Hacking Upgrading firmware method

[jaysea]

I cannot seem to find the answer to my question what makes the difference in the method used for upgrading the firmware in combination with a9lh.

It is said to upgrade through system settings.
Does it matter if you upgrade through eshop or card update or browser nag?
Will only though system settings keep your a9lh safe?

I really want to know because I want to be safe that my son doesn't accidentally upgrade in the wrong way and I do not want to have 11.3 yet. Especially if it means that I will lose a9lh.

(a9lh+luma is the setup I have)

 

[proflayton123]

If youre scared you can always backup your nand of 11.2 and if its somehow updated, restore with dec9. Browser/game update isnt the best, say you was on 8.1 for example and updated to 9.2 you'd have a dummy browser

 

[jaysea]

So card update or eshop update will not remove my a9lh+luma?

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

Well I have updated one of my 2ds-es and tried the gateway chainloading payload to boot gateway in sysnand. It caused me a black screen and after a reboot my a9lh was removed leaving me with sysnand 11.3 without a way to get flash back with my nand backup.
I do not want to risk my other 2ds to be left with the same issue

 

[lonewolf08]

I cannot seem to find the answer to my question what makes the difference in the method used for upgrading the firmware in combination with a9lh.

It is said to upgrade through system settings.
Does it matter if you upgrade through eshop or card update or browser nag?
Will only though system settings keep your a9lh safe?

I really want to know because I want to be safe that my son doesn't accidentally upgrade in the wrong way and I do not want to have 11.3 yet. Especially if it means that I will lose a9lh.

(a9lh+luma is the setup I have)

Iirc luma allows updating from any of those but more importantly why don't you want to update to 11.3? From what I read Homebrew access was fixed with the latest nightly build of luma and everything else works too, if you have a9lh and luma. For the homebrew access, it was confirmed by a few people with n3ds, I don't know if someone with an o3ds has confirmed yet.

 

[Aletron9000]

Iirc luma allows updating from any of those but more importantly why don't you want to update to 11.3? From what I read Homebrew access was fixed with the latest nightly build of luma and everything else works too, if you have a9lh and luma. For the homebrew access, it was confirmed by a few people with n3ds, I don't know if someone with an o3ds has confirmed yet.

If you mean this

https://gbatemp.net/threads/how-to-use-hbl-on-11-3-a9lh-luma.460523/

I can confirm this works on 11.3 Luma3DS a9lh o3ds

 

[wormdood]

I cannot seem to find the answer to my question what makes the difference in the method used for upgrading the firmware in combination with a9lh.

It is said to upgrade through system settings.
Does it matter if you upgrade through eshop or card update or browser nag?
Will only though system settings keep your a9lh safe?

I really want to know because I want to be safe that my son doesn't accidentally upgrade in the wrong way and I do not want to have 11.3 yet. Especially if it means that I will lose a9lh.

(a9lh+luma is the setup I have)

you can use any of these methods to update but the firm protection in the cart/nag has not been tested anywhere as thoroughly as the settings so its less safe

 

[lonewolf08]

So card update or eshop update will not remove my a9lh+luma?

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

Well I have updated one of my 2ds-es and tried the gateway chainloading payload to boot gateway in sysnand. It caused me a black screen and after a reboot my a9lh was removed leaving me with sysnand 11.3 without a way to get flash back with my nand backup.
I do not want to risk my other 2ds to be left with the same issue

Why gateway I thought you said you had luma. First gateway doesn't work with 11.3, the update broke it and to top it off gateway doesn't have the firm write protection that Luma has. What this means is that updating while using gateway will remove a9lh whereas updating with Luma won't remove a9lh.

 

[jaysea]

Actually I did update with luma on my 2ds which is on 11.3 now. It was running luma until I used the payload of gateway to see if that still worked. After I got the black screen the a9lh was removed. Not when I upgraded the firmware. If I put the gateway in my 2ds, it doesn't give me a black screen anymore since holding any button on boot doesn't work anymore. The method of starting gateway was having the loader.bin named down_gateway.bin in the /luma/payload/ folder.

 

[lonewolf08]

Actually I did update with luma on my 2ds which is on 11.3 now. It was running luma until I used the payload of gateway to see if that still worked. After I got the black screen the a9lh was removed. Not when I upgraded the firmware. If I put the gateway in my 2ds, it doesn't give me a black screen anymore since holding any button on boot doesn't work anymore. The method of starting gateway was having the loader.bin named down_gateway.bin in the /luma/payload/ folder.

Well gateway won't work on 11.3 until they release a patch, as for why you don't have a9lh anymore I don't know since you obviously had it when you tried to launch gateway. It's possible gateway messed something up.

 

[proflayton123]

If you update in GW sysnand, it brings no firm protection so you're now on OFW 11.3

 

[jaysea]

If you update in GW sysnand, it brings no firm protection so you're now on OFW 11.3

I couldn't have updated with gateway. If I did, I wouldn't have black screen when trying to run gateway. Or running sysnand unprotected after upgrade with luma or running the gateway card with the chainloading functionality of luma destroyed my a9lh.

 

[Cuphat]

Do not use Gateway on SysNAND with A9LH, period. It lacks the FIRM protection that protects A9LH, and that is what ends up happening.

There have been several reported cases of "updated using Luma, everything is fine and dandy, tried to boot Gateway, RIP A9LH". It's definitely a Gateway issue.

It doesn't matter what method you use to update the firmware while using Luma, it'll protect you. Other CFWs might not always have that protection enabled, and Gateway can't be bothered to protect their customers at all.

P.S. If you have a NAND backup with A9LH (or firmware below 11.3) for that console, it can be restored through the old DSiWare app & save injection + system transfer to recover your exploit.

 

[jaysea]

The nand backup which I have doesn't have A9LH, but if I can restore the nand from 9.6 which I still have. How do I do that DSiWare part?

 

[Cuphat]

The nand backup which I have doesn't have A9LH, but if I can restore the nand from 9.6 which I still have. How do I do that DSiWare part?

There's not a guide specifically for using it to restore a NAND, but it's basically just a modified version of this guide (linked to archive.org version as it was taken down when it was obsoleted for downgrades): http://web.archive.org/web/20161214...ware-downgrade-(app-injection-and-second-3ds)

You'd skip downloading the NFIRM .zip, and instead of using dgTool to downgrade your NFIRM, you'd use it to restore a NAND backup.

 

[MarioMasta64]

If you mean this

https://gbatemp.net/threads/how-to-use-hbl-on-11-3-a9lh-luma.460523/

I can confirm this works on 11.3 Luma3DS a9lh o3ds

i can confirm it works on n3ds 11.3 doesnt load half the time but works

 

[jaysea]

Thank you squall14716 that worked like a charm.