Hacking Hardware Homebrew Bricked WiiU - stuck after boot solid purple led

[Recovery]

Hello there!

A "friend" has the following problem with an old WiiU. Bought in the US brand new. OS version 5.5.6.

Installed Mocha following GBA guides and afterwards installed Tiramisu and finally to Aroma.

After that, my friend installed a custom theme (was not able to tell me which, only that it was an animated theme). Then, using Theme Manager, a patch to the original WiiU's original theme was installed. This was done by downloading the original theme files, then patching a backup and finally replacing the files in the WiiU with the patched files.

The issue arises after installing the HomeBrew Channel. The Mii Channel was not restored. To restore it, my friend used the original WiiU backup files (otp, slccmpt, slc and seeprom) only replacing slccmpt (which I understand is the vWii nand) directly onto the WiiU. As a result, the WiiU does not work and on boot has the following behavior:

1. On boot blue led blinks, then turns orange, then off and then purple.
2. Purple stays solid forever.
3. Disc device starts twice.
4. No signal to TV, either through HDMI or AV.

I tried using a Raspberry Pi Pico 2 (W) with the UDPIH exploit to start the Recovery Menu, with no luck.

I'm stuck and would appreciate any help.

 

[SDIO]

To restore it, my friend used the original WiiU backup files (otp, slccmpt, slc and seeprom) only replacing slccmpt (which I understand is the vWii nand) directly onto the WiiU.

What exactly did he do?
At least you have isfshax installed, so shouldn't be too hard to fix once we know what exactly got messed up.

 

[Recovery]

What exactly did he do?
At least you have isfshax installed, so shouldn't be too hard to fix once we know what exactly got messed up.

Hi SDIO, thanks for your reply.
I'm not an expert on WiiU hacking and have been reading a lot to understand, but still am not at the required level. Too much to process in little time.
I asked again for more details (more like conducted a thorough interrogation) and in short this is what happend:
1. Installed Mocha HB.
2. Upgraded to Tiramisu.
3. Upgraded to Aroma.
4. At this point, he wanted to install Hombrew Channel in the vWii. He made a mistake in the process, isn't sure what, and the vWii stopped working. The WiiU was running OK and he turned it off.
5. To fix this he read somewhere on REDDIT and GBATemp that he had to unblock updates for the WiiU. Did so, a prompt asking to update the WiiU appeared and went on with it. Result, vWii was back up and running, but with no Homebrew Channel.
6. Tried to install Homebrew Channel in the vWii again and was succesfull.
7. Installed Custom IOS (CIOS) so that the vWii could run ports and other non-official nintendo apps.
8. Installed USB Loader GX. The app could not read the USB HD as it was not formatted for the vWii.
9. Installed ISFShax and formatted and partitioned a USB HD using the recovery menu in the WiiiU,
10. Used a portable app Wii Backup Manager (on a PC) and formatted the USB HD's vWii partition to WVFS. Did not touch the WiiU partition.
11. After loading games in the newly formatted partition they were playable.
12. Went back to Aroma using Tiramisu's app Reboot to Aroma.
13. Up to this point the Mii Channel in the vWii was not working. Turns out that he installed WupHacks through the Mii Channel exploit which replaced the Mii Channel's files with a file called payload.elf to install Homebrew Channel. He forgot to restore the MiiChannel afterwards.
14. Installed vWii Decaffeinator and forced an update on the WiiU to fix the vWii's nand. This was unsuccesfull (with and without unblocking updates).
15. Installed vWii NAND restorer on the WiiU and tried to do a dump of the vWii's slccmpt but did not work with error "cannot read slccmpt" or "something like that".
16. Back to WiiU Decaffeinator, advanced options, and instead of selecting only the Mii Channel as the target to be restored, he restored all channels, but not the IOS. Did not work due to a no access error.
17. Finally, turned off the WiiU and pulled out the SD card. Copied into the SD an old backup of the vWii (slccmpt file that did not have the Homebrew Channel installed) into folder /vWiiNandRestorer/Extracted. SD back into WiiU and fired up vWii NAND Restorer and selected Restore slccmpt from extracted nand. Gave error "slccmpt not found" in the specified folder.
18. Back to WiiU Decaffeinator once more and used the Aggressive Mode to restore everything in the vWii to its original fabric condition. Did not work with error "could not access nand" or something like that.
19. From Tiramisu's HB Launcher fired Reboot to Aroma and entered Aroma. When rebooting the WiiU, the TV screen appears black (no signal received), the GamePad does not connect and the LED shows a solid purple.

That is in a nutshell all I could get. Please let me know if there's something that does not make sense. Hope it helps.

