Hacking Question What causes a NAND to become "dirty"?

[JawhnL5]

Hi, I tried searching through GBAtemp & Google *very* briefly to try & find a clear answer to this before I littered the forum with more questions, but could not seem to find anything. What is it that would cause a Switch NAND to become "dirty"? I haven't done a whole lot with my Switch yet, so it probably still has a "clean" NAND, but how would I be able to be sure of this? Thank you!

 

[Reploid]

I think they talking about traces of jailbreaking.

 

[JawhnL5]

I think they talking about traces of jailbreaking.

So something along the lines of running SX OS?

 

[chippy]

Any custom OS. Any installing nsps. Using emulators. If you booted anything throu rcm that's not stock it's not clean.

 

[Kafluke]

Clean nand = untouched by your filthy hacking hands

 

[LightBeam]

I've got another question (I think it's better to ask it here but tell me if making another topic is the best idea)
I'm considering hacking my Switch, so I know I'm supposed to do a nand backup right before I do any kind of hacking stuff. For safety purposes I stay offline, I play all the games I want etc etc
But what if I want to restore my ofw nand, is there some kind of informations that Nintendo write into some read only partitions of the nand (like on the wii I believe) so that my nand will never be as clean as it was before or is that ok ?

 

[mariogamer]

Any custom OS. Any installing nsps. Using emulators. If you booted anything throu rcm that's not stock it's not clean.

That's not true.

Custom os don't write anything to the nand. It's true that what is in the memory is different (the os doesn't care, for now about that tho), but after a reboot, it's like you never did anything.

Nsp:yes ofc. It does write a lot of stuff that I can't remember off of the top of my head, but it makes your nand unclean.

Emulators, same reason as the first one, except maybe that it can crash (tho creport handles that already).

And the fact that booting anything in rcm makes it unclean is not true. For example:
1. Linux & Lakka: those are outside of the os, tho they do write some registers by their own, but don't touch rhe nand
2. Hekate (not including restore options) and any payload that doesn't write to the nand, leave the NAND untouched

 

[Flying Scotsman]

A "dirty NAND" happens due to:

• Crash logs being created for Homebrew/CFW apps - you can check for CFW related crash logs by going into System Settings -> Support -> Error History. If there isn't a title next to the crash - that's a CFW related one. You can get around this using Hekate/ReiNX and Atmosphere's Creport kip which dumps the report to the SD card and not Ninty's servers (SXOS doesn't have support for Kips OR Creport so if you use that - good luck).
• Installing NSPs you don't own.
• Installing NSPs and deleting them leaves the e-Ticket behind which can also alert Nintendo to CFW (even though you deleted the title, the ticket still exists as evidence of piracy).
• Installing non-"stock" NSPs (Homebrew launcher nsp etc).

So something along the lines of running SX OS?

The crash log trail is going to be your biggest downfall with SX OS (unless you pirate NSPs files - then it'll be both NSPs and crash logs). Other CFWs clean up after themselves, but SX leaves a mess of evidence behind.

 

[nWo]

So, Creport, how does it work?

I mean, when you have a crash with CFW, when or in what moment does Crport send the info to the SD? In the very moment you have the error? Or when you enter internet with Original Firmware, or when? Also, if you afterwards enter original firmware, what does happen to the errors? Do they got sent again this time for real?

That's one thing I never understood.

 

[Flying Scotsman]

So, Creport, how does it work?

I mean, when you have a crash with CFW, when or in what moment does Crport send the info to the SD? In the very moment you have the error? Or when you enter internet with Original Firmware, or when? Also, if you afterwards enter original firmware, what does happen to the errors? Do they got sent again this time for real?

That's one thing I never understood.

Atmosphere's CReport replaces Nintendo's Creport system function by dumping the crash dump/log to the SD Card instead of packing it up and sending it to Nintendo's servers (along with your console info). As soon as a crash happens, Atmosphere's Creport takes over and does the work. It effectively disables Ninty's implementation outright so it doesn't work.

The crash is still logged locally on your Switch, but is never sent to Nintendo (as Atmosphere's Creport dumps it to the SD card, it convinces the Switch it was sent to Nintendo's servers - so it never sends it again).

 

[mariogamer]

Atmosphere's CReport replaces Nintendo's Creport system function by dumping the crash dump/log to the SD Card instead of packing it up and sending it to Nintendo's servers (along with your console info). As soon as a crash happens, Atmosphere's Creport takes over and does the work. It effectively disables Ninty's implementation outright so it doesn't work.

The crash is still logged locally on your Switch, but is never sent to Nintendo (as Atmosphere's Creport dumps it to the SD card, it convinces the Switch it was sent to Nintendo's servers - so it never sends it again).

Actually the crash isn't logged locally.
Creport only handles the generation of report, if I remember, then puts it into the NAND. However, with atmosphere's creport, it places it on the sd, as if you had 0 crash.

 

[nWo]

Oh I see. Great to know, thank you both.

A last question. I have a backup from my NAND from, about a couple months ago. If I restore it (because I have had some crashes lately) there is any way Nintendo could know I have restored it? Because, I use the eshop and legit games online a lot, but that backup doesn't have any crashes. I haven't been online since 6.0 launched. Still on 5.1

 

[Flying Scotsman]

Oh I see. Great to know, thank you both.

A last question. I have a backup from my NAND from, about a couple months ago. If I restore it (because I have had some crashes lately) there is any way Nintendo could know I have restored it? Because, I use the eshop and legit games online a lot, but that backup doesn't have any crashes. I haven't been online since 6.0 launched. Still on 5.1

Nope they can't tell. You can think of it like restoring a previous state. The Switch doesn't know about anything after when the NAND backup was taken.

The only times it gets dicey is if you attempt to restore a NAND backup made on a different FW version than the one currently installed (burnt fuse mismatch - you'd need to use Hekate to boot as it ignores the fuse check) or if you've sent crash logs to Ninty, and your backup hasn't got them - then you'll have a log mismatch.

 

[annson24]

And just Initializing the console isn't enough to clean it, right?

 

[mariogamer]

And just Initializing the console isn't enough to clean it, right?

Officially, no.
But you can do some sort of a hard reset (I don't remember what it erases). For that you need to delete the USER partition content and delete everything under SYSTEM:/save EXCEPT 2 folders: 80000....120 & (I don't remember if there's something else, can't find the thread (the original was on the reswitched discord).

 

[dustyranch]

A "dirty NAND" happens due to:

• Crash logs being created for Homebrew/CFW apps - you can check for CFW related crash logs by going into System Settings -> Support -> Error History. If there isn't a title next to the crash - that's a CFW related one. You can get around this using Hekate/ReiNX and Atmosphere's Creport kip which dumps the report to the SD card and not Ninty's servers (SXOS doesn't have support for Kips OR Creport so if you use that - good luck).
• Installing NSPs you don't own.
• Installing NSPs and deleting them leaves the e-Ticket behind which can also alert Nintendo to CFW (even though you deleted the title, the ticket still exists as evidence of piracy).
• Installing non-"stock" NSPs (Homebrew launcher nsp etc).

The crash log trail is going to be your biggest downfall with SX OS (unless you pirate NSPs files - then it'll be both NSPs and crash logs). Other CFWs clean up after themselves, but SX leaves a mess of evidence behind.

Am i right in assuming that restoring an untouched NAND backup (via Hekate) would take care of all of these issues?

 

[Flying Scotsman]

Am i right in assuming that restoring an untouched NAND backup (via Hekate) would take care of all of these issues?

As long as the backup was taken before any of the above happened - yes.