Hacking I can install IOS in vWii! But...

Supercool330

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BTW I got d2x fully working on vWii.
Hi davebaol, quick question (and sort of request). Does the vWii d2x have the IOS/SM installing patch in it? I think it would be a bad idea to include it as then people will go and use whatever broken Wii IOS installer they normally use to install Wii IOSs, which will likely brick their console. IMHO, it would be better if ever vWii IOS installer had the patch as a runtime IOS patch, so that only programs that were properly updated actually worked.
 

MrVestek

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Hi davebaol, quick question (and sort of request). Does the vWii d2x have the IOS/SM installing patch in it? I think it would be a bad idea to include it as then people will go and use whatever broken Wii IOS installer they normally use to install Wii IOSs, which will likely brick their console. IMHO, it would be better if ever vWii IOS installer had the patch as a runtime IOS patch, so that only programs that were properly updated actually worked.
I could have done with that a few days ago. ;-)
 

pwsincd

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dont be sad , testing is a good thing .. means its a step closer to being in your sweaty palms .. and knowing it "works" before you trash your system.. be happy , in the mean time plug your wii in :)
 

driverdis

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Ya, your problems (plus I know someone else IRL that did almost the same thing) were the reason I made that post. Installing an IOS that will allow you to install a Wii IOS or SM is just a bad idea.

its not a bad idea. thats like saying installing CWM on a android is a bad idea because you could format boot and brick your phone or that rooting is a bad idea because you could delete system files on a bootloader locked android and brick it. its up to people to exercise caution and pay attention to what they are doing. a more fitting example would be flashing gingerbread system apps over ICS ones or flashing roms for a different phone via CWM.
 

Supercool330

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The main point is that there is no reason to have an IOS with the patch since any installer should be patching the IOS pieces already present on the system, and adding the patch to the installer is trivial. The need for an IOS236 sort of thing no longer exists.
 

iggloovortex

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I ran into an issue with installed games through WADS, once you copy/move them to SD, they cant be run or moved back. Get a cannot launch error. But games that you downloaded from the Shop Channel work just fine, on or off SD
 

Supercool330

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There is enough Homebrew that does not use HW_AHBPROT, so there IS use for IOS 236.
Most homebrew can be trivially updated to use AHBPROT, and what are you running that needs the IOS and SM install patches that won't be needed to be updated anyway. If somebody is going to update stuff to work with Wii U vWii, then they can also update it to use AHBPROT. This ensures that you can't accidentally run a Wii version of a given piece of homebrew (like d2x installer) on an IOS236 with the IOS and SM patches. To be fair, there are reasons to have a patched IOS, just not one with those patches.

I ran into an issue with installed games through WADS, once you copy/move them to SD, they cant be run or moved back. Get a cannot launch error. But games that you downloaded from the Shop Channel work just fine, on or off SD
Games installed through WADs are fake-signed, so when you try to copy them back from SD, it fails (since they don't have real signatures). This can be overcome by patching the system menu IOS with the trucha bug. DON'T DO THIS THOUGH. YOU WILL VERY LIKELY BRICK THE vWii. The best solution would be to use Priiloader (which hasn't been ported to vWii yet), and have it patch IOS in memory (just like any other app).
 

MrVestek

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Most homebrew can be trivially updated to use AHBPROT, and what are you running that needs the IOS and SM install patches that won't be needed to be updated anyway. If somebody is going to update stuff to work with Wii U vWii, then they can also update it to use AHBPROT. This ensures that you can't accidentally run a Wii version of a given piece of homebrew (like d2x installer) on an IOS236 with the IOS and SM patches. To be fair, there are reasons to have a patched IOS, just not one with those patches.


Games installed through WADs are fake-signed, so when you try to copy them back from SD, it fails (since they don't have real signatures). This can be overcome by patching the system menu IOS with the trucha bug. DON'T DO THIS THOUGH. YOU WILL VERY LIKELY BRICK THE vWii. The best solution would be to use Priiloader (which hasn't been ported to vWii yet), and have it patch IOS in memory (just like any other app).
Actually I restored the trucha bug to my vWii and it worked fine afterwards.
 

MrVestek

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how is that even possible if you bricked your WiiMode like you mentioned earlier? also,I do not recall anyone releasing any vIOS80 patches or patcher apps to add the trucha bug back to the SM vIOS.
I had done that before I bricked it.

I can't remember off the top of my head what I used but I had restored trucha bug to ios 36. I remember that I couldn't use wad installers before I did this and afterwards I could.
 

Supercool330

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I do not recall anyone releasing any vIOS80 patches or patcher apps to add the trucha bug back to the SM vIOS.
Exactly, but there is nothing to stop someone from running something like dop-mii with a patched IOS236 or d2x and installing a patched Wii IOS80 from NUS and bricking their console. This is why I'm saying that vWii apps that want to mod IOS or SM should have to patch the IOS in memory themselves instead of relying on a pre-patched IOS (which would allow old Wii apps to install Wii IOS and SM). That way, only apps that actually work on the vWii can be used, decreasing the chance of bricks, with no loss of functionality.
 

damysteryman

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Well, trying to restrict usage of apps to only ones with runtime IOS patching will not really be that useful in preventing bricks on vWii, or even regular Wii.

Sure, people could use my already released patches and the IOS236 with said patches to install older IOS and brick their WiiMode, but it is not the only, that is, stopping usage of installed patched IOS will not stop anyone. Just because an app has access to all of Wii memory, and runtime IOS patching due to AHBPROT being disabled, does not make it any safer to use. There is already a mod of YAWMM with my patches in it, you could just load that up and install the wrong wad, and boom, it is really that easy, and no patched IOS were even needed.

