This thread is outdated
A lot of information in this thread is heavilly out of date.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• Supported Firmware information is out of date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.

 

[Youngsie]

Yes, I was wondering why DK suddenly started throwing errors.
Workaround for now - with the caveat of losing all your progress: Use Kitten Squad as a donor for DK. Can confirm the combination is indeed working.

Anyway, do see it as a win rather than a loss - Fortnite is a versatile donor; use it for another game.

Thanks for being able to confirm I shall t hopefully try Kitten squad hopefully I downloaded it as I'm banned and can't access eshop

I had almost 100% the game which is a tad annoying but oh well its a short-medium sized game at least.

 

[PeterGemp]

Thanks for being able to confirm I shall t hopefully try Kitten squad hopefully I downloaded it as I'm banned and can't access eshop

You can download and run demos just as if you bought them in the eShop on your Switch - even if banned - by:

1. Going to to the Nintendo-homepage on your PC / any other device with web-browsing capabilities, log in with your account
2. Browse by Demos / Free Games
3. Click Download DEMO on desired title (if offered). It will display a check mark on said button.

4. Now, start up your Switch, be connected to the internet
5. Go to settings -> User -> *YOUR USER* -> Scroll down and confirm "Update Download Progress"
6. Go back to your home screen. The downloads you enqueued on the PC on the Nintendo-homepage should now start accordingly.
7. ???
8. $PROFIT$

 

[bananarama]

Anyone else having problems with saves in BotW (Fortnire as donor)? The game appears to save just fine, but if I load any save at all it just loads the oldest one :\

 

[Youngsie]

You can download and run demos just as if you bought them in the eShop on your Switch - even if banned - by:

1. Going to to the Nintendo-homepage on your PC / any other device with web-browsing capabilities, log in with your account
2. Browse by Demos / Free Games
3. Click Download DEMO on desired title (if offered). It will display a check mark on said button.

4. Now, start up your Switch, be connected to the internet
5. Go to settings -> User -> *YOUR USER* -> Scroll down and confirm "Update Download Progress"
6. Go back to your home screen. The downloads you enqueued on the PC on the Nintendo-homepage should now start accordingly.
7. ???
8. $PROFIT$

i just decided to ignore my moral objections(not towards backup loading ofc but towards tx as a company and their practices) and just buy sx os to save myself the hassle, updates etc.

Will bear this information in mind for future however thank you.

 

[Deleted User]

Anyone else having problems with saves in BotW (Fortnire as donor)? The game appears to save just fine, but if I load any save at all it just loads the oldest one :\

Literally just happened to me too. Dunno why it didn't happen during the like 6 hours of playtime I had, which is a shame.

 

[PeterGemp]

Literally just happened to me too. Dunno why it didn't happen during the like 6 hours of playtime I had, which is a shame.

I feel like there are currently many SAVE-related problems to overcome.
E.g. Crash Bandicoot over Stern Pinball or Fortnite only starts the first time successfully.
The following game-starts are giving me the same errors that usually occur when games and donors are not compatible in the first place
(not to be confused with the completely system stopping errors we had in previous fs_mitm versions).

[Does anybody have a clue why that is?
I also would be very happy to learn how and why donor-save-size affects compatibility.]

EDIT: I resolved this issue by setting my exefs-Folder to read-only access after unpacking it from the nca and changing the main.npdm-file via hex editor (as in "the prep before I ever started the game for the first time").
No errors more since then. Am going to try this fix for any other case of this nature that I will encounter from now on and will keep you posted.
It does make sense, since the only files the game is supposed to change during its runtime *exhale* ARE the user-/save-files.
I cannot fathom why the game would change the content of the exefs-Folder in any way

i just decided to ignore my moral objections(not towards backup loading ofc but towards tx as a company and their practices) and just buy sx os to save myself the hassle, updates etc..

Nooo, we lost another one.

 

[Deleted User]

I feel like there are currently many SAVE-related problems to overcome.

For sure.. I'll probably just avoid playing BotW until any save related jankiness is ironed out and solved.

 

[Leozairus]

Even with TX OS Mario Odyssey don't run without update, I was wondering if it's the problem... but I can't find update files for Odyssey to try :/

 

[Deleted User]

Has anyone else been getting an error with XCI2TitleConverter? I've been trying to get Crash working but it just spits this out.

"Patching main.npdm file...System.IO.DirectoryNotFoundException: Could not find a part of the path 'C:\Users\Name\Desktop\LayeredFS\01005D100807A000\exefs\main.npdm'.
at System.IO.__Error.WinIOError(Int32 errorCode, String maybeFullPath)
at System.IO.FileStream.Init(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, Int32 rights, Boolean useRights, FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize, FileOptions options, SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES secAttrs, String msgPath, Boolean bFromProxy, Boolean useLongPath, Boolean checkHost)
at System.IO.FileStream..ctor(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize, FileOptions options, String msgPath, Boolean bFromProxy, Boolean useLongPath, Boolean checkHost)
at System.IO.File.InternalReadAllBytes(String path, Boolean checkHost)
at XCI2TitleConverter.ConversionProcess.patchNpdm()
at XCI2TitleConverter.ConversionProcess.process()
at XCI2TitleConverter.MainWindow.<btnStart_Click>b__20_0()"

 

[EmperorX]

Has anyone else been getting an error with XCI2TitleConverter? I've been trying to get Crash working but it just spits this out.

