Hacking USB Loader GX

[Cyan]

I'm so glad you are back @Cyan, because I had a couple things to report to you but I didn't want to throw it on you until you got back.
-When you click the bottom right power button, it shows all of the different Shutdown settings on Wii U. It doesn't in the Home Menu though.

I thought it triggered the same menu, but I will change it.

-Custom banners for GC games aren't downloading

when I changed the http sources in latest revision I tried downloading a banner and it worked. The new code seems unstable, but I didn't had time to experiment a lot with it. I don't know what's wrong, logs would be useful but it requires a new version with tcp logs enabled.

-Just a suggestion: Why not remove the theme downloader button completley, instead of having the credits on one page by themselves? Wouldn't that save more memory?

it was faster to add a "return" in the code to test than fully remove it.
Also, I wanted to keep that menu (even if not possible to download) so users can see which themes are available and download them manually. Keeping the theme's sources is better in that case instead of removing and re-adding it later.

I tried fixing the size limit issue, but the tests I did weren't concluding. I still hope to unlock the size limit (WiiMC is 14MB, so there's no reason USBGX crashes at 4MB)

I think I will release the current revision as internal updater.
There might be a lot of users to report issues (mostly download issues) as the new "stable" revision will be the current one.
It seems unstable with download, but it becomes urgent to release an update before googlecode closes.
my prevision is :
- release a new revision with update path set to sourceforge. it will be the current revision, just with new urls.
- upload that revision as new "internal update" to sourceforge (and maybe to googlecode too, so revision number matches until the end)
- release a new WindowsInstaller with updated urls (the last one has semi updated urls, and downloads only the forwarder for Wii, not vWii)
- Officially close googlecode

then I'll continue fixing bugs.

 

[Troopage]

when I changed the http sources in latest revision I tried downloading a banner and it worked. The new code seems unstable, but I didn't had time to experiment a lot with it. I don't know what's wrong, logs would be useful but it requires a new version with tcp logs enabled.

I'll test it if needed.

it was faster to add a "return" in the code to test than fully remove it.
Also, I wanted to keep that menu (even if not possible to download) so users can see which themes are available and download them manually. Keeping the theme's sources is better in that case instead of removing and re-adding it later.

I thought that when tabs are eventually released that would make all themes unusable anyway?

 

[Cyan]

I wanted to make tabs optional, not a forced theme, especially to not break all existing user's themes.
but I don't even know when I'll do that

 

[JnL_SSBM]

Are you using a HDD or a flash drive?
Flashdrive are NOT compatible with game install. I don't know how to fix.
if it's HDD, then I don't know why it hangs because it works fine for a lot of users.

I'm using both stuff: Seagate 500GB HDD 2.0 and DataTraveler 64GB USB2.0/3.0 FlashDrive, I had r1239 or older and I always installed games on both drives... after updating to r1253 hangs when installing game disc... tried twice; and anyways I'll check it again later

 

[Cyan]

try downgrading to 1239 then, and see if it fixes the problem.
if it does, update one by one to find which revision started that issue.

Even if I didn't touch the install function, I updated libfat recently. it could be an issue with the new library build.

let me know the first revision with this issue so I can investigate.


Edit:
Nobody reported issues with Nintendont not working anymore?
Nintendont CFG version has been updated multiple times, it's still working fine?
Nintendont should have a "config version fixer" to allow old loaders to still work with newer nintendont version.

I will add new settings.
It's becoming harder to maintain all these changes lol

 

[cetygamer]

Hello, Cyan. I'd like to ask some questions.

Nobody reported issues with Nintendont not working anymore?
Nintendont CFG version has been updated multiple times, it's still working fine?
Nintendont should have a "config version fixer" to allow old loaders to still work with newer nintendont version.

First of all, speaking about Nintendont, it does launch games for me, but I can't quit them properly. Wii just freezes, Wiimote (I use bluetooth CC) disconnects and I can't do anything except shutting down Wii by holding the power button. Bug?

