Homebrew [Question] CFW without losing Plaza data?

[Kylezo]

Hola, I downgraded an O3DS XL to 9.2 and I haven't split nand/installed CFW yet. That's because I want to hang on to my mii plaza progress - streetpasses, puzzles, etc.

I did this on my other console: after the downgrade, I dumped my sysNAND to .bin, backed up my entire SD card drag+drop style using TeraCopy, then unlinked and copied SD back. When I connected my NNID on emuNAND I got 1 mii back but the best I could do was get like the first 5 puzzles back, and all other puzzles are no longer unlocked (so i lost like 800 pieces). Also no people in my plaza anymore, etc.

So I been trying to figure out how to restore that old data, using extdata_dump, digging through folders, etc. but I just can't figure it out. It's sort of an acceptable loss, since this console is a beater and I was doing this through pretty much as a test run to see how it would work on my main console, but I still would love to get that progress back.

In the meantime, on my other console (my main one), I have downgraded but not unlinked, as I am not at all willing to risk losing all my plaza data this time. So even if I can't find a way to get my old data back (reasonable), I'd love to find a way to get a CFW on my real console without losing that data this time around. I have searched *a lot*, but mostly I just find people saying the same thing - lost puzzle data, etc. Most people dont' seem to really care about it so they don't mind formatting cuz you can still get savegames and all that back. This time I've gone so far as to make .iso backups in addition to drag and drop, plus I have 2 SD cards with the same data just in case...

Anyways, if there's a guide or tool somewhere I'm totally missing, let me know!

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Delete the "Nintendo 3DS" folder and copy the backup on again. I'm assuming you set up emuNAND before you formatted sysNAND - if not, restore your sysNAND backup onto emuNAND before doing this.

 

[DjoeN]

i cared, so my O3DS XL sysnand is still linked to emunand, has been so since Gateway supported 9.2.
Everybody is saying you have to unlink, you really don't have to if you know what you do. It's more a safety issue for most!

 

[Tomy Sakazaki]

i cared, so my O3DS XL sysnand is still linked to emunand, has been so since Gateway supported 9.2.
Everybody is saying you have to unlink, you really don't have to if you know what you do. It's more a safety issue for most!

Unlinking is done so people who install CIA's won't have to "unwrap" the icons on home menu everytime they'll play something there.

@Kylezo I've had answered you at other topic, but from your history on this one I can deduce this:
1 - If you didn't perform a system format on the downgraded unit before doing the downgrade the mii plaza data was preserved on it's NAND.
2 - Since you didn't had performed a system format after downgrading and before dumping the sysNAND, all the data that was there will be on emuNAND.
3 - When you launched the mii plaza on emuNAND all the 5 default Puzzle Swaps were restored with their collected pieces? If yes, it shows that you actually recovered the progress on emuNAND but you are missing the actual puzzles data from spotpass. If it shows some puzzles without images but with blocks with interrogation marks, it's another sign that you got the progress data back.

Try setting spotpass on your mii plaza at emunand, close the mii plaza app, let the console go to sleep mode for a while (you can setup tubehax's DNS safely, it'll let you download puzzle swap data).
Then re-open mii plaza, go directly to Puzzle Swap, if you were missing some pieces of puzzle before doing the downgrade probably you'll be greeted by the message about new puzzles and get a random piece of puzzle that you didn't got before, then some (or all) of the puzzles that you unlocked before will be restored. Repeat the closing mii plaza, sleep, reopening mii plaza another time (whenever I have to restore mii plaza spotpass data I have to do 2 donwload cycles).

About visitor's miis I can't guess what happened since this kind of data isn't stored on the console itself.

 

[DjoeN]

Unlinking is done so people who install CIA's won't have to "unwrap" the icons on home menu everytime they'll play something there.

That's a thing of the past!

If you autoboot into CFW or use ctrbootmanager to (auto)boot into CFW, no unwrapping is needed everytime!

 

[Damon_girl]

Wait..so no one knows what happens to the visitors stored on the mii plaza? Don't they get transferred to emuNAND when you set it up?

 

[Kylezo]

Delete the "Nintendo 3DS" folder and copy the backup on again. I'm assuming you set up emuNAND before you formatted sysNAND - if not, restore your sysNAND backup onto emuNAND before doing this.

Ok, so how do I restore the sysNAND NAND.bin dump I made with emuNAND9 onto my current emuNAND now?

i cared, so my O3DS XL sysnand is still linked to emunand, has been so since Gateway supported 9.2.
Everybody is saying you have to unlink, you really don't have to if you know what you do. It's more a safety issue for most!

I thought unlinking was so you could run the latest FW version on your emuNAND, allowing access to dlc, game updates, etc etc, is that not true? It also allows different themes and fixes present glitch?

Unlinking is done so people who install CIA's won't have to "unwrap" the icons on home menu everytime they'll play something there.

@Kylezo I've had answered you at other topic, but from your history on this one I can deduce this:
1 - If you didn't perform a system format on the downgraded unit before doing the downgrade the mii plaza data was preserved on it's NAND.
2 - Since you didn't had performed a system format after downgrading and before dumping the sysNAND, all the data that was there will be on emuNAND.
3 - When you launched the mii plaza on emuNAND all the 5 default Puzzle Swaps were restored with their collected pieces? If yes, it shows that you actually recovered the progress on emuNAND but you are missing the actual puzzles data from spotpass. If it shows some puzzles without images but with blocks with interrogation marks, it's another sign that you got the progress data back.

