Hacking USB Loader GX

[Hielkenator]

Check this post (https://gbatemp.net/threads/usb-loader-gx.149922/page-1075#post-5929568) I made a few posts back. I wrote a very detailed guide on how to get neek working in USB Loader GX. If you need anymore help just ask.

Thank you, I've been a sneek and usb loader user from the beginning so setting up neek etc is no problem.
I even am responsible for the custom return to nand channel forwarder animation and the dutch translation of modmii, with I had to stop working on after a few revisons because of health problems. I also made a animated wiiflow loader channel for neek based on spyrosams forwarder as orderd by XFlak! lol good good times those were!!!

However in past the dumped emunand made in usb loader gx and a built nand for neek were incompatible.
Is it still needed to make a Neek nand or can I use the emunand dumped by usb loader gx?

Thank you so so much for the kindly offered help, I love this community!

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

Thank you for not asking hundred of questions today

current latest stable is r1260.
until someone report a big issue (the only big one for the moment is the channels displayed as titleID instead of real game's title, but easy to fix by updating wiitdb)

I think it's fine to push that version to the internal updater now, nobody reported a real issue or crash or HDD deletion (hopefully it will never happen again!).

Awesome, really respect your work Cyan, a real example of persistance to learn something!
In my book you are doing a great job keeping usb loader GX up to date with your coding skills!
Great if you'd push the latest beta in order to update usblgx!

Lol nice to be a "new" member with more than 4000 posts!

 

[Cyan]

Is it still needed to make a Neek nand or can I use the emunand dumped by usb loader gx?

it should be compatible, unless you have specific games with non fat32 characters in savegame filenames.
when I implemented and tested neek2o, I tested it with loader's dump. it's only a simple file copy to another device, nothing is really different than other dumpers, except for those non fat32 filenames (I know only harry potter being an issue, but there are probably more).

What do you want to test now? Maybe can I help you

Thanks for asking.
I would like to test things, but I will need more time to work on it (like re-implementing SSL and nintendont update, but without issue this time, but it will need testers and me available almost at the same time, waiting a week for a result is not helping, and timezone is always an issue).

the most important issue now is the HDD detection issue, mainly with Western Digital USB3.0 and wiiu (but might happen on wii too).
I could buy the hdd to do some tests myself, but I'm not even sure I will have the issues too, it seems random and dependent on the hdd firmware.

My most problematic issue is the dol filesize issue.
I can't work on the loader without removing features because it reached a size which crash the loader at launch. probably a memory issue, but I'm not good enough to debug it.
having a size issue is discouraging me to work on it as I know I will hit the limit once again (I removed the theme download menu last time)

 

[sideskroll]

Did you try on Wii using IOS58 ?
For me, the issue is not the IOS, but the console. if it works on Wii+IOS58 then it's not an IOS issue. it's the mix with console+HDD. or maybe the vWii IOS are different than Wii version.

I did. I tested both, IOS 249 and IOS 58 on both systems.
Wii worked fine with both. vWii could only launch with IOS 58.
I did "fix it" though... I guess. Read my next response.

the most important issue now is the HDD detection issue, mainly with Western Digital USB3.0 and wiiu (but might happen on wii too).
I could buy the hdd to do some tests myself, but I'm not even sure I will have the issues too, it seems random and dependent on the hdd firmware.

If by this you're referring to me, I'm happy to announce that I seem to have fixed my issues (all of them, eg: HDD launches with IOS 58, I can't seem to make it crash with anything etc)
Are you familiar with what an inductor (coil) is? Well, basically if you curl or loop insulated cable on itself you're effectively making an inductor. Inductors use magnetic fields to try to oppose current. and data, as we know is current.
So.... Long story short: My big ass (1.5 mts) cable was too frickin huge for me to leave it like that so I CAREFULLY coiled it up and used a velcro strap to secure it in place.
This shouldn't pose a problem (as it didn't on the Wii) but apparently, mister WiiU is sooooooo sensitive and delicate that even the slightest resistance prevents it from communicating properly with the external (Worked ABSOLUTELY FINE on the Wii. Coiled and everything. Not only that but with ONLY the data lead connected. May have something to do with the more stable USB ports)
My guess is that since the WiiU ports are so under-powered and the cable is so long. ANY kind of resistance (small as it may be) prevents the power reaching the HDD enclosure. Or at least reliably (hence the "bugs" and freezes.)
These are my humble conclusions based on all the hours put into trying to troubleshoot the issue and my -admittedly little but still- knowledge in electronics.
Coiling my cables has NEVER given me any issues with ANYTHING before this. But everything seems to indicate that indeed, the simplest most in my face solution was the one that worked.
That doesn't explain why it worked (or at least launched) with IOS 58 but not with IOS 249 though... But the drive is now working with the default (ios 249) and launches every-time.
Maybe if someone has a similar issue and has a coiled cable could try to straighten it out and test if it works like that.
Anyway, I guess I'll have to strip, cut and solder the cable to my desired length now...
I'll keep testing and trying to crash it before confirming 100% that this was indeed the issue.
Thanks @Cyan .

