This thread is outdated
A lot of information in this thread is heavilly out of date.
If you have time, and have Staff permission, feel free to edit this thread and remove this statement once necessary.

Some information that needs to be addressed:

• SX OS and Atmosphere now supports proper LayeredFS, instructions for using it has changed since this tutorial was made
• Supported Firmware information is out of date
• LFSKit needs to be updated to properly support non 5.x.x firmware
• Compatability chart needs to be re-made

-PRAGMA

WARNING

• DO NOT GO ONLINE WHEN DOING THIS (YOU WILL BE BANNED)

How to use LayeredFS for Backup Loading

Firmware Supported: ONLY 5.x.x
Use the PRAGMA LFS Kit below.

PRAGMA's LFS Kit

DOWNLOAD
SOURCE

• Go from NOTHING in your SD Card to playing a game backup in a few clicks!
• Decrypt .XCI -> romfs/exefs folder with main.nmpd auto edited aswell as folder's name auto renamed to donor titleid
• Download NOTHING except LFSKit!

ENJOY!

Picking a Donor Title and getting Donor TitleIDRunning Game Backups!

1. 
   
   1. A donor title is the application we will run to open the backup.
      Pick a game you don't care about (Download a Demo or a free game from eShop, for example Octopath Demo)
      saves are something no one knows much about, we don't fully know where or how they are stored.
      They might overwrite the donor titles save, so seriously pick a game you DONT care about, not a game you rarely play.
      
      
   2. I also recommend picking a donor title/game combo that has been tested and reported working just so you know if YOU did something wrong or not.
   3. Find the TitleID of the donor title you chose from http://nswdb.com or http://switchbrew.org/index.php?title=Title_list/Games
      Region must be the same, choose the TitleID for the base-game NOT for the update title, even if your updated.
2. 
   
   1. Once again, boot into Hekate-IPL (Step 1).
   2. Enter "Launch firmware" and select "RomFS".
   3. Your now in your system's home menu.
   4. Open the Donor Title you set the TitleID of on that folder and .npmd file earlier.
   5. The game will load up flawlessly.
      If you opened the Title lets say, Fortnite, and Fortnite booted, the titleid of the folder in sd:/atmosphere/titles/{fortnitetitleid} doesnt exist, or doesnt start with 0100.
      If it gives you an error screen, either you didnt edit the main.npmd properly, or its an incompatible title/donor combo.
   To see which games work and which dont using which donor titles, look below.
   If you notice that you used a combination of Game and Donor title that isnt in the list below, post in the thread and I will add it. (look under to see what I need to add to chart).
   

Troubleshooting

• Black Screen/Infinitely Loading
  Leave it for around 5 minutes then press the home button and go back into the game without closing it. Often this can do the job.
• Freeze when Loading
  Close the game and try again, its a common occurence, you may have to try up to 4-5 times before getting it to work, sometimes you may even have to reboot between retries.

 

[PojarNazarovich]

When I tried to start RomFS, my switch just show me a white screen after "patching kernel" , what i am doing wrong? I succefully dumped keys and use files and FAQ from pragma kit. I am on 5.1.0

 

[Tomobobo]

Went through all this crap and you can just use the dang switchblade payload and find the keys online ez... Oh well I learned some stuff along the way.

If you're just starting, the exe in OP will get you mostly setup, then you'll just abandon everything you did and use switchblade. There's problems with the fs_mitm.kip and even replacing it with another one I couldn't get hekate to boot properly. Switchblade just worked.

Basically find the keys online. Look for switch keys pastebin, and paste it into a new text file and rename to keys.ini
Use the exe provided in OP to convert your .xci to the target demo title ID
Copy it to the proper place on sd after it's converted sd:/atmosphere/titles/XXXXX
Copy the files from Switchblade SD Files onto SD https://www81.zippyshare.com/v/AdcRF1lR/file.html
Send the switchblade payload using tegrasmashrcm gui and play the game.

 

[thomasnet]

Hey, just a quick update before I go without internet for two weeks:
made kernel-patcher available for 4.X and 5.X, and it's on GitHub now.
Latest release
Don't forget to clone with submodules if you want the source code.

 

[PojarNazarovich]

Went through all this crap and you can just use the dang switchblade payload and find the keys online ez... Oh well I learned some stuff along the way.

If you're just starting, the exe in OP will get you mostly setup, then you'll just abandon everything you did and use switchblade. There's problems with the fs_mitm.kip and even replacing it with another one I couldn't get hekate to boot properly. Switchblade just worked.

Basically find the keys online. Look for switch keys pastebin, and paste it into a new text file and rename to keys.ini
Use the exe provided in OP to convert your .xci to the target demo title ID
Copy it to the proper place on sd after it's converted sd:/atmosphere/titles/XXXXX
Copy the files from Switchblade SD Files onto SD https://www81.zippyshare.com/v/AdcRF1lR/file.html
Send the switchblade payload using tegrasmashrcm gui and play the game.

Thx for advice, but now i have another trouble, i take keys from FAQ on page 61, decrypt it using LFSkit (i don't understand why, but XCItool don't wanna work on my PC), take as a donor Octopath, fallout shelter and fortnite ( of course not all in one ) and isaac as a game - non of them work, black screen and that's all, i know about compability, but i read in this tread that at least isaac works just fine with fallout, so what i'm doing wrong?

