see if it's fake or not, because it sounds like it is.

I got it from Groupon and as it turns out, another Sandisk Ultra of 200GB with the same files works perfectly - it seems like the card is fake. Luckily I can still return it. Just realized the card says 128gb SDHC while it should be SDXC. No brand either. The site I mentioned is usually quite trustworthy, though I guess I should have been more cautious. Lesson learned!

I'm now fully able to install everything through FBI and freeShop. Thank you all for the advice!

 

[Cuphat]

Never trust these. Ripoff vendors always market high capacity cards for low prices, and the advertised capacity is typically a lie. The 3DS already has problems with 128 GB because they can't be formatted properly due to FAT32 filesystem limitations. Even if you get a legitimate 128 GB card the console will still have problems with playing games, especially GBA titles. Test your card to see if it's fake or not, because it sounds like it is. Also, always, ALWAYS, format your SD to use a 32k byte cluster.

FAT32 works just fine at 128GB. With a 32KB cluster size, it can support up to 8TB.

 

[PeacefulDreams]

FAT32 works just fine at 128GB. With a 32KB cluster size, it can support up to 8TB.

I just used GodMode9 to format the 200GB SanDisk SD with FAT32 and a 64k cluster size and it worked well as well

 

[Joom]

I just used GodMode9 to format the 200GB SanDisk SD with FAT32 and a 64k cluster size and it worked well as well

It needs to be 32. You're going to run into weird problems using 64 (mainly graphical glitching in games).

FAT32 works just fine at 128GB. With a 32KB cluster size, it can support up to 8TB.

I didn't say it didn't work. The problem is that FAT32 wasn't meant for 128+ GB (hence exFAT).

 

[PeacefulDreams]

It needs to be 32. You're going to run into weird problems using 64 (mainly graphical glitching in games).

Okay! I had no idea. From what I read the 64k would make it faster, so I went that route. Will reformat tomorrow then There's no reason not to really. About the capacity, I found it odd as well. I got the card from a MacBook SD adapter with the idea to use it as an additional storage drive (like you would on a pc with SSD for the OS and HDD for media, downloads etc). Bought it second hand but it's a fast card. Instead of five hours it took a bare 25 minutes with this one for 18gb of data.

 

[bostonBC]

FAT32 works just fine at 128GB. With a 32KB cluster size, it can support up to 8TB.

I've likewise used large SD's but 32K clusters only support up to 2TB drives. You will need a 64K cluster for drives > 2TB.

 

[PeacefulDreams]

I've likewise used large SD's but 32K clusters only support up to 2TB drives. You will need a 64K cluster for drives > 2TB.

Imagine having a >2TB on a 3DS. You would need a hell of a collection of games to fill that up!

 

[bostonBC]

Imagine having a >2TB on a 3DS. You would need a hell of a collection of games to fill that up!

Haha... they would have to remove the 300 icon limit. I tried installing all 700+ 3DS games on a 256gb microSD and it took about a week to install. And when I exited I learned of the 300 game limit.

Anything larger than 128GB is a waste IMO as there's no way to install more than 300 games.

 

[Cuphat]

I've likewise used large SD's but 32K clusters only support up to 2TB drives. You will need a 64K cluster for drives > 2TB.

That's incorrect. "The maximum possible number of clusters on a volume using the FAT32 file system is 268,435,445. With a maximum of 32 KB per cluster with space for the file allocation table (FAT), this equates to a maximum disk size of approximately 8 terabytes (TB)."

One related limitation is that MBR (Master Boot Record) only supports 2TB, so any device larger than that would need to use GPT, which I can only assume is not supported by the 3DS. FAT32 would still keep chugging along though, up to 16TB with 64KB clusters.

The main limitation of FAT32 is the file size limit of 4GB.

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

Haha... they would have to remove the 300 icon limit. I tried installing all 700+ 3DS games on a 256gb microSD and it took about a week to install. And when I exited I learned of the 300 game limit.

Anything larger than 128GB is a waste IMO as there's no way to install more than 300 games.

You can divide those games up into SysNAND and up to 4 separate EmuNANDs (with Luma).