*EDIT/UPDATE* Scratch that. It aint fixed.
Ios 249 is STILL unable to initialize the drive (which leads me to believe that I found a different bug in the loader. The meta arguments should reflect the edits one makes in the loader right? So if i reset the loader to defaults the meta arguments for the loaders ios should revert back to 249 right? That aint working. The loaders ios remains as ios 58 even if I change it back to 249 in the settings)
Anyway. Back to the beginning...
Should I try r53 of d2x? Would that make any difference?

 

[Clutz450]

the most important issue now is the HDD detection issue, mainly with Western Digital USB3.0 and wiiu (but might happen on wii too).
I could buy the hdd to do some tests myself, but I'm not even sure I will have the issues too, it seems random and dependent on the hdd firmware.

As I have told you before, I have a 1, 2, 4 and 6 TB Western Digital My Book USB 3.0 hard drives and have used all of them on my Wii. They all have the same problem where if I turn on the Wii with the drive plugged in, no homebrew is able to recognize it. However, if I plug the drive in after the Wii boots up the drive is recognized and works fine. So I think the real problem with this drives is related to the hard drives themselves and really nothing you can do to the loader.

@sideskroll If your hard drive issue is similar to the one I had I may have a work around. Set your loader settings back to default so that it tries to load up with I OS 249 again. Then create an apps folder on your USB drive and move over only the boot.dol, meta.xml and icon.png to your USB drive and delete them from your SD card. Then try to launch USB Loader GX using the forwarder. If you are having the same issue as me then the forwarder will not be able to find the boot.dol file and kick you back to the system menu. When it does that, click on the forwarder again and see if it loads that time. If it does work then you have the same problem as me and my wor around just requires me to click on the forwarder twice. Look at the video in the spoiler below that I posted a while back when I was trying to help Cyan troubleshoot it.

Spoiler

@Cyan When I eventually switched my entire setup over to the Wii U I noticed that I didn't have the issue anymore (kinda). I had the loader on my SD card and when I would launch USB Loader GX it would still freeze in the same spot as my video except it would then unfreeze and start counting down saying I needed to plug in a USB drive. Then once it for down to around 2 seconds the drive was recognizable and it loaded. Then all of a sudden for no reason it just froze and stayed there and had to go back to my work around where I move the loader to USB and have to click the forwarder twice.

I don't know if this is possible but the only fix I can see you making for these drives is to have the loader check for the USB drive twice after it fails the first time. Or to avoid me having to click on the forwarder twice with my work around, have the forwarder search for the loader a second time instead of kicking me back to the system menu.

PriiLoader on the Wii kind of already did that. I would turn on my Wii, the forwarder would try to launch the loader and fail, then the screen would go black and the forwarder would come back and actually load up the second time.

And finally, if you want one of those drives to test, just PM me your address and I can send you my 1TB one. Or with as cheap as they are these days just buy you a new one and have it sent to you. Just let me know.

 

[sideskroll]

the most important issue now is the HDD detection issue, mainly with Western Digital USB3.0 and wiiu (but might happen on wii too).
I could buy the hdd to do some tests myself, but I'm not even sure I will have the issues too, it seems random and dependent on the hdd firmware.

I can tell you I have 2 drives. Same model, bought on different dates and from different stores. The f/w is the same. And BOTH fail. SO I don't know about the My Book drives or any other drive for that matter but these drives (the ones I've got) will more than likely exhibit the same behavior for you if you were to buy it Cause I'm pretty sure they're very recent thus have the same firmware all around (they even got the windows 10 logo on the box)

As I have told you before, I have a 1, 2, 4 and 6 TB Western Digital My Book USB 3.0 hard drives and have used all of them on my Wii. They all have the same problem where if I turn on the Wii with the drive plugged in, no homebrew is able to recognize it. However, if I plug the drive in after the Wii boots up the drive is recognized and works fine. So I think the real problem with this drives is related to the hard drives themselves and really nothing you can do to the loader.

Me too.
If I try to launch the loader (with its default IOS 249) the only way I can get it to work is by plugging the drive when I'm at the vWii system menu. That works every time.

