Hacking Retail saves on gateway 3.0.1

[mmn]

I sent this information in an email to gateway. I am posting it here for future reference.

Edit: Got a response

Spoiler

Original Post:

I have 6 retail 3DS carts. I dumped all of them, as well as their saves. I renamed them to .3dz, and renamed the saves to the proper titleid.

Of all of the saves, only one of them worked properly in Gateway mode, and it's Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millenium Girl (U). This leads me to believe the following:

Game saves created and dumped on a 9.x sysnand console will not work in Gateway mode if they use >6.x save encryption, even if the console has sysnand 9.x. This seems wrong, because those same retail game saves do work in classic mode.

Below is the list of games and saves I dumped, and their properties.

Retail dumped saves that worked:

• [5.1.0U] [Card 1] [512kb] Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millenium Girl

Retail dumped saves that didn't work:

• [8.1.0U] [Card 1] [512kb] Super Smash Bros. 3DS
• [7.2.0U] [Card 2] [000kb] Pokemon Alpha Sapphire
• [6.2.0U] [Card 1] [128kb] LoZ: A Link Between Worlds
• [6.1.0U] [Card 2] [000kb] Pokemon X
• [2.2.0U] [Card 1] [128kb] Super Mario 3D Land

 

[Shady Guy Jose]

Small clarification: has anyone tested this with a recent (e.g. 9.2) sysNAND running a 9.4 emuNAND?

 

[mmn]

That's what my setup is and why this seems odd. I'll clarify the post.

 

[Liberty]

Thanks, post this here as well and feel free to share the answer if it takes some time for them to reply.

 

[TheBroCode]

I'm interested in this as well, there's a few game saves I don't want to lose (like Fire Emblem, Ocarina of Time). I've only had time to do Mario Kart 7 but that had no problems.

You say you rename your roms to .3ds, does .3dz make a difference?

 

[mmn]

I meant .3dz, whoops.

 

[starly396]

I thought only card2 .3dz games could access old saves (by injection)?

 

[mmn]

If you dump your save using the GW menu and the save is 512kb then it should work, as it does with etrian odyssey.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

It appears that GW mode is using the old encryption, while Classic Mode has the expected behavior of newer firmware, in that it uses the newer encryption.
They probably did it this way to make sure there wouldn't be compatibility issues with ROM saves (i.e. saves breaking after updating) and at the same time making sure retail carts would work the same as on an unhacked console, as there is no easy way for it to automatically detect which encryption a save is using so that any save would work. This may be solved in the future by for example using a different file extension for 6.x+ encrypted saves which should be a simple change for GW to make, although that's an ugly workaround.

 

[mmn]

It appears that GW mode is using the old encryption, while Classic Mode has the expected behavior of newer firmware, in that it uses the newer encryption.
They probably did it this way to make sure there wouldn't be compatibility issues with ROM saves (i.e. saves breaking after updating) and at the same time making sure retail carts would work the same as on an unhacked console, as there is no easy way for it to automatically detect which encryption a save is using so that any save would work. This may be solved in the future by for example using a different file extension for 6.x+ encrypted saves which should be a simple change for GW to make, although that's an ugly workaround.

Exactly what I was thinking.

 

[mmn]

Nice, a quick response:

Spoiler

 

[AdowTatep]

I lost my Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate save when i formatted my emuNAND(because this delete the sd archives) but i made a backup, i downloaded the game from e-shop again, put the old files on the SD, and my save doesn't load, some help?

 

[Celice]

I lost my Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate save when i formatted my emuNAND(because this delete the sd archives) but i made a backup, i downloaded the game from e-shop again, put the old files on the SD, and my save doesn't load, some help?

I have same trouble with Bravely Default. Saves are named correctly but still ignored

 

[MelonGx]

It also happened to me.

I dumped (7.2.0J) Shin Sekaiju no Meikyuu 2's .3DZ and .ZAV and tried to run it.
But the game said Save Corrupt and then initialized the save in both GW3D 9.4 and MT3D 9.4.

BTW, 128KB save unsupported on GW has already been existed.

 

[Zidapi]

I lost my Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate save when i formatted my emuNAND(because this delete the sd archives) but i made a backup, i downloaded the game from e-shop again, put the old files on the SD, and my save doesn't load, some help?

Couldn't be fucked writing out my own instructions, but if you follow the guide in this guide you should be able to recover your saves without issue.

The title id you're looking for the U.S. MHU is 00040000000AE400.

If for some reason you're using a Euro 3DS it's 00040000000B1D00.

For future reference title IDs can be found here.

 

[AdowTatep]

Couldn't be fucked writing out my own instructions, but if you follow the guide in this guide you should be able to recover your saves without issue.

The title id you're looking for the U.S. MHU is 00040000000AE400.

If for some reason you're using a Euro 3DS it's 00040000000B1D00.

For future reference title IDs can be found here.

It worked!!!!
Thank you

 

[Zidapi]

It worked!!!!
Thank you

No problem. But thanks are better directed towards the guy that wrote it. I'm just the lazy guy who pointed you in the right direction.

 

[Thomas12345]

Hi quick question... can you still play and access the save if you use gateway classic mode? it's only dumped roms where the save doesn't work?

 

[mmn]

Hi quick question... can you still play and access the save if you use gateway classic mode? it's only dumped roms where the save doesn't work?

Yes, the retail carts and their saves work in classic mode, it's only when the saves are dumped and you try to play them on a dumped rom that they are declared corrupt.

 

[themperror]

I can vouch for dumping MH3U save in the gatway menu works.

1. dump MH3U game in Gateway Menu
2. dump MH3U save in Gateway Menu
3. rename the save to title ID (00040000000B1D00 I believe for EU)
4. rename the rom extension to .3dz if you want (not sure if it makes a difference for local play/WiiU usage)
5. start the game on the gateway card and your save it there!

Oh and I think gateway is capital sensitive so make sure its .sav and not .SAV