Hacking Cover Flow USB ISO Loader by Beardface

[dsfanatic5]

Could you try using a small usb pen drive with 2 games on it and see if it still crashes just to be able to rule that out ?
I hadn't thought about it, so I added Wii Sports and Link's Crossbow training to a pen drive, and the loader worked flawlessly. I used the same config and covers that I had on my sd from rev5. This pretty much proves to me that the large number of games is causing the crash.

i have 287 games on my drive... i deleted all the covers from when i had rc5 and re-downloaded when i started rc6...
and everything is working fine... in 2d mode ALL the covers downloaded and the cover load time lag is very minimal, less than a second for the loader to play catch-up... in 3-d mode about 80% of the covers downloaded (not because of the loader, they're just not there yet) and there is a considerable amount of lag, sometimes about 3-4 seconds for all the covers on the screen to load.... but no crashes!!!!!

i've also tried Hiberns loader and it runs fine for me with 287 games... no crashes... problem with his loader is about 30% of my games freeze on either green screen or black screen... ALL 287 are tested and working on cover flow

(havent actually tested them all with rc6 but all worked on previous versions, but so far so good)
With your advice, I deleted the sd:/usb-loader/ folder completely, and allowed rev6 to create and download everything new. As soon as the 2-D covers finished, I pressed A for Ok, and B to exit the settings menu. In less than a second, it booted me right out to the HBC menu. As you can see in the quote below, natemckn is having the same problem. I'm not getting any code dumps, just a nice clean boot to HBC. I find it very interesting that you are able to have so many games, but not share the same problem. I'm beginning to wonder if it's unique bug with my particular drive or sd card trying to load so many images. Keep in mind that every rev up through rev5 worked just fine for me, so it has to be something that was changed in rev6 (nothing in my setup has changed in a while).

QUOTE(natemckn @ Jun 7 2009, 06:02 PM)

So now whenever I try to select a game (I don't even get to see the 'load' button), it kicks me back to the HBC. The fact that it is crashing before I try to launch a game is what makes me think that it is the loader and not the cIOS.
Anybody have any idea why this is?

EDIT: I messed around with it a bit more. After loading a game successfully it will crash unless I do a full power cycle (power off, leave off for 30 seconds before coming back on) before trying to load another game. This makes it sound more like a cIOS bug.

EDIT2: Did some more research and it would seem like this is a known bug with cIOS_rev13b. The workaround is to choose 'reset' instead of 'wii menu'. So, yeah... nevermind. Great loader

I'm having the exact same problem, and I'm using cIOS_rev10. I'm pretty sure it's the loader because Hibern's WiiFlow did the same thing to me, then he sent me a new boot.dol, and the problem was gone.

 

[offtopic]

So I got the program working, and love it. Thanks. Is there any way I can make a channel that loads it instead of using the homebrew channel?

 

[Bigmonty69]

I just want to say great loader btw and I have it working perfectly on my Wii.

Problem is I tried to get it working on my dads Wii. He is using the same external hard drive as me so I thought there would be no problems.

I ran RC6 straight away with cIOS_rev12 as this is the setup on my Wii but it gets to the loading bar stage saying something about WBFS stage and hangs there for a bit then asks you to press A to find the USB drive I think and then proceeds to give a screen full of code before crashing.

Any ideas would be appreiciated. I also tried USBloader GX and it works perfectlty on his Wii.

Cheers

 

[Hammyface]

Ocarina, still don't know what it is

Ocarina lets you activate cheat codes (get codes from www.usbgecko.com/codes)

How do you use Ocarina in Cover Flow though? I have it on but never get asked to add or disable codes or anything. I'm clearly missing something.

Also I'd love to create a FAT32 partition on my drive to use for Cover Flow, as I am guessing it will give me quicker loading for covers. In the FAT32 partition am I supposed to put Cover Flow itself as well? If so, how does the HBC launch it?

Thanks!! This thing kicks ass!

 

[natemckn]

So I got the program working, and love it. Thanks. Is there any way I can make a channel that loads it instead of using the homebrew channel?

What you are looking for is a forwarder channel. Here is a link for the one I use. Install it using WAD manager and it will launch SD:/apps/usbloader/boot.dol (which is probably where you keep the loader anyway)
http://sharebee.com/9ce107ee

 

[fishears]

How do you use Ocarina in Cover Flow though? I have it on but never get asked to add or disable codes or anything. I'm clearly missing something.

The Loader doesn't manage your Ocarina codes - you need to use something like Cheat Code Manager for that (see WiiBrew) - once you create a gct using that app those cheats will be applied by the loader if Ocarina is ON...
Hope that makes sense

 

[TrickyTony]

LOVE this loader, just made the switch. I only have ONE cover that isin't found on the 3D covers (which are SO AWESOME with the press 2 to flip feature) is there a site where I can request someone up the 3D art for Rune Factory?