Secondly would be awesome to add new Nintendint settings per game about changing output offset. I find it useful for Resident Evil 2 PAL.

Next question, how can I hide games? I created new game category 'Hidden', added there a game, then I tried to mark that category with Cross in categories menu but it doesn't change anything. The game is reporting that it is in 2 categories: All and Hidden.

Also, can I do something that homebrew app would appear in game list? I'd like to add Duke Nukem there so I can easily lauch all types of my games from one place.

For some reason I can't download wiitdb.xml. I press Update->wiitdb and it says that wiitdb.xml is already up to date. But it is not even on my SD card. So I plugged card into computer, created titles folder and put wiitdb.xml there. And it worked. But the loader itself didn't want to do it for me. Bug?

Edit: also the loader can't find covers even for such games as WiiSports and Xenoblade Chronicles. It says that 263 files are not found on the server. I kinda dont want to download them all by myself.

Edit2: Ok, it appeares that more that 300 files to download is too much for the loader. So I restarted it and it started downloading those 263 missing files. Bug?
And it happened again. 263 to 247. It downloaded only 16 files in one try. Restarting the loader helps again.

 

[Cyan]

freeze when exit : I don't know why. does it happen when launched from hbc>nintendont? Do you have the forwarder UNEO ? (nintendont, and any homebrew, returns to that channel. if you don't have it it can't return to the loader)

Per game setting : I'll see. I'll probably do it.

Hiding a category :
Short answer : Set "all" to cross too.

Long answer: If you keep "All" to "v checkbox", then of course it will display ALL categories.

There are two modes where the Cross box is used :
mode1 - Whitelist : Remove any check in the "all" option. no game will be displayed. Then you need to "enable" (v Check box) any category you want to display, all of them one by one. if a category you want to prevent from being displayed, you use Cross checkbox. by default it displays nothing, and you whitelist the categories you want. But if you have 200 categories and only want to disable one, you would have to check 198 boxes manually.... so, use mode2
mode2 - blacklist : Set "all" to Cross box. instead of whitelisting categories you want, you need to blacklist the one you don't want. all "unchecked" categories will be kept, only the "crossed" categories will be removed.


Homebrew in game list : Not implement officially yet (it's planed), but you can do it manually.
Create a forwarder dol that launches your duke nukem homebrew. (a boot.dol to load apps/duke/boot.dol)
inject that forwarder dol inside a Wii ISO. (there are very small Wii ISO, either clean one (made by users for injection purpose) or retail one (a hamster game was few Mb only)
Install that ISO with WiiBackupManager, and the loader will list it as a Wii game.
Note: be sure to use a GameID you don't already have, so it doesn't share the gameID from another game.

I think there's a tool to create such forwarder's ISO. I don't remember the name sorry.
You can do that manually if you know how to compile.

Wiitdb update : can you try r1252 ? it's probably an issue with new http functions.

edit: covers issue : probably same issue than wiitdb update.

 

[cetygamer]

Ok, so I did a little more testing.

1252 successfully checked all missing covers and downloaded them.

wiitdb download didn't work with 1252 either. But I realized what was the problem. The loader couldn't create titles folder for some reason. So I created an empty one with WiiXPlorer and the loader successfully downloaded wiitdb with 1253 too.

About GC stuff. I launch all my apps from homebrew channel. Nintendont works fine, after game quit it returns me to hbc. I tried to launch a game with Wiiflow and it also worked fine. I returned to Wiiflow after quitting the game. I tested other games with USB GX and it freezes every time.

 

[sonictopfan]

Helooo, I'm back.
sorry I was away a long time. I thought there were a lot more posts to catch up here, lot of issues etc.
So it's a good thing everything works fine. (mostly, no big issues)

I bought a new PC, installed Win7 home instead of my old and loyal XP (now I can install GitHub!), had some issues with UAC (some program thought I was logged as admin and used the wrong %users% folder and messed the install....), probably a Win7 bug? I don't know how I triggered it...
most important thing : I could recover all my data
I'm still in reinstall process, but I got devkitpro and compilation working.

