Disclaimer: This OP is pretty old now and needs some cleaning. Most info still does it's job, however. Just make sure to look at the nightlies and the additional information for them.

For users:

For developers:

FAQ:

Spoiler: Questions from actual people

Q: Is it possible to boot on sysNAND mode without using another SD card that doesn't have emuNAND set-up?

A: Yes.



Q: what does [reboot patches] mean? It won't restart after closing smash? Or will GBA and smash work together (since the patched rxtools gives you one or the other)

A: The reboot patches are required to start smash. The console actually performs a reboot when starting it, and clears the patched firmware if these patches are not present.



Q: Smash/Monster Hunter don't work on my old 3ds!

A: Enable the reboot patches.



Q: Are these patches or "cakes" analogous to NTR CFW plugins?

A: No. NTR plugins are ARM11 userland code, cakes are FIRM patches.



Q: I want to update/downgrade my console. Can I disable firmlaunch?

A: No. This, however, isn't a problem anymore with recent versions of sysUpdater. Cakes doesn't block writing NATIVE_FIRM like Gateway does, so you're fine.



Q: Does cakes support ds carts in emunand?

A: Apparently they do on n3ds. They don't on my o3ds, but you may try. In any case disable the reboot patches for that to wok, as the current ones are sure to block it.



Q: Cakes tells me about an error on the bottom screen and I don't know what it's about because it's not about something I was specifically trying to get to work. Am I going crazy? Have I confirmed illuminati? How do I fix this error because I can't use Cakes with an error?

A: If Cakes doesn't shove that error up your face on the top screen and the error that shows on the bottom screen has nothing to do with what you were trying to do (or you don't know what it means) you can safely ignore it (and you should).

Q: But it looks really important...

A: NO.



Q: Halp, I forgot how to enter the menu after configuring autoboot.

A: Hold "L" and get your alzheimer checked.



Q: Just updated my n3ds emuNAND from 9.5 to [anything higher than 9.6], but I'm getting a black screen, what do?

A: Get the latest firmware.bin from the downloads section. Don't forget to select the patches again after swapping the firmware.bin.



Q: I am getting yelled at about "Failed to decrypt the CETK Please make sure the CETK is right." even though I have the correct one. I am using arm9loaderhax to load CakesFW.

A: CakesFW doesn't support decrypting the CETK from an arm9loaderhax environment as of right now. Either boot CakesFW once without arm9loaderhax or get a firmkey.bin for your console from the internet.