Hacking Wii U vWii - Skylanders Trap Team Portal not recognized in Skylanders Spyro's Adventure

[ItalianGamer97]

Okay, so I'm using USB Loader GX 3.0 Rev 1271 on Wii U vWii, and I'm loading my games on an NTFS-formatted drive I need to use a USB Y-Cable for, taking up both back ports.

I've installed d2x-v10-beta52-vWii on the following:

• cIOS 249 base 56
• cIOS 250 base 57
• cIOS 251 base 58

I've patched IOS80 using the "Patched IOS80 Installer for vWii", and I've also installed IOS236 using the "IOS236 Installer v8 MOD Special vWii edition" homebrew app if that means anything.

I'm using IOS 58 as the loader's IOS and IOS 251 as the game's IOS in the settings for USB Loader GX. SSBB loads fine, and Spyro's Adventure gets to the "wireless portal not detected" screen. For those curious, I'm using a Trap Team portal that came from the Wii U version of the game, and it's connected to one of the Wii U's front USB ports.

Interestingly, the portal lights up when in the vWii's Wii Menu, and it flashes twice as the Homebrew Channel loads, turning off once the HBC's loaded. I noted it flashing at least once as USB Loader GX loaded up, but it's still off when USB Loader GX's menu appeared.

The USB game compatibility list I've looked up states that the game needs IOS 248 to recognize the portal, but I seem not to have it installed on my vWii, if USB Loader GX's warning about it not being installed is any indication.

Do I need to replace one or more of the aforementioned cIOSes with d2x-v10-beta53-alt-vWii? Or do I need to do something else here?

Some help with this issue would be greatly appreciated.

 

[jeannotte]

Hello,

Did you test the CIOS 250 in the settings of your game ??

 

[ItalianGamer97]

Hello,

Did you test the CIOS 250 in the settings of your game ??

No, I haven't tried that. Should I make it the global game IOS in USB Loader GX's settings, or just have Skylanders Spyro's Adventure use that as its game IOS?

Also, should I change the loader's IOS? I doubt that would help, but I could be wrong.

I don't have access to my Wii U at the moment, but I'll try it out as soon as I can.

 

[Cyan]

I'm using IOS 58 as the loader's IOS and IOS 251 as the game's IOS in the settings for USB Loader GX.

using 251 is a bad idea. your slot 251 is based on IOS 58 which has bad compatibility with games.
cIOS based on IOS 56 (in your slot 249) is better, and base 57 (in 250) even better.
more games work with base57, so make slot250 the global option.

a user even told me that game needed base56 to work (but I'm not sure it's true).
so, if slot250 doesn't work for that game, try to set slot249 individually for that game (and keep 250 for global).
let me know which one works or not.

if none work :
Try to plug the portal on back-bottom USB (Port1), and vWii HDD on back-top (Port0).
and try with both slot249 and 250 again. let me know the result.


"using Slot248" is a stupid suggestion and help.
you could install anything into slot248; cIOS rev14, rev17, rev20, d2x v4, d2x v8, with any random base (36, 38, 56, 57, 58, etc.) even a fake IOS or an official Nintendo "antipiracy IOS" (stub), etc.
if the users don't tell you what's located INSIDE the slot248, then it's a completely useless information.


Using d2x v10 r53 might be a possible solution because it's compatible with both "plug and play" for accessories, and "USB port1".
but, fist, try using all your current installed cIOS slots, and not using front port.
don't replace your cIOS with r53 without telling us. don't mess and replace your current good setup with a bad one.

 

[ItalianGamer97]

I assume IOS58's fine as the loader's IOS, as that has USB 2.0 support, judging from what I've read about it on WiiBrew. If I understand it correctly, I should change USB Loader GX's global game IOS to 250 to get the best game compatibility.

In regards to my drive, it's a portable USB hard drive, thus explaining why I needed a USB Y-cable for it. So I have a feeling I might be screwed unless I get a dedicated desktop USB external drive with its own power source, which would free up Port1 for portal use. I don't exactly have the money for one of those, unless anyone here can suggest me a good drive for relatively cheap.