 

[SDIO]

Restore the slccmpt in minute

 

[Recovery]

Restore the slccmpt in minute

Thanks. Accesed minute menu, selected Backup and Restore and then Restore slccmtp.raw. After some time copying the file it ended without errors.
Turned off and rebooted without the SD card. No luck.
I'm not sure if this slccmtp.bin file backed up is from the vWii or the WiiU. File size is 540,672 KB, same as the slc.bin file backed up. Are there different slccmtp files for the WiiU and vWii? Any way to tell which one is it?
Supposing the file available is from the original WiiU, anything else that may be wrong?
Thanks

 

[SDIO]

No, you were supposed to restore a dummy file to the slccmpt to make sure it is invalid and will get formatted. If you restore just the slccmpt backup it won't get formatted. Also after that you need to boot with the SD and the setup plugin to format it

 

[Recovery]

No, you were supposed to restore a dummy file to the slccmpt to make sure it is invalid and will get formatted. If you restore just the slccmpt backup it won't get formatted. Also after that you need to boot with the SD and the setup plugin to format it

Thanks. Good to know all is not lost.
Tried again using an dummy file slccmpt.raw (created an empty .txt file and changed the extension to.raw).
Failed with error "Failed to open slccmtp.raw (4) - Failed to restore slccmtp.raw (-3)".
Also, whenever I add the wiiu/ios_pluggins/ folder with anything inside to the SD, minute does not show on screen.
Thanks

 

[SDIO]

use this.
If you have a minute.ini in the minute folder remove or rename that for now

 

[Recovery]

use this.
If you have a minute.ini in the minute folder remove or rename that for now

Thanks for this. Restored the SLCCMPT.RAW using the file you gave me. Passed smoothly, except for a message saying a number of pages failed to program and that SEEPROM boot1 versions are already synced with NAND.
Powered off and rebooted with the SD in and no minute.ini file in the /minute folder. Menu displays correctly.
Took the time to dump SEEPROM & OTP, and SLC.RAW. All went well with no errors.
Should I now follow the ISFShax install process?

 

[SDIO]

Boot once with this plugin in the wiiu/ios_plugins folder and after that remove it, if it didn't autodelete: https://github.com/StroopwafelCFW/wafel_setup_mlc/releases

 

[Recovery]

Boot once with this plugin in the wiiu/ios_plugins folder and after that remove it, if it didn't autodelete: https://github.com/StroopwafelCFW/wafel_setup_mlc/releases

OK. Boot from the SD right? Minute menu appeared. Nothing else seemed to happen. Power off. File still in SD. Deleted it.

 

[SDIO]

Boot the third option

 

[Recovery]

Boot the third option

With the

Boot the third option

Done. Said IFShax detected. No patch file `ios.patch`, stubbing...
Loaded the three puggins in the SD (00core.ipx, 5isfshax.ipx and wafell_steup_mlc.ipx, and ended with Jumping to IOS... GO GO GO
Disk drive spinned once and now LED is orange. Screen stuck here.
Power off pressing power for 5 secs. Checked SD card, the wafell file was deleted. Rebooted with the SD and back to Minute Menu.
Rebooted without the SD card and finally got back to the WiiU logo screen. There was a brief message about "couldn't load SD...." but was not able to read it full.
Thanks for that!

 

[SDIO]

And now try booting the third option again

 

[Recovery]

And now try booting the third option again

Tried botting with minute and the third option and sent me to a new menu asking to select boot option.
> fw_img_loader
Pressed either button (power and eject) but nothing happened.
The console still boots on its own and can be configured. Should I still do something else?

 

[SDIO]

If you want to use Aroma put all the Aroma files back on the SD.
Else remove the wiiu/payload.elf

 

[Recovery]

If you want to use Aroma put all the Aroma files back on the SD.
Else remove the wiiu/payload.elf

Excellent! Back in business.
Thanks a lot for your help.

 

[SDIO]

Now you need to do a system update to get vWii back.
Use vWii decaffeinator to regenerate the settings.txt and force a update and then make sure to unblock updates: https://wiiu.hacks.guide/unblock-updates.html

 

[Recovery]

Now you need to do a system update to get vWii back.
Use vWii decaffeinator to regenerate the settings.txt and force a update and then make sure to unblock updates: https://wiiu.hacks.guide/unblock-updates.html

Installed vWii Decaffeinator and launched from Aroma (unblocked updated). Tried regenerating setting.txt but failed with error "Cannot create settings.txt file. Regeneration failed". And sent me back to the vWii Decaffeinator menu.
Even tried forcing an update but failed with the same error.

 

[SDIO]

Disable the ftp plugin if you have that