"Patching main.npdm file...System.IO.DirectoryNotFoundException: Could not find a part of the path 'C:\Users\Name\Desktop\LayeredFS\01005D100807A000\exefs\main.npdm'.
at System.IO.__Error.WinIOError(Int32 errorCode, String maybeFullPath)
at System.IO.FileStream.Init(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, Int32 rights, Boolean useRights, FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize, FileOptions options, SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES secAttrs, String msgPath, Boolean bFromProxy, Boolean useLongPath, Boolean checkHost)
at System.IO.FileStream..ctor(String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize, FileOptions options, String msgPath, Boolean bFromProxy, Boolean useLongPath, Boolean checkHost)
at System.IO.File.InternalReadAllBytes(String path, Boolean checkHost)
at XCI2TitleConverter.ConversionProcess.patchNpdm()
at XCI2TitleConverter.ConversionProcess.process()
at XCI2TitleConverter.MainWindow.<btnStart_Click>b__20_0()"

Crash is a Type 2 cart game so you can't decrypt it using XCI2TitleConverter.

This is how you decrypt a cart 2 game according to @Stoned :

• Get the latest version of XCI Explorer with Card 2 Support (https://github.com/StudentBlake/XCI-Explorer/releases)
• Load the XCI file, then go to the Partitions tab, then under secure find the biggest NCA file and extract it to your desktop (See image 1 for reference) (should be called "cdee81d37ad6e99952d7f45fb01b2c83.nca" for Mario Tenis Aces)
• Extract the NCA file to your desktop
• Download hactool and extract the content to your desktop
• • Create a folder on your Desktop called Mario
  • At this point, you should have 1 folder and 6 files on your desktop (NCA file, four files for hactool, and keys.ini) (See image 2 for reference)
  • Open CMD (Command Prompt)
  • Type in the following command:
  • cd Desktop (press enter)
  • hactool.exe -k keys.ini --romfs="Mario\romfs.bin" --exefsdir="Mario\exefs" "cdee81d37ad6e99952d7f45fb01b2c83.nca" (press enter) (if you are using a different game you would have a different name for you NCA file)
  • Now command prompt will run the command and if it is successful you should see "Done!" at the end (See image 3 for reference)
  • Now you have all the files required to run your game!
  • Rename the Mario folder to the title ID of your donor game and then modify main.npdm with your donor title ID
  • Copy the folder to the titles folder on your SD card (atmosphere/titles/)
  Now you are all good to go! Hope this tutorial was hopeful for people decrypting Cart 2 games!
  
  Same Methode for Crash

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

Can someone test Mario Kart with the new commit?

I'm going to test it now. I want this to work so badly :/

 

[Deleted User]

This is how you decrypt a cart 2 game

I know the answer is probably simple as all hell, but it just gives me a romfs.bin when I do this, and not an exefs with it

 

[EmperorX]

I know the answer is probably simple as all hell, but it just gives me a romfs.bin when I do this, and not an exefs with it

Yeah, because XCI2TitleConverter doesn't support decrypting cart 2 games yet so you have to do it manually :/

 

[Deleted User]

Yeah, because XCI2TitleConverter doesn't support decrypting cart 2 games yet so you have to do it manually :/

I even tried it manually with a recently compiled version of hactool that has card 2 support, but maybe my keys are outdated or something

 

[EmperorX]

I even tried it manually with a recently compiled version of hactool that has card 2 support, but maybe my keys are outdated or something

That could be it, because I manually decrypted Crash and it's working fine.

 

[PeterGemp]

I even tried it manually with a recently compiled version of hactool that has card 2 support, but maybe my keys are outdated or something

Usually, I get something about the NCA-Header when it is related to the keys-file. Therefore, I don't think this applies in your case.
But yes, also do make sure that you type in the right format. Is yours keys.txt .ini or .dat?

And I would rather --exefsdir="C:\kikongokiller\exefs" use the full path rather than just "kikongokiller\exefs"

 

[Deleted User]

Usually, I get something about the NCA-Header when it is related to the keys-file.
And yes, do make sure that you type in the right format. Is yours keys.txt .ini or .dat?

And I would rather --exefsdir="C:\kikongokiller\exefs" use the full path rather than just "kikongokiller\exefs"

My keys are in a .ini but I remember it saying something about a corrupt section 0, which is apparently related to keys from what i've been told

 

[PeterGemp]

WORKING DONORS FOR MARIO KART 8 DELUXE OR SUPER MARIO ODYSSEY ANYBODY?

 

[Greg0]

Hello !
Since the 4.1 update i cant play Bayonetta 2 with Fallout Shelter as donor. I have an error " You left the software because an error occured"
The binding of Isaac still works... Should i change the donor ?
Plus I followed the youtube tutorial.

 

[PeterGemp]

Hello !
Since the 4.1 update i cant play Bayonetta 2 with Fallout Shelter as donor. I have an error " You left the software because an error occured"
The binding of Isaac still works... Should i change the donor ?
Plus I followed the youtube tutorial.

Extract the exefs-content from the .xci again, change the main.npmd with hex to your donor titleid (in your case fallout shelter's id) and set the complete exefs-folder and its content to read-only.
(Yes, overwrite your old exefs-folder of bayonetta2 on the sd-card (atmosphere/titles/FalloutShelterTitleIDFolder) with these files).
Weirdly enough, I had to do this with multiple games because layeredfs somehow changed my files during the first initial gamestart with the fitting donor (worked fine), only further starts at a later point in time causing the same error that you have.

If that does not help...well, Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze seems to be that case with Fortnite. I had to find another donor. That was not the case before SDFiles v4.1.
As tomGER suggested, just use the old v4.0 if you can arrange with that. Otherwise, we are all SOL until SciresM graces us with his magic once more.

 

[szczuru]

sorry typo...
010088F00AD80000



i compiled the new commit, please try it...

After replacing old file with new one (from you) i have an error screen right after booting Horizon (RomFS) from Hekate. I'm on 5.1. Does anyone have similar issue?