As I said, I don't have access to my Wii U at the moment, but I'll report back as soon as I can. I should be able to try your suggestions by this coming Friday.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Okay, so I'm using USB Loader GX 3.0 Rev 1271 on Wii U vWii, and I'm loading my games on an NTFS-formatted drive I need to use a USB Y-Cable for, taking up both back ports.

I've installed d2x-v10-beta52-vWii on the following:

• cIOS 249 base 56
• cIOS 250 base 57
• cIOS 251 base 58

I've patched IOS80 using the "Patched IOS80 Installer for vWii", and I've also installed IOS236 using the "IOS236 Installer v8 MOD Special vWii edition" homebrew app if that means anything.

I'm using IOS 58 as the loader's IOS and IOS 251 as the game's IOS in the settings for USB Loader GX. SSBB loads fine, and Spyro's Adventure gets to the "wireless portal not detected" screen. For those curious, I'm using a Trap Team portal that came from the Wii U version of the game, and it's connected to one of the Wii U's front USB ports.

Interestingly, the portal lights up when in the vWii's Wii Menu, and it flashes twice as the Homebrew Channel loads, turning off once the HBC's loaded. I noted it flashing at least once as USB Loader GX loaded up, but it's still off when USB Loader GX's menu appeared.

The USB game compatibility list I've looked up states that the game needs IOS 248 to recognize the portal, but I seem not to have it installed on my vWii, if USB Loader GX's warning about it not being installed is any indication.

Do I need to replace one or more of the aforementioned cIOSes with d2x-v10-beta53-alt-vWii? Or do I need to do something else here?

Some help with this issue would be greatly appreciated.

IOS248 isn't standard, so that could mean anything. May be IOS36 based or something like that.
Anyway, try it with IOS250 - to my knowledge base 57 is the one needed by games utilizing USB devices, the only exception being games that need USB 2.0 which need base IOS58 (but I think there is only one game that needs base IOS58 and you probably wouldn't want to play it). Also, keep in mind that d2x-v10-beta52 and earlier do not have hotplug support so you have to plug in the portal before launching the game. Hotplug support wasn't added until v10-beta53, but that version has its own compatibility issues.

Does the Trap Team portal work on Trap Team loaded from USB? The Trap Team portal might not even be compatible with the first game.
I'm also not entirely sure if vWii supports the front USB ports. I believe Nintendont does, but I'm not sure about anything else. It's likely official games are hardcoded for just two ports, in which case you need to plug the Y-cable so that it gets power from the front and data is plugged into the back (you may need an extension cable to make that work)

Also, you should switch to FAT32 as NTFS is not supported by Nintendont (GC games) nor any other homebrew besides USB loaders.

 

[ItalianGamer97]

IOS248 isn't standard, so that could mean anything. May be IOS36 based or something like that.
Anyway, try it with IOS250 - to my knowledge base 57 is the one needed by games utilizing USB devices, the only exception being games that need USB 2.0 which need base IOS58 (but I think there is only one game that needs base IOS58 and you probably wouldn't want to play it). Also, keep in mind that d2x-v10-beta52 and earlier do not have hotplug support so you have to plug in the portal before launching the game. Hotplug support wasn't added until v10-beta53, but that version has its own compatibility issues.

Does the Trap Team portal work on Trap Team loaded from USB? The Trap Team portal might not even be compatible with the first game.
I'm also not entirely sure if vWii supports the front USB ports. I believe Nintendont does, but I'm not sure about anything else. It's likely official games are hardcoded for just two ports, in which case you need to plug the Y-cable so that it gets power from the front and data is plugged into the back (you may need an extension cable to make that work)

Also, you should switch to FAT32 as NTFS is not supported by Nintendont (GC games) nor any other homebrew besides USB loaders.

IIRC, portals from later Skylanders games are backwards-compatible with earlier games. I'll have to jog my memory and confirm that by testing the Trap Team portal with Giants PS3 and Swap Force Wii U when I get home on Friday.