 

[tj_cool]

LOVE this loader, just made the switch. I only have ONE cover that isin't found on the 3D covers (which are SO AWESOME with the press 2 to flip feature) is there a site where I can request someone up the 3D art for Rune Factory?

www.theotherzone.com/wii/

 

[Hammyface]

I am able to use Cover Flow just fine on my Wii, but my friend's always crashes. It never can detect the USB drive (it fails at Initializing WBFS..."). I tried my hard drive on his Wii and it did the same thing. I even tried an older version of Cover Flow. Any ideas what could be wrong?

 

[DJJayTee]

Could you try using a small usb pen drive with 2 games on it and see if it still crashes just to be able to rule that out ?
I hadn't thought about it, so I added Wii Sports and Link's Crossbow training to a pen drive, and the loader worked flawlessly. I used the same config and covers that I had on my sd from rev5. This pretty much proves to me that the large number of games is causing the crash.

i have 287 games on my drive... i deleted all the covers from when i had rc5 and re-downloaded when i started rc6...
and everything is working fine... in 2d mode ALL the covers downloaded and the cover load time lag is very minimal, less than a second for the loader to play catch-up... in 3-d mode about 80% of the covers downloaded (not because of the loader, they're just not there yet) and there is a considerable amount of lag, sometimes about 3-4 seconds for all the covers on the screen to load.... but no crashes!!!!!

i've also tried Hiberns loader and it runs fine for me with 287 games... no crashes... problem with his loader is about 30% of my games freeze on either green screen or black screen... ALL 287 are tested and working on cover flow

(havent actually tested them all with rc6 but all worked on previous versions, but so far so good)
With your advice, I deleted the sd:/usb-loader/ folder completely, and allowed rev6 to create and download everything new. As soon as the 2-D covers finished, I pressed A for Ok, and B to exit the settings menu. In less than a second, it booted me right out to the HBC menu. As you can see in the quote below, natemckn is having the same problem. I'm not getting any code dumps, just a nice clean boot to HBC. I find it very interesting that you are able to have so many games, but not share the same problem. I'm beginning to wonder if it's unique bug with my particular drive or sd card trying to load so many images. Keep in mind that every rev up through rev5 worked just fine for me, so it has to be something that was changed in rev6 (nothing in my setup has changed in a while).

QUOTE(natemckn @ Jun 7 2009, 06:02 PM)

So now whenever I try to select a game (I don't even get to see the 'load' button), it kicks me back to the HBC. The fact that it is crashing before I try to launch a game is what makes me think that it is the loader and not the cIOS.
Anybody have any idea why this is?

EDIT: I messed around with it a bit more. After loading a game successfully it will crash unless I do a full power cycle (power off, leave off for 30 seconds before coming back on) before trying to load another game. This makes it sound more like a cIOS bug.

EDIT2: Did some more research and it would seem like this is a known bug with cIOS_rev13b. The workaround is to choose 'reset' instead of 'wii menu'. So, yeah... nevermind. Great loader

I'm having the exact same problem, and I'm using cIOS_rev10. I'm pretty sure it's the loader because Hibern's WiiFlow did the same thing to me, then he sent me a new boot.dol, and the problem was gone.

hmmmm.... im using cios10 also.... what firmware? i'm using wankiko patched 4.0u

 

[scognito]

We are searching a legal wad to include for our 1.0 release.
I would like a very simple one, without super fantastic animations nor real covers or funky things: just the logo would be nice.
You have more chances to being included if you post a screenshot (or better a video).
This is my taste, beardface and other devs can write their own.
Thanks for help

 

[Sledge1]

I'm still having issues with new version.. works fine the first time, until i download covers... then it crashes/exits to HBC and won't load again..
won't load past 'sorting game list' when covers are present

 

[natemckn]

I've got a few things, including a bit of a problem.
First, I'd would like to thank everyone that made this project possible, it is awesome.

Here is my problem: up until today I was running RC5 no problem with cIOS_rev12, every once in a while it would hang at "initializing WBFS", I easily fixed this by just resetting the hard drive. Today I decided to upgrade to RC6 and cIOS13b. So, I upgraded and all seemed fine, the new Coverfloader looks nice. I went ahead and launched Punch Out and played for a while. When I was done playing I quit back to the Wii Menu and went back in and tried to launch a different game (Okami, which worked on RC5/cIOS12). When I clicked 'load', the screen went black for a little while then kicked me back to the HBC (which I thought was odd because I launched the USB loader through a forwarder.
So now whenever I try to select a game (I don't even get to see the 'load' button), it kicks me back to the HBC. The fact that it is crashing before I try to launch a game is what makes me think that it is the loader and not the cIOS.
Anybody have any idea why this is?
In the meantime, i will try going back to cIOS_rev12 and/or Coverfloader RC5.
Thanks for the help

EDIT: I messed around with it a bit more. After loading a game successfully it will crash unless I do a full power cycle (power off, leave off for 30 seconds before coming back on) before trying to load another game. This makes it sound more like a cIOS bug.