 

[PeacefulDreams]

Haha... they would have to remove the 300 icon limit. I tried installing all 700+ 3DS games on a 256gb microSD and it took about a week to install. And when I exited I learned of the 300 game limit.

Anything larger than 128GB is a waste IMO as there's no way to install more than 300 games.

I'm actually ordering a genuine 128GB SD upon returning this fake one. Just wanted to determine if it was the SD or corrupted software/data. I just recently hit the 32GB limit on my other card and will likely never reach the 128GB anyway. I only play Nintendo's main series like Pokemon, Mario, Smash and a few other games. A week to install? It must be disappointing to run into that limit like that..

 

[Joom]

@squall14716, you glossed over this article, which would be more relevant to the 3DS.
https://support.microsoft.com/EN-US/help/314463

@PeacefulDreams, if I were you I'd go with a 64 GB card. That's the maximum capacity the 3DS can handle before things get weird. Even if you have a 128 GB card formatted to use a 32k cluster you'll still end up with graphical problems in games. For whatever reason, 128+ causes an overscan issue where the top screen image duplicates itself and bleeds on screen from the bottom (at least in GBA VCs). I've seen other reports of weird problems, too, like garbled/bit crushed sound from normal 3DS games. NTR titles launched from nds-bootstrap also apparently have problems with these cards.

 

[bostonBC]

That's incorrect. "The maximum possible number of clusters on a volume using the FAT32 file system is 268,435,445. With a maximum of 32 KB per cluster with space for the file allocation table (FAT), this equates to a maximum disk size of approximately 8 terabytes (TB)."

One related limitation is that MBR (Master Boot Record) only supports 2TB, so any device larger than that would need to use GPT, which I can only assume is not supported by the 3DS. FAT32 would still keep chugging along though, up to 16TB with 64KB clusters.

The main limitation of FAT32 is the file size limit of 4GB.

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


You can divide those games up into SysNAND and up to 4 separate EmuNANDs (with Luma).

I think that is where the theoretical meets the practical. I don't know any drive > 2TB that has 512 byte sectors. Here's a 5TB Maxtor I just formatted with 32K clusters. Note that like most large drives it has 4096 bytes per sector (better for ECC correction on large drives).

It shows up in Windows as a 560GB drive.

Here's the drive formatted with 64K clusters:

It correctly shows up as a 5TB drive and it does not require GPT formatting.

When formatting and determining the max size possible under a given cluster you also have to factor in 4K versus 512 byte sectors.

 

[PeacefulDreams]

Another related question - perhaps you know this @bostonBC - I'm using a Mac to copy the files from one sd to the other and I wondered if there's a way to avoid the "Filesize exceeds 4Gb" error when copying games like Pokemon Ultra Sun to the fat32 sd card. Could it be avoided through FTP? Technically, the 3DS wouldn't be able to store these files either if they exceed 4GB right?

 

[Joom]

Another related question - perhaps you know this @bostonBC - I'm using a Mac to copy the files from one sd to the other and I wondered if there's a way to avoid the "Filesize exceeds 4Gb" error when copying games like Pokemon Ultra Sun to the fat32 sd card. Could it be avoided through FTP? Technically, the 3DS wouldn't be able to store these files either if they exceed 4GB right?

This is a limitation of the FAT filesystem, and isn't related to any one operating system. FTP should work since you're not mounting the filesystem of the SD. Just know that it'll be painfully slow compared to SD transfer rates.

 

[Hunter]

This is a limitation of the FAT filesystem, and isn't related to any one operating system. FTP should work since you're not mounting the filesystem of the SD. Just know that it'll be painfully slow compared to SD transfer rates.

how does one FTP to a SD card on the 3DS without mounting the drive?

 

[PeacefulDreams]

This is a limitation of the FAT filesystem, and isn't related to any one operating system. FTP should work since you're not mounting the filesystem of the SD. Just know that it'll be painfully slow compared to SD transfer rates.

Okay! I'll try that. I was under the impression that macOS has a lower limit, like 3.7gb, when it tells you the file can't be copied. If not, how could the 3ds have games installed that are larger than 4GB? I'm literally copying the files from one sd to the other and it tells me the files are too big