@sideskroll If your hard drive issue is similar to the one I had I may have a work around. Set your loader settings back to default so that it tries to load up with I OS 249 again. Then create an apps folder on your USB drive and move over only the boot.dol, meta.xml and icon.png to your USB drive and delete them from your SD card. Then try to launch USB Loader GX using the forwarder. If you are having the same issue as me then the forwarder will not be able to find the boot.dol file and kick you back to the system menu. When it does that, click on the forwarder again and see if it loads that time. If it does work then you have the same problem as me and my wor around just requires me to click on the forwarder twice. Look at the video in the spoiler below that I posted a while back when I was trying to help Cyan troubleshoot it.

Spoiler

I could try it I guess. But the loader is pseudo working if I launch it with ios 58.
And I say "pseudo working" because it still has issues. It is DEFINITELY something with these drives AND the d2x cIOS for vWii (cause on Wii everything works flawlessly. I haven't been able to find one tiny glitch and believe me, I've tried!)
The freezes and hangs I was facing are most likely (even though it is random, not every single time) related to every time the loader tries to re-access the drive. (eg: coming out of a game, going into settings and back to the loaders interface etc)
My uneducated guess is that since the loader is using ios 249 (I think once ios 58 initializes the drive cIOS picks up from there. Correct me if I'm wrong please @Cyan ) the same issues that occur when trying to initialize the drive occur here, even though the HDD is already online.
Maybe I'm talking out of my ass here. So take that with a huge bucket of salt.

@Cyan When I eventually switched my entire setup over to the Wii U I noticed that I didn't have the issue anymore (kinda). I had the loader on my SD card and when I would launch USB Loader GX it would still freeze in the same spot as my video except it would then unfreeze and start counting down saying I needed to plug in a USB drive. Then once it for down to around 2 seconds the drive was recognizable and it loaded. Then all of a sudden for no reason it just froze and stayed there and had to go back to my work around where I move the loader to USB and have to click the forwarder twice.

I don't know if this is possible but the only fix I can see you making for these drives is to have the loader check for the USB drive twice after it fails the first time. Or to avoid me having to click on the forwarder twice with my work around, have the forwarder search for the loader a second time instead of kicking me back to the system menu.

PriiLoader on the Wii kind of already did that. I would turn on my Wii, the forwarder would try to launch the loader and fail, then the screen would go black and the forwarder would come back and actually load up the second time.

And finally, if you want one of those drives to test, just PM me your address and I can send you my 1TB one. Or with as cheap as they are these days just buy you a new one and have it sent to you. Just let me know.

I've never encountered that behavior. When it freezes, it FREEZES. No countdown or anything. I have to pull the plug.
On the Wii I have ATM for testing everything works fine. No need to relaunch the app or anything. Just plug and play (the way it used to be on my vWii as well)
Your offer is VERY generous. And I guess that even though we don't have the same drives nor are encountering the same bugs (though very similar) if a solution were to be found I guess it would apply for most (all?) WD drives (which seem to be kinda picky with the vWii)
I don't mean to sound like an asshole but I'm kinda glad I'm not the only one facing these issues
The really bad part is that you at least already had those drives. So no big deal there. me? I specifically BOUGHT the damn thing for this purpose...

 

[Clutz450]

So you say the drive works fine on Wii and not vWii. I'm sure you answered this before but just in case, if your drive externally powered? Like does it plug into a power outlet? If not, then that would explain why you are having issues on the Wii U. The Wii U just doesn't have enough power to power most drives through USB alone. If you don't already have one, get a Y-cable (or a different one if you already have one) and yet again.

 

[sideskroll]

So you say the drive works fine on Wii and not vWii. I'm sure you answered this before but just in case, if your drive externally powered? Like does it plug into a power outlet? If not, then that would explain why you are having issues on the Wii U. The Wii U just doesn't have enough power to power most drives through USB alone. If you don't already have one, get a Y-cable (or a different one if you already have one) and yet again.

Yep. Same drive. Same cables. Works perfectly fine on Wii but no on vWii.
I have a y-cable (otherwise it wouldnt load... Ever) i tested both leads and the cable is fine.
One thing I know by now after extensive testing is that the hardware in of itself is not the issue. In my case at least the problem seems to be related to the vWii d2x cios and my specific drive. I don't how or why but thats the only thing I can come up with.
I'm sure that if I could somehow "fix" the issue of the drive not working with cios 249 everything would be golden.

 

[Clutz450]

Have you posted a syscheck yet? (Sorry I'm too lazy to scroll back). Are you sure you are using the vWii versions of d2x and not the Wii versions?