EDIT2: Did some more research and it would seem like this is a known bug with cIOS_rev13b. The workaround is to choose 'reset' instead of 'wii menu'. So, yeah... nevermind. Great loader

I'd just like to follow up to my previous post. I switched out a few different loaders and every one froze when trying to load a game after going back to system menu. Using 'reset' worked most of the time across all of the loaders. This confirms that it is a cIOS38_rev13b bug and there is nothing wrong with your loader. Keep up the great work. Until rev14, I will be going back to rev12

 

[Hooya]

Great loader, just a few requests:

I want a nicer forwarder for this that doesn't take as long to load and doesn't have a screen flicker (the one for USB Loader GX is wonderful). If anyone has any suggestions I'd like to know of one (I'm using an "HDD Forwarder.wad" right now).
Edit: just tried the one posted by natemckn. much better, but still not as good as the one for GX

There are quite a few covers that aren't found when I tell the program to download covers. Newer and less popular ones like the Rock Band Track Packs don't show up, and my out of the NTSC-U region games tend to be the issues.

The cover cache isn't very efficient. If I am at one end of my collection I don't want to have to wait a moment as I scroll through my collection for the program to load the cover. I would think all covers could be loaded at once or something else so there wasn't this little problem.

Aside from that, I love the look and the simplicity of this loader.

 

[offtopic]

So I got the program working, and love it. Thanks. Is there any way I can make a channel that loads it instead of using the homebrew channel?

What you are looking for is a forwarder channel. Here is a link for the one I use. Install it using WAD manager and it will launch SD:/apps/usbloader/boot.dol (which is probably where you keep the loader anyway)
http://sharebee.com/9ce107ee

Thanks so much, just what I needed!

 

[TrickyTony]

Is there any way to make your own fullcovers yourself. A few of mine are Customs/Wrong Region, I tried making one with the (GameID).png matching the zise of the downloaded ones, but the loader doesn't detect these?

 

[Dyne255]

Love the new version of the loader. It looks so sleek and smooth. But just wondering if you can boot gamecube games the same way you can boot the wii games off a hdd?

The problem with gamecube games is that when the wii loads a gamecube game, it loses access to all of the hardware that the wii has that the gamecube does not, such as the wiimotes and anything attached to them, the sd card slot, and most importantly for us, the usb ports. So until someone can figure out how to gain access to wii hardware while in gamecube mode, the answer is no.

I didn't realize that playing the gamecube games restricted the Wii that much. Thank you for the timbit of knowledge of that

 

[natemckn]

Love the new version of the loader. It looks so sleek and smooth. But just wondering if you can boot gamecube games the same way you can boot the wii games off a hdd?

The problem with gamecube games is that when the wii loads a gamecube game, it loses access to all of the hardware that the wii has that the gamecube does not, such as the wiimotes and anything attached to them, the sd card slot, and most importantly for us, the usb ports. So until someone can figure out how to gain access to wii hardware while in gamecube mode, the answer is no.

I didn't realize that playing the gamecube games restricted the Wii that much. Thank you for the timbit of knowledge of that

It is the main reason that the Wii has 100% compatibility with GC games, because it is running near identical hardware. The Xbox 360 doesn't do this for Xbox 1 games, so some games that utilized the hardware differently are not compatible

 

[TrickyTony]

I just thought of a feature request... Could the list possibly become a "circle"? What I mean is like obviously it starts at A and ends at Z but when you reach the final game instead of just stopping could it possibly somehow just loop back to the start of the list, or if you were at the start moving further left would take you to the end of the list? It might make navigation faster, but it might look sloppy yall are the pros so you know what is best!

 

[dsfanatic5]

hmmmm.... im using cios10 also.... what firmware? i'm using wankiko patched 4.0u
I'm on 4.0u, updated through Waninkoko's program as well. I've never tried anything higher than cIOS_rev10, since I don't like what I've read about the newer versions available. Everything homebrew works flawlessly on my Wii, from emulators to Gamecube DVD-R backups, and I haven't had compatibility issues with any application until the newest batch of loaders.

QUOTE(Sledge1 @ Jun 8 2009, 05:51 PM) I'm still having issues with new version.. works fine the first time, until i download covers... then it crashes/exits to HBC and won't load again..
won't load past 'sorting game list' when covers are present

I have the same problem, and I've also narrowed it down to an issue with the covers. In my case, having a large amount of games (covers) causes the loader to crash to HBC almost instantly upon startup. Using a pen drive with a handful of games produces good results, and no crashing issues for me. I deleted the sd:/usb-loader/ folder, and started rev6 with no covers, and it functions perfectly. As soon as I downloaded a fresh set of covers, it crashes. I just don't understand how some of us get the crash, and some don't, even if they have more games than me.

On a side note, pressing 1 when a game is selected causes the loader to crash for me.