And if my memory's correct, I tried out Spyro's Adventure Wii on Dolphin and after some fiddling with USB settings, I managed to get the Trap Team portal to work there. Don't have the Trap Team portal on me at the moment, but I can try that again on Friday.

In regards to that idea of having one part of the Y-cable go to one of the front ports: I have a feeling that's going to look a bit messy. Couldn't I just have the power end of the Y-cable go into a USB wall charger? I should have at least one of those kicking around. A USB 3.0 A-Male to A-Female extension cable from AmazonBasics is about $6, which is way cheaper than a dedicated HDD.

In regards to switching to FAT32: I can't exactly format the HDD I'm using, as I'm using it to store all sorts of other files and it's my main drive for computer backups. I mean, I could make a FAT32 partition on it, if that would be of any help. For now, I'm storing my GC games on my FAT32 formatted 64 GB SD card, which works good enough, judging from my testing with Nintendon't.

I was thinking of upgrading my SD card to a Sandisk 128 GB Extreme SDXC one, though. It has 150 MB/s speeds, so that should be a good option for loading GC games through Nintendon't if I'm understanding things correctly.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

IIRC, portals from later Skylanders games are backwards-compatible with earlier games. I'll have to jog my memory and confirm that by testing the Trap Team portal with Giants PS3 and Swap Force Wii U when I get home on Friday.

And if my memory's correct, I tried out Spyro's Adventure Wii on Dolphin and after some fiddling with USB settings, I managed to get the Trap Team portal to work there. Don't have the Trap Team portal on me at the moment, but I can try that again on Friday.

In regards to that idea of having one part of the Y-cable go to one of the front ports: I have a feeling that's going to look a bit messy. Couldn't I just have the power end of the Y-cable go into a USB wall charger? I should have at least one of those kicking around. A USB 3.0 A-Male to A-Female extension cable from AmazonBasics is about $6, which is way cheaper than a dedicated HDD.

In regards to switching to FAT32: I can't exactly format the HDD I'm using, as I'm using it to store all sorts of other files and it's my main drive for computer backups. I mean, I could make a FAT32 partition on it, if that would be of any help. For now, I'm storing my GC games on my FAT32 formatted 64 GB SD card, which works good enough, judging from my testing with Nintendon't.

I was thinking of upgrading my SD card to a Sandisk 128 GB Extreme SDXC one, though. It has 150 MB/s speeds, so that should be a good option for loading GC games through Nintendon't if I'm understanding things correctly.

A wall adapter should work too, if your cable is long enough
A FAT32 partition would work fine, but it should be the first partition on the drive.

 

[ItalianGamer97]

After I got home, I tried the suggestions you guys gave me, and here are my results:

Nothing worked when I had the portal connected to one of the front USB ports of the Wii U. Although in my experiments, I encountered a few sudden crashes and many instances of USB Loader GX's interface becoming semi-unresponsive.

By "semi-unresponsive", I mean the cursor will move and I can press on-screen buttons, but those buttons won't do anything. It also even happens with game icons and items in the settings menus. Although sometimes on-screen button presses go through, but a bit slowly. Dunno what's going on with that.

So I managed to get the Trap Team portal recognized by doing the following:

• Having my portable HDD get power by taking one USB-A end of my Y-cable and plugging it into a USB wall adapter that's plugged into a power strip that can thankfully reach up next to my Wii U, with the other USB-A end going into the back-top USB port of the Wii U. That leaves the back-bottom USB port free for the portal.
• Setting the loader's IOS to 250
• Setting the global game IOS to 250
• Setting the IOS Skylanders Spyro's Adventure uses to 249

Although I've noted that voice clips have varying degrees of delay, and the music sounds like it's skipping slightly on occasion. Any idea what's going on with that? I also noticed that character changes with the portal are sometimes a tad slower than usual.

Also, after completing the game's first level and getting past the results screen, I ran into a softlock. The portal was cycling through its colors when that happened, so... I dunno.