So whether an app uses a patched IOS, or gets updated to use AHBPROT patches, does not matter either way. Same app, same patches, same everything really. It is irrelevant to whether the user installs the correct things or not. Right now, it is up to the user as to whether they decide to install the correct version of IOS or the wrong version, much the same way as it is up the the suer to decide to install stub IOS or to delete IOS, in fact it is pretty much the same situation as installing very old IOS on newer Wiis with newer hardware, that would case a brick too, pretty much the same thing again.

Since it is the same apps doing the same things, only different content to install, rather than trying to restrict things to only AHBPROT-exploiting apps, instead users would have to be educated on the subject and learn not to install Wii IOS on vWii, and vice-versa, in exactly the same way users these days are more or less (at least most of the time) educated enough to not delete system menu IOS or install stubs, or any wad file that they do not trust (or anything else in Wii hacking that we know now is stupid, people just have to learn). Especially since the apps are really the same, they do not know what the user is telling them to install, they are just doing what they are programmed to do.

Take d2x cIOS as an example. The main difference between Wii and the unreleased vWii versions is that they use different base IOS, due to the same bases not being compatible with both consoles. And they do not install themselves. Sure, my patches are required to install on vWii, but there is nothing stopping anyone from installing vWii IOS (and therefore vWii version of d2x when it is released) on regular Wii, which, just like the inverse, is not a good idea. In this case, the patches mean nothing, AHBPROT means nothing, restricting them is pointless. Right now, it is using the same d2x cIOS installer that is already released, to install the new beta pack onto vWii. It does not know the difference when installing, it just does what it is told. And then, think about what if ModMii ends up supporting this vWii d2x cIOS one day. It would generate a wad file, which obviously does not restrict itself from installation, the user must then need to know which version to install on which console, exactly when like those "LU64" Wiis first came out, with new IOS versions for their newer hardware revision.

The closest we could really get to restriction is, if we learn of a way to detect whether the app is running under Wii or vWii, and code that into said, then learn of a way to accurately detect which IOS are vWii IOS and which are not, then hardcode that into the app too. And then update every app that has install capabilities with this extra code. Either that, or education and awareness of what to do and what not to do.

These would be the only real ways to prevent bricks regarding these IOS, on both Wii and vWii. It has nothing to do with patched IOS or AHBPROT.

I HOPE that helps explain things.
Either all apps would have to be coded specifically to detect Wii or vWii, then have restrictions actually coded into them to stop users, either that or, people must learn not to install the wrong IOS, just like they (most of them) learned not to install old IOS or stub IOS, or to delete IOS.

It is not anyone else's fault if someone decided to be silly and install a bunch of stuff that they do not know about, and then end up breaking everything, nothing any of us can really do if someone DOES decide to do that (and it has already been done at least once).

EDIT: since it was asked for, here is a quick list of what is "safe" and what is not on vWii:

Safe (should be ok to run without worry):
- homebrew that does not install anything or require installation, or even better, ones that do not write to NAND at all

Potential risk of brick but still more or less doable (make sure you have a NAND backup, or at the very least a key dump from the modified xyzzy + hardware programmer):
- Installing channel wads (same reason as on regular Wii, mainly only if they have a bad banner or something, otherwise if they are confirmed ok, then they should be safe)
- Installing non-critical system parts, like game IOS, patched IOS, or cIOS into unused slots, as long as they are installing vWii versions for vWii, regular Wii versions for regular Wii (they are not used by System Menu and should be fine to remove and reinstall if you screw them up)

Will brick if you do it wrong, you can do these BUT only do if you know exactly what you are doing: (a NAND dump, and at the very least a xyzzy key dump + hardware programmer will be the ONLY thing to save you, due to no bootmii as boot2 on vWii)
- Modifying System Menu IOS in any way
- Modifying vWii System Menu in any way
- Modifying other things like titles 1-512 and 1-513 (again, only if you know what they are and how to change them properly, which I do not know :P )

DO NOT do, this stuff is just plain stupid and confirmed as not working and brick causing:
- Installing regular Wii IOS on vWii. Installing non-critical IOS will result in those IOS having very limited functionality and crashing very easily, installing old System Menu IOS (IOS 80 atm) will cause vWii to brick.
- Installing vWii IOS on regular Wii. This actually seems worse than the inverse. While Wii IOS maybe actually load up but still crash when trying anything, vWii IOS on Wii will not work at all. Also, users have reported very strange Wii bricks (among them being myself and FIX94) from installing vWii IOS on them, even non-critical ones... I have no clue why they do this, but new IOS for new hardware, there has got to be a reason somewhere.
- Installing older IOS, or stub IOS, or deleting IOS that you do not enough about.
- Trying to do or install anything at all if you do not know what you are doing, seriously, read up and learn about everything before attempting to mod anything, this should be a given!

As for those regular Wii bricking cases involving vWii IOS that I know of:
In my case, my regular Wii would boot up, but freeze up after about 10 seconds with buzzing noise, trying to skip sysmenu to hbc via priiloader, it still froze after that amount of time. Only a NAND restore via BootMii as boot2 saved the Wii.

In FIX94's case however, he was not so lucky... his Wii fails to even get to System Menu, and is bricked. Not sure if he has BootMii as boot2 (I am assuming he does not). Not sure if a NAND restore would work, and only way he could is with hardware programmer)

So yeah, really educate yourselves on everything before attempting anything people.
 

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