Try setting spotpass on your mii plaza at emunand, close the mii plaza app, let the console go to sleep mode for a while (you can setup tubehax's DNS safely, it'll let you download puzzle swap data).
Then re-open mii plaza, go directly to Puzzle Swap, if you were missing some pieces of puzzle before doing the downgrade probably you'll be greeted by the message about new puzzles and get a random piece of puzzle that you didn't got before, then some (or all) of the puzzles that you unlocked before will be restored. Repeat the closing mii plaza, sleep, reopening mii plaza another time (whenever I have to restore mii plaza spotpass data I have to do 2 donwload cycles).

About visitor's miis I can't guess what happened since this kind of data isn't stored on the console itself.

Thank you so much for all this great info, and your help. I did at one point indeed have all 5 first puzzles all fully completed, but I don't anymore - i don't know how I got to that, as I have been trying all sorts of different combinations of modifying extdata folders, linking NNID, etc. I'm not sure exactly how to get back to that. It's behaving weirdly now - for instance, I just dropped my SD card into my computer, completely deleted the \Nintendo 3DS\ folder, and replaced it with the folder from my backup - and it actually brought me back to where I was before, 1 puzzle piece and 1 person in my plaza. Do I need to format my emuNAND or something?

 

[Tomy Sakazaki]

Thank you so much for all this great info, and your help. I did at one point indeed have all 5 first puzzles all fully completed, but I don't anymore - i don't know how I got to that, as I have been trying all sorts of different combinations of modifying extdata folders, linking NNID, etc. I'm not sure exactly how to get back to that. It's behaving weirdly now - for instance, I just dropped my SD card into my computer, completely deleted the \Nintendo 3DS\ folder, and replaced it with the folder from my backup - and it actually brought me back to where I was before, 1 puzzle piece and 1 person in my plaza. Do I need to format my emuNAND or something?

Try to inject your NAND.bin (I hope that it was dumped from sysNAND and before you had done a system format on it) file into your emuNAND partition using emuNAND Tool or through emuNAND9 again. Don't format anything, only inject the file.

If necessary redownload the Mii Plaza updates and spotpasses in case that the ID of your NAND.bin doesn't match the ID that was on emuNAND (should happen if you system formatted the emuNAND instead of sysNAND while unlinking them).

If you are lucky (i.e. had done the things in the right order before) you will restore the Mii Plaza progress on emuNAND.

Remember, when unlinking NANDs (in case you need to unlink again), it's preferable that you do a system format on sysNAND (to guarantee that you'll perform this on sysNAND you can remove the SD card before booting the console) and after this perform the setup to install menuhax again (then you should insert SD card back).

 

[[Truth]]

i cared, so my O3DS XL sysnand is still linked to emunand, has been so since Gateway supported 9.2.
Everybody is saying you have to unlink, you really don't have to if you know what you do. It's more a safety issue for most!

Thanks, can you go into detail what I have to be cautious about?
I also don´t want to format sysNAND.

 

[DjoeN]

Thanks, can you go into detail what I have to be cautious about?
I also don´t want to format sysNAND.

When booting you have to be sure it booted into emunand if you want to update or enter the eshop, i do this by going over a homebrew installed cia, if i get a banner i know i'm in emunand for sure
Not that you really need to check, if you check your screens when booting anyway

also try to prevent booting into sysnand when not needed, else you have to unwrap giftboxes once booted back into emunand.
(I autoboot into ctrbootmanager and from there i can choose CakesCFW or rxTools, no need to unwrap giftboxes everytime, but like stated above, you do if for some reason you booted into sysnand once.)

Main reason, al my bought stuff is in sysnand and IronFall v1.0, if ever there is a 10.3 hack to boot CFW i can then update to 10.3 and have everything with me, including IronFall to boot into homebrew

anyway, it's just me most ppl unlink anyway

 

[[Truth]]

When booting you have to be sure it booted into emunand if you want to update or enter the eshop, i do this by going over a homebrew installed cia, if i get a banner i know i'm in emunand for sure
Not that you really need to check, if you check your screens when booting anyway

also try to prevent booting into sysnand when not needed, else you have to unwrap giftboxes once booted back into emunand.
(I autoboot into ctrbootmanager and from there i can choose CakesCFW or rxTools, no need to unwrap giftboxes everytime, but like stated above, you do if for some reason you booted into sysnand once.)

Main reason, al my bought stuff is in sysnand and IronFall v1.0, if ever there is a 10.3 hack to boot CFW i can then update to 10.3 and have everything with me, including IronFall to boot into homebrew

anyway, it's just me most ppl unlink anyway

Thanks, I think I will do this too.
I also want to be able to switch to 10.3 CFW easily, if that happens.
What about NNID? Any Problems with that?
Can you boot DS carts?
Anything I have to take care of when installing cia?
How do you autoboot? With MenuHax?

 

[Kylezo]

Try to inject your NAND.bin (I hope that it was dumped from sysNAND and before you had done a system format on it) file into your emuNAND partition using emuNAND Tool or through emuNAND9 again. Don't format anything, only inject the file.

If necessary redownload the Mii Plaza updates and spotpasses in case that the ID of your NAND.bin doesn't match the ID that was on emuNAND (should happen if you system formatted the emuNAND instead of sysNAND while unlinking them).

If you are lucky (i.e. had done the things in the right order before) you will restore the Mii Plaza progress on emuNAND.

Remember, when unlinking NANDs (in case you need to unlink again), it's preferable that you do a system format on sysNAND (to guarantee that you'll perform this on sysNAND you can remove the SD card before booting the console) and after this perform the setup to install menuhax again (then you should insert SD card back).

I successfully flashed my sysNAND backup (nand.bin) onto my emunand, so now I update emuNAND to 10.5 right? Then I should be able to update mii plaza data? I don't have my old miis on the system after the flash, not sure how to proceed.