If I should've kept the loader's IOS at 58 or have it be something else, just tell me.

Update: Changing the loader's IOS to 58 seemed to improve speeds and managed to get me past the first level's results screen. Even with this, the unpredictable voice clip delay and music skipping still persisted. I even sometimes encountered temporary pauses in the FMVs that concerned me.

 

[Cyan]

I'm glad you fixed your problem by plugging both HDD and Portal on the back

Front port are only possible with IOS58 (usb2.0 support), that's why nintendont has access to these ports.
cIOS only redirect disc access to port 0. I wasn't sure if other IOS (other than 58) only had access to hardcoded port0/1 for accessories, or all ports. I guess you tested that for us.

setting the loader to 58 should have no effect on the game.
the loader is not in memory anymore, IOS58 is unloaded before launching the game too.
I think it was just a random effect, or you think it did something but actually didn't. or maybe IOS58 really has an effect on the port1 being available before reloading to cIOS? but reloading to cIOS just disable port1 so the portal's USB port is unavailable at game launch the same way that it's unavailable if you use slot250 in the loader all the time.


If you set spyro to slot249, it works.
if you set spyro to slot250, it doesn't work ? that game doesn't work with base57 ? can you confirm that it works ONLY with base56?

Do you know the original requested IOS for that game? look in Wiibackupmanager (if there's that info).
if it's using base53 for example, try to install d2x base53 in slot 251 (or 248, but let's try to not fill your console with useless data, and only install cIOS to these 3 slots) and set the game to use that slot.

Slow and lag is maybe due to the IOS base (base56 is slower than base57. base58 is even slower to access USB). I don't know the speed comparison with other base. let us know

 

[ItalianGamer97]

Well, setting the loader's IOS to 58 certainly made USB Loader GX's interface feel snappier.

If I remember correctly from my testing, cIOS 249 base56 seems to be the only one that I've tried that registers the portal.

And looking at the game via Wii Backup Manager, SSA (Skylanders Spyro's Adventure, for short) uses IOS56, so... Maybe I should change the game's IOS in USB Loader GX to 56? Sounds like a bad idea.

So the slowness and lag is a thing I'd just have to put up with when running the game through a USB loader, then? Or is it something about my drive or how I have it set up?

 

[Cyan]

And looking at the game via Wii Backup Manager, SSA (Skylanders Spyro's Adventure, for short) uses IOS56, so... Maybe I should change the game's IOS in USB Loader GX to 56? Sounds like a bad idea.

you already did !

your slot 249 uses a patched IOS56.
it's IOS56 with added redirection function to redirect Disc access to USB.
that's what "base56" means.

it's based on IOS 56, which is patched, and the result is installed in another slot (here, your slot249).
so, you are actually using the "requested" IOS for that game.
it request IOS56, and you use IOS56 (just located in another slot, but IT IS 56)



Slowness could be different things.
- your HDD is slow. but you are actually running on USB1.1 (very slow), not USB2.0 (faster). only IOS58 has driver for USB2.0, so I'm not sure if a faster HDD would be beneficial.
- your cIOS version is bad. cIOS (the patcher version used to add functionalities) could be a problem. old patchers did different patches, newer patchers are supposed to fix bugs in preciously added features (such as "emuNAND support for 4k drive" etc.)
Maybe d2x v8 is doing things incorrectly for accessories.
the same way that d2x v10-r53 is doing lot of things incorrectly, and has issues with lot of devices and features. Newer IS NOT BETTER !
so maybe d2x v7 is better for spyro ? you don't know before actually testing that theory.