 

[sideskroll]

Have you posted a syscheck yet? (Sorry I'm too lazy to scroll back). Are you sure you are using the vWii versions of d2x and not the Wii versions?

Well... Yes. Of course.
D2x r52 vwii on slots 249, 250 and 251. Thats all I have.
Like I said. The thing works. But I have to change the ios the loader uses at launch to 58 and even then its kinda... "Flaky".
Like I said, im sure it has to do with the cios and my drive. And most likely yours as well.
I think WD does something to their drives that d2x dont play nice with...

 

[Cyan]

you said editing the settings back to 249 didn't edit the xml ?
reseting the full settings (from the reset menu) it probably not reseting the xml (I think I forgot to reset the xml too), but editing the IOS or the HDD menu should edit the xml.

But, that's a good think it didn't work for you, because that's my new suggestion :
- set the Loader's IOS to 249
- manually edit the XML to use 58 on boot.

on boot, it will use IOS58 to initialize the drive and spin it up, once loaded it will check the GXglobal config to check if you want to use a different IOS slot for the loader and will find 249, so it will reload to cIOS 249.
when reloading, it disconnect the partition's reference in memory but shouldn't shut down the drive completely, it will be already "spin up"'d so IOS249 shouldn't have issue starting the drive and can only mount the partition again.

58 -> spin up -> mount partition -> read cfg -> see 249 -> disconnect partition -> reload to 249 -> remount partition

if you (and all other users in the HDD freeze issue thread) have the same detection issue with this setup, then I don't know how to fix the issue.

 

[sideskroll]

you said editing the settings back to 249 didn't edit the xml ?
reseting the full settings (from the reset menu) it probably not reseting the xml (I think I forgot to reset the xml too), but editing the IOS or the HDD menu should edit the xml.

But, that's a good think it didn't work for you, because that's my new suggestion :
- set the Loader's IOS to 249
- manually edit the XML to use 58 on boot.

on boot, it will use IOS58 to initialize the drive and spin it up, once loaded it will check the GXglobal config to check if you want to use a different IOS slot for the loader and will find 249, so it will reload to cIOS 249.
when reloading, it disconnect the partition's reference in memory but shouldn't shut down the drive completely, it will be already "spin up"'d so IOS249 shouldn't have issue starting the drive and can only mount the partition again.

58 -> spin up -> mount partition -> read cfg -> see 249 -> disconnect partition -> reload to 249 -> remount partition

if you (and all other users in the HDD freeze issue thread) have the same detection issue with this setup, then I don't know how to fix the issue.

Isn't this basically what I'm doing by changing the loaders ios to 58 in settings? Would you mind giving me a "table"

58 -> spin up -> mount partition -> read cfg -> see 249 -> disconnect partition -> reload to 249 -> remount partition

(Like this) to graphically see the difference in the process?
And lastly, should it matter which ios the loader uses?

I didnt try changing the ios in the setting explicitly (you mean going into the setting, opening the option and manually entering 249-->save, correct?) I thought reset settings should take care of that.
I'm sure it works that way.

 

[tswntk]

Isn't this basically what I'm doing by changing the loaders ios to 58 in settings? Would you mind giving me a "table"

58 -> spin up -> mount partition -> read cfg -> see 249 -> disconnect partition -> reload to 249 -> remount partition

(Like this) to graphically see the difference in the process?
And lastly, should it matter which ios the loader uses?

There is a subtle difference in Cyan's suggestion and changing ios in setting.
If you change loader's ios to 58 in setting, it will (should) change the xml automatically, so the next boot will be:
xml ios58-> spin up -> mount partition -> read cfg -> see setting 58-> disconnect partition -> reload to 58-> remount partition
The problem is ios58 can't be used to run Wii games unless you set per game settings to 249.

If you change loader's to 249 in setting, it will change xml to 249 automatically too, so now you need to manually edit the xml to ios58 and then the next boot should proceed as Cyan's formulae

I don't know if ULGX would update the xml again after running but at least the next boot right after manual editing should work like the formulae

I didnt try changing the ios in the setting explicitly (you mean going into the setting, opening the option and manually entering 249-->save, correct?) I thought reset settings should take care of that.
I'm sure it works that way.

just check your settings in ULGX again and then check the one in xml and see if they are now 249 and 58 respectively

 

[GreyWolf]

Sorting the object files after building by file size shows the UI is the biggest culprit in executable size as far as code goes so figuring out a way to slim that down would need to be a priority. GameTDB uses a LOT of space for something that should be a matter of XPath-ing through the file. :/

I wish I had a Gecko so I could get some kind of profiling while the loader is running.