Yeah, I still use our loyal XP friend here on this computer, though I have 7 Home Premium on my laptop just in case, though I hardly ever use it.

Well Cyan, welcome back, unfortunitely my testing will be very limited atm "if any" due to being busy moving to a new house and all, not sure how long it will take to move the internet too, so I apologize I won't be able to do any testing for a while.

 

[Cyan]

. The loader couldn't create titles folder for some reason.

I might set that default path back to the root instead of subfolder, it will fix all this weird issue.
for GC freeze, you didn't tell if you had the UNEO forwarder installed. it's needed to exit homebrew launched from the loader.

sonictopfan : don't worry. other users are here to help too
Good luck moving to your new place.

 

[cetygamer]

for GC freeze, you didn't tell if you had the UNEO forwarder installed. it's needed to exit homebrew launched from the loader.

Oh, I see. I installed it and now Nintendont exits to the loader. That was kinda silly. Sorry for that.

 

[Cyan]

I'll see if I can change that behavior.
it should exit to HBC if it doesn't finds a USBGX channel, I don't know why it doesn't work. I'll give it a check too.

 

[AbdallahTerro]

hi Cyan and wb

 

[Rail Fighter]

Hello. It's normal for the loader to give code dumps when using custom musics?

Btw, I love this feature.

 

[Cyan]

it's normal to code dump (or being instable, doing undetermined or even dangerous things) if you use two USB at the same time and have settings and data located on USB.
as the loader doesn't really mount both ports at the same time, but one after the other, it's shutting down one port (where the music are located) to load content on the other drive, breaking the streaming.

It's not normal to code dump if you have the resources on SD or if you are using a single USB drive.

There's a report that using custom music, the loader is not properly shutting down the current stream before loading another one (for example, going into the credit page results in two musics at the same time).

You know what? I never used that feature myself ! I don't even know where that feature is located and how to trigger it ahaha

 

[marchrius]

It would be theoretically possible to have the wii u pro controller recognised as a classic controller?

 

[Cyan]

it's already the case.
The WiiU Pro controller already works in USBLoaderGX, on both Wii and WiiU.
You need to register the pad on your system menu first with the red button (on Wii it will disconnect immediately), then when in the loader you can synch it by pressing any button.
Only L/R button are not working in all menus. I'll have to fix that later.

But maybe you are hoping that the WiiU pro controller is usable in game? That's not possible.
To be enabled, the pad require a library. That library is in the homebrew, but not inside official games as developers never new that controller existed when they developed wii games.




Note for nintendont users:
I added the 2 new settings and made offset/scale individual.
I would like someone to test that all the options are working as expected.

I don't see any differences with PAL50 patch option, someone who know what it's supposed to do could test it please ? I'll send the link in PM.

 

[marchrius]

Yeah I mean in game, nintendont can do that and is awesome. Hope we can do that for wii games as well someday.

 

[sonictopfan]

Yeah I mean in game, nintendont can do that and is awesome. Hope we can do that for wii games as well someday.

Seconded.

@Cyan I don't mean to bother you but would you consider making an option to "rename" the GC bios file to disable it and enable it at will? Nintendont developers don't seem to wanna do that and now that it supports real MCs it causes first party MCs not work due to a bug in Nintendont, it's a lot of a hustle to have to do it manually every time so I wonder if you can have that option sometime... if possible.

 

[Cyan]

Nintendont can do that because nintendont is emulating the game input device and interpreting all game commands.
Nintendont is resident in memory while you are playing, like any emulator does when playing a ROM and sending controller commands to the game.

Wii games are alone when being launched, no more loader are in memory to intercept or interpret any controller commands.