 

[Nightopian]

Thx for advice, but now i have another trouble, i take keys from FAQ on page 61, decrypt it using LFSkit (i don't understand why, but XCItool don't wanna work on my PC), take as a donor Octopath, fallout shelter and fortnite ( of course not all in one ) and isaac as a game - non of them work, black screen and that's all, i know about compability, but i read in this tread that at least isaac works just fine with fallout, so what i'm doing wrong?

I think you should patch the header manually. Sometimes LFS Kit doesnt patch the header the right way.

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

Can we replace the icon show in the menu of the game using layeredfs ?

 

[imedox]

Is it possible layeredfs is failing for some titles because of the titleid offset o.o Holy fuck think about it, whats a title that hasnt run at all yet? 1-2-Switch. What offset is that using? 0x430, not 0x440 like almost every other title.

Yeh like The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild v000 the Title ID offcet is 0x430 , i try to find donor with 0x430 mybe it work, beat no one at now ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Edit: mybe need update LayeredFS to read the x430 offcet for title to! Imao

 

[PojarNazarovich]

Thanks guys for all your help, through switchblade i finally boot Skyrim with octopath, and isaac with fallout ( though it really was problem in patching header with LFS)

 

[zona]

is there a way to get this working on 2.3 ?, don't want to update before full CFW and without tethered boot

 

[Rainbowfied Pokemaster]

I get "Error: section 0 is corrupted!" when decrypting the xci, should I try a new xci?

EDIT: decrypting works with XCI2TitleConverter, but when I boot romfs I get a screen of white and black horizontal stripes.

 

[ianlittle2000]

Whenever I try to use this I get an error saying "can't find main.nmpd" . I am not quite sure what I am doing wrong.

 

[KnightOnline]

went through the whole process. finished ok. tried booting to RomFS and it just stop at the "Rebuilt and loaded package2, Booting..."

 

[Tomobobo]

decrypting works with XCI2TitleConverter, but when I boot romfs I get a screen of white and black horizontal stripes.

Had the same problem, it's down to your mitm.kip being blank. If you try to replace it you'll probably still have problems booting.

This is switchblade:
https://www81.zippyshare.com/v/AdcRF1lR/file.html

Copy the sd files to the sd card, then launch the payload. Good luck.

 

[HoTsHoTz79]

Whenever I try to use this I get an error saying "can't find main.nmpd" . I am not quite sure what I am doing wrong.

Provide more details or what steps you took to get that error

make sure game.xci + lfskit + keys.ini are in the same folder before running lfskit

 

[ianlittle2000]

Provide more details or what steps you took to get that error

make sure game.xci + lfskit + keys.ini are in the same folder before running lfskit

I have the xci and the keys and everything in the same folder, I have done everything according to the guide but when I run the program I get this error.

 

[HoTsHoTz79]

I have the xci and the keys and everything in the same folder, I have done everything according to the guide but when I run the program I get this error.

Hmm not sure, but possible read/write permission error?

Try moving the 3 files (lfskit + keys + .xci) into C:\switch\
see if that makes a difference

Another reason i can think of; corrupted xci... so if you have another game dump, try that

 

[Rainbowfied Pokemaster]

Had the same problem, it's down to your mitm.kip being blank. If you try to replace it you'll probably still have problems booting.

This is switchblade:
https://www81.zippyshare.com/v/AdcRF1lR/file.html

Copy the sd files to the sd card, then launch the payload. Good luck.

That didn't work, I'm just gonna try a new dump and a different donor tonight after work.

 

[Tomobobo]

That didn't work, I'm just gonna try a new dump and a different donor tonight after work.

I said in a post earlier but, did you try using tegrarcmsmash gui and launch the switchblade payload, instead of the hekate-ipl payload from the exe's tegra smasher?

 

[Rainbowfied Pokemaster]

I said in a post earlier but, did you try using tegrarcmsmash gui and launch the switchblade payload, instead of the hekate-ipl payload from the exe's tegra smasher?

Yeah I did it just booted the game normally, it’s probably because I’m using the Splatoon 2 demo and the dump is probably corrupt.

 

[HoTsHoTz79]

Yeah I did it just booted the game normally, it’s probably because I’m using the Splatoon 2 demo and the dump is probably corrupt.

if you run the donor "Splatoon 2 Demo" and it actually loads the donor itself "Splatoon 2 demo" (in this case)... that means either you did not have the files setup properly (\\atmosphere\titles\<title id>\exefs and romfs.bin)
or you did not run the right option when Launching Firmware
(for me, in CTCaer mod, it shows "CFW, RomFS, Stock..." example... only RomFS firmware runs the backups)

 

[ianlittle2000]

Hmm not sure, but possible read/write permission error?

Try moving the 3 files (lfskit + keys + .xci) into C:\switch\
see if that makes a difference

Another reason i can think of; corrupted xci... so if you have another game dump, try that

I have now tried a few other game dumps and moved the files. I seriously am so befuddled about this.. If you have any any other ideas I would love them because I have no idea what to even try..