Hacking How to access batch saves from SaveMii

[Martonimos]

Hello, everyone. I was having an issue with Data Management on my Wii U, so I formatted the system, but not before modding it and using SaveMii to back up my saves. I had individually backed up the saves I absolutely did not want to lose, multiplayer games where my friends and I had put hundreds of hours into unlocking things. But after that, I noticed the “batch backup” option in the menu, and used that to back up everything else.

After the system reset, I was able to pop right back into SaveMii and, after booting up the games at least once, restore the backed-up saves. However, I can’t for the life of me find out how to use the batch backup. There’s no option to do that in SaveMii itself that I can find, and when I go to the titles I didn’t make individual saves for, all 256 slots are empty. I thought that if all else failed, I could move files around on the SD card, but when I looked closely, I saw that the folders in the batch backup don’t seem to have all the same files as the individual backups.

I’m very new to modding, so I apologize if there’s something obvious here I’m missing. But I haven’t been able to figure this out for myself, and Google searches keep coming up dry. So I hope you can help me out here.

TL,DR: After I make a batch backup in SaveMii, how do I restore saves from that backup?

 

[godreborn]

I don't know if there's a way to batch install, but the slots have that location included in their path. It's a folder called 0 for slot 0.

 

[Martonimos]

I don't know if there's a way to batch install, but the slots have that location included in their path. It's a folder called 0 for slot 0.

Right, but those saves don’t show up. Not in slot 0, not in slot 1, not in slot 255.

Hmm… like I said, I already had some saves backed up individually, and those were all in 0. If I change the batch folder name from 0 to 1, do you think that would help? Like, maybe the batch saves aren’t showing up because there are individual saves in some of those slots? It seems like they would still show up for games that didn’t have individual saves, but again, I’m new to all this.

 

[Xpl0itU]

Right, but those saves don’t show up. Not in slot 0, not in slot 1, not in slot 255.

Hmm… like I said, I already had some saves backed up individually, and those were all in 0. If I change the batch folder name from 0 to 1, do you think that would help? Like, maybe the batch saves aren’t showing up because there are individual saves in some of those slots? It seems like they would still show up for games that didn’t have individual saves, but again, I’m new to all this.

They’re in sd:/wiiu/saves/batch/[timestamp], I thought of adding a way to restore batch backups a while ago but haven’t figured out how to do it in a UX perspective

 

[Martonimos]

They’re in sd:/wiiu/saves/batch/[timestamp], I thought of adding a way to restore batch backups a while ago but haven’t figured out how to do it in a UX perspective

I see. I did eventually wind up brute-forcing it, creating and copying folders as needed to get the relevant saves from the batch folder into their proper places. At first, it seemed like it didn’t work; the slots now appeared in SaveMii as “used,” but also as “empty,” no matter which user I selected. But, after restoring the saves, the games themselves all worked fine (with one slight exception). I guess they just looked that way because they lacked the metadata files the other saves had automatically.

One virtual console game (Earthbound Beginnings) gave me a fright when it looked like all the save files were empty, but then I noticed a restore point I’d created from late in the game. I loaded that up, reset the game, and everything was as it should be.

I take it you’re the one behind SaveMii? Thanks for ensuring I didn’t lose all those hours of gameplay just because my Wii U’s NAND was misbehaving.

 

[MelMellon]

Bumping this thread far later than what's probably reasonable to ask if there are any plans to do a batch restore function, for the purposes of moving all the save data from one user to another.

 

[qWii]

Have you tried the 1.6.3 version? It does not have the functionality that you are requesting, but at least it allows you to restore individual titles savedata from your batch backups directly in savemii, without needing to move files here and there using a computer.

Batch restore can be tricky. Which is the use case / scenario have you in mind? Same console? Different one?

The recommended way to restore savegame data is first to initialize it by playing the game once. So, if we stick to this principle, the user should play all the games in the target console before trying a batch restore (I'm assuming a backup/restore to a different console). Would something like "restore all user A savegame data from a batch backup to user B savegames of initialized games in the target console" be enough?

 

[MelMellon]

Have you tried the 1.6.3 version? It does not have the functionality that you are requesting, but at least it allows you to restore individual titles savedata from your batch backups directly in savemii, without needing to move files here and there using a computer.

Batch restore can be tricky. Which is the use case / scenario have you in mind? Same console? Different one?

The recommended way to restore savegame data is first to initialize it by playing the game once. So, if we stick to this principle, the user should play all the games in the target console before trying a batch restore (I'm assuming a backup/restore to a different console). Would something like "restore all user A savegame data from a batch backup to user B savegames of initialized games in the target console" be enough?

The use purpose I have in mind is to migrate all of my save data from my original account, tied to my old NNID, to a new account tied to Pretendo. I'd prefer not switching profiles back and forth when going from online to offline games and instead just have everything under the same Pretendo-profile roof. So yeah, the "Restore all user A savegame data from a batch backup to user B savegames in the target console" would be perfect! (Might need to work on the name though )

 

[qWii]

Ok! I'll put the requirement in the backlog . Not for the next release, but probably for 1.6.5 (~October).