Homebrew Is installing to the nand using wup installer completely safe?

[Zeldafan1022]

(First post, sorry if I messed up something)

This question has been haunting me ever since I started hacking my wii u. While searching for a method to play gamecube/wii games and finding the wiivc injector, I heard that using wup installer to install to the nand is “dangerous” and that if the installation fails, the data will still be there in the nand and that its unrecoverable, or even that it could brick your system.

This hurts me because I only found this in replies to posts with nobody backing it up. I just really want somebody to confirm if this is true, and also confirm how the installation would fail. I know that its gonna fail if you don’t have enough space, but apparently it can fail for no reason??

I successfully Installed a gamecube inject to the nand but im afraid to install more until I get some sort of confirmation. Thanks in advance

 

[aerios169]

If the installation fails the console erease it on manager of memory also if you have the cfw is safe... remember to download from a good sourse your games.

 

[neoninteger]

Although its true that WUP Installer can fail for a variety of reasons (corrupted input files, lack of the right signature check patches, or sometimes just plain bad luck) it should tell you if installation fails for any reason. If an installation fails, you should be able to go to Data Management in the console's System Settings, where you should be prompted to delete the leftover data from the failed installation, if there is any.

If you have an external USB device you aren't using (it can be a flash drive or a dedicated hard drive) you might feel more comfortable installing titles onto that instead.

I haven't heard of anyone causing irreversible damage to their console from using WUP Installer alone, there was always some other factor such as installing something that doesn't work on retail consoles (e.g. System Config Tool) or overwriting the game CBHC was installed on.

 

[Zeldafan1022]

If the installation fails the console erease it on manager of memory also if you have the cfw is safe... remember to download from a good sourse your games.

Well since I’m Injecting the gamecube games myself, That should count as a good source, hopefully

Although its true that WUP Installer can fail for a variety of reasons (corrupted input files, lack of the right signature check patches, or sometimes just plain bad luck) it should tell you if installation fails for any reason. If an installation fails, you should be able to go to Data Management in the console's System Settings, where you should be prompted to delete the leftover data from the failed installation, if there is any.

If you have an external USB device you aren't using (it can be a flash drive or a dedicated hard drive) you might feel more comfortable installing titles onto that instead.

Well thats good, I was hoping for a way to delete left over data.

While I do have a flash drive thats 2gb, I was worried that having the game on there would damage it. My plan would be to install it to that usb and move it over to the nand. Since I wouldn’t be playing the game on the usb, Im thinking it wouldn’t damage it, but idk.

Thanks for the responses!

 

[V10lator]

As a developer who inspected WUP Installers sources a lot I can tell you that this might produce memory errors:
https://github.com/Yardape8000/wupinstaller/blob/master/src/main.c#L319
https://github.com/xhp-creations/WUP-Installer-GX2/blob/master/src/menu/InstallWindow.cpp#L376

This code is executed after installation through, so to be on the safe side reboot after each installation.

Technical information what's happening here: MCP (the system tool WUP Installer calls to do the actual installation) itself frees the memory region pointed to by mcpInstallInfo while (or shorty after?) MCP_Close() has been called (which is done a few lines above the lines marked in the links), so WUP Installer itself should not free it as that's a double-free. Now I have no idea what memory issues a double-free does to the Wii U but as a general rule of programming it's a bad action that shouldn't happen.

//EDIT: Note that I know of this error as I'm developing a homebrew using MCP, too, so I triggered the exact same double-free but I had an ASAN running at that time. Said ASAN was not available when WUP Installer was developed and MCP is completely undocumented, so it's really not the fault of the developers.
Also note that cause of said homebrew I'm developing I know how picky MCPs APIs are. While it seems that WUP Installer does everything (except that double-free) correctly I can't confirm. I guess only a Nintendo employee could confirm that but that will never happen.

 

[SimonL91]

never had a problem