For example, if you look at the compatibility list, some games work only with (very) old cIOS : like cIOS rev19 ! (not even d2x yet). Look at Frobot, Moto Heroz, or sonic, etc..
but reverting back to old version of cIOS is tricky, you lose access to new features such as FAT32 support, etc.
reverting to rev17 for example will only work with WBFS partitions.
attention : NEVER revert back lower than rev14 ! you'll brick your wii. actually, anything lower than rev17 shouldn't be attempted. possible range should be from rev17 to rev21 d2x v10r53

 

[ItalianGamer97]

Slowness could be different things.
- your HDD is slow. but you are actually running on USB1.1 (very slow), not USB2.0 (faster). only IOS58 has driver for USB2.0, so I'm not sure if a faster HDD would be beneficial.
- your cIOS version is bad. cIOS (the patcher version used to add functionalities) could be a problem. old patchers did different patches, newer patchers are supposed to fix bugs in preciously added features (such as "emuNAND support for 4k drive" etc.)
Maybe d2x v8 is doing things incorrectly for accessories.
the same way that d2x v10-r53 is doing lot of things incorrectly, and has issues with lot of devices and features. Newer IS NOT BETTER !
so maybe d2x v7 is better for spyro ? you don't know before actually testing that theory.

For example, if you look at the compatibility list, some games work only with (very) old cIOS : like cIOS rev19 ! (not even d2x yet). Look at Frobot, Moto Heroz, or sonic, etc..
but reverting back to old version of cIOS is tricky, you lose access to new features such as FAT32 support, etc.
reverting to rev17 for example will only work with WBFS partitions.
attention : NEVER revert back lower than rev14 ! you'll brick your wii. actually, anything lower than rev17 shouldn't be attempted. possible range should be from rev17 to rev21 d2x v10r53

Keep in mind that I'm using my Wii U's vWii, and the thing you've linked suggested I don't install a cIOS lower than v10 on vWii... So am I screwed here?

 

[Cyan]

oh, yeah, that's right
sorry, then you can't test my theory. but don't worry, that doesn't mean it was the solution, it was just an idea to test and see if it was better or not.

 

[ItalianGamer97]

I mean, the game seems to be working now for the most part. It's just that the slowness and lag are annoying to see.

I'm wondering if anyone tried to take the USB 2.0 code from IOS 58 and tried to implement it into cIOSes based on other IOSes, like 57 or 56. Then again, I dunno if IOSes can be patched like that. It's probably a crazy pipe dream, but it's a nice thought.

If you're wanting to know the guide I followed in hacking my vWii, here it is: https://gbatemp.net/threads/the-definitive-vwii-hacking-guide.425852/#7

I used Smash Stack to get the Homebrew Channel installed on my vWii, and I gave a link to the guide I used so you can get an idea about what I specifically did when I was hacking my vWii.

 

[jeannotte]

Hello,

did you test the FAT32 format with your external hard drive ??

 

[Cyan]

yeah that's something you can try.
Though, once a game is launched, the partition format shouldn't have any effect because the game is accessed based on the sector number, and read as Raw data. it doesn't use the file system (FAT/NTFS/Ext) table anymore to access the wbfs file.
but, that's always nice to try all possibilities.

about the guide you followed : that's good. I helped writing it. It needs some update again, but I don't have time to do it.

 

[cyberstudio]

I don't think you can install a Wii cios on Wii U (vWii), and only v10 exists for vWii. The only alternatives are beta52 vs beta53. I've tried v10 beta 53 with base 56/249, 57/250, 58/251 on Wii (not Wii U). v10 beta53 base 57/250 broken my USB loader GX completely and I have to delete it to recover. As for v10 beta53 base 58/251, I loaded Spyro's Adventure as a test and instead of launching I got kicked back to Homebrew Channel.

56/249 was the only thing that recognizes the portal and appear to work. However, there are random freezes. Sometimes I got into an audio loop that repeats the same dialogue endlessly. Sometimes, the remote just loses response even though the portal continues to work, making the game unplayable with the only way out being a hard power down. It was a major let down and made my son really unhappy when he went through a long Skylanders Giants chapter and right when he and me were in the middle of fighting the Chompy Mage boss the game went haywire and had to be powered off.

I guess I will play Skylanders with a physical disc... but while I can block disc updates with Priiloader you can't do so on a Wii U, so it can be tricky. I think there is a homebrew just for the purpose of skipping disc checks but I haven't used that.