 

[sideskroll]

If you change loader's ios to 58 in setting, it will (should) change the xml automatically, so the next boot will be:
xml ios58-> spin up -> mount partition -> read cfg -> see setting 58-> disconnect partition -> reload to 58-> remount partition
The problem is ios58 can't be used to run Wii games unless you set per game settings to 249.

Or the global ios for games option under settings (which is 249 by the way).
What you're describing is basically my setup as it is right now. Since I discovered that resetting the loader to defaults doesnt autoupdate the arguments in the meta file. So the loader (at least what the option in settings is telling me) is using ios 249 to launch the loader. But the arguments in the meta file do not reflect that. So (and I havent checked to make sure) my setup (according to whatvthe loader itself is informing me) should be ios 58 in meta file and 249 on gx_global.
Thats what I was asking. If I need to phisically pull the sd card off the wiiu and edit it manually. Since the *bug*? In the loader seems to do exactly that.
Sorry for the typos. Typing from my phone.

 

[tswntk]

Thats what I was asking. If I need to phisically pull the sd card off the wiiu and edit it manually. Since the *bug*? In the loader seems to do exactly that.
Sorry for the typos. Typing from my phone.

either that or use WiiXplorer

 

[sideskroll]

either that or use WiiXplorer

Yes. I know the PROCESS of doing it. I guess I'm not explaining myself correctly.
In settings, the loader uses ios 249 to launch. (Since I did a reset config from the loader) but in the arguments on the meta file the ios used is still 58 (because its either a bug or @Cyan explicitly coded reset to default to NOT reset the meta file) either way, the fact remains that the loader is telling me it uses ios 249 but the arguments use 58.
Doesnt matter, i'll just check both files out as soon as I get home. Just to make sure.

 

[Retro_Mod_Gamer]

I've been trying to find the best guide for Fat32 setup, it seems like I'm doing everything right but the Wii games won't show up unless a wbfs drive. GameCube off the same fat32 works perfect and I swear my file systems should be great. Anyone have a guide or post to reference?

 

[sideskroll]

I've been trying to find the best guide for Fat32 setup, it seems like I'm doing everything right but the Wii games won't show up unless a wbfs drive. GameCube off the same fat32 works perfect and I swear my file systems should be great. Anyone have a guide or post to reference?

Are you you have the correct folder estructure?

Usb:/wbfs/game name [gametdbcode]/xxxx.wbfs

For this you can use wii backup manager.
http://www.wiibackupmanager.co.uk/downloads.html
That should do it.
If you are sure everything checks out (and you dont care about losing the contents) you could try running diskpart, deleting everything (including the mbr) and starting from scratch. Let me know if you need any help with that.

 

[Retro_Mod_Gamer]

Are you you have the correct folder estructure?

Usb:/wbfs/game name [gametdbcode]/xxxx.wbfs

For this you can use wii backup manager.
http://www.wiibackupmanager.co.uk/downloads.html
That should do it.
If you are sure everything checks out (and you dont care about losing the contents) you could try running diskpart, deleting everything (including the mbr) and starting from scratch. Let me know if you need any help with that.

Hey thanks I appreciate it, I've been using WBM already. wbfs folder all lowercase on the fat32 drive, wbfs files are split at 4gb as per the settings in WBM. I have d2x v10 installed on ios57(249), 58(250)and I also installed ios236. Do I need more ios's installed? 222? I thought USB GX doesn't need Hermes ios. I can send a syscheck later when I get home, but if there is a guide I am missing out on for fat32 loading via ULGX I'd love to see it.

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Hey thanks I appreciate it, I've been using WBM already. wbfs folder all lowercase on the fat32 drive, wbfs files are split at 4gb as per the settings in WBM. I have d2x v10 installed on ios57(249), 58(250)and I also installed ios236. Do I need more ios's installed? 222? I thought USB GX doesn't need Hermes ios. I can send a syscheck later when I get home, but if there is a guide I am missing out on for fat32 loading via ULGX I'd love to see it.

I meant ios56 (249) and ios57 (250)

 

[sideskroll]

Hey thanks I appreciate it, I've been using WBM already. wbfs folder all lowercase on the fat32 drive, wbfs files are split at 4gb as per the settings in WBM. I have d2x v10 installed on ios57(249), 58(250)and I also installed ios236. Do I need more ios's installed? 222? I thought USB GX doesn't need Hermes ios. I can send a syscheck later when I get home, but if there is a guide I am missing out on for fat32 loading via ULGX I'd love to see it.

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I meant ios56 (249) and ios57 (250)

Actually, you only need slot 249. So you should be good. (Syscheck woukd be nice. Yeah)
Can you try with a different drive? Is it a thumbdrive or hdd?