Homebrew problems installing apps/games on external USB drive

[eeL20]

well same type of "files corrupt" error when trying to install games
tried an extension cord that has a usb port (2.4A max), still no success

 

[m_lance]

I am having the same issues as OP. where and how do i drop this into my SD card?

 

[m_lance]

My fault, sorry, you need this, too: https://github.com/wiiu-env/MochaPayload/actions/runs/2516754965

having same issues as OP. is this something we drop in our SD card? where?

 

[V10lator]

All cool guys, no need to drop this in: This was just a part of debugging.

Still, this sounds like a power issue...

tried an extension cord that has a usb port (2.4A max), still no success

When I say a powerfull wall charger I mean something you would use to power an RPI, not some random phone charger. Something which is able to deliver > 2 Ampeere constant, not only for peaks.

//EDIT: In other words: It's not the "max" that's important, cause max = peaks. You want something able to deliver ~2.4A on average / all the time.

 

[m_lance]

All cool guys, no need to drop this in: This was just a part of debugging.

Still, this sounds like a power issue...


//EDIT: In other words: It's not the "max" that's important, cause max = peaks. You want something able to deliver ~2.4A on average / all the time.

What’s a RPI? Would the anker fast charger work?

All cool guys, no need to drop this in: This was just a part of debugging.

Still, this sounds like a power issue...


//EDIT: In other words: It's not the "max" that's important, cause max = peaks. You want something able to deliver ~2.4A on average / all the time.

What’s a RPI? Would this work?

Anker USB C Wall Charger 20W, 511 Charger (Nano Pro), PIQ 3.0 Fast Charging Block, Anker Nano Pro for iPhone 13/13 Mini/13 Pro/13 Pro Max/12, Galaxy, Pixel 4/3, iPad/iPad mini (Cable Not Included) https://a.co/d/hEJXoHu

 

[Sypherone]

If its a external HDD like WD Portable designed for USB 2.0/3.0 then it need max 0.9 Ampere.
Normaly a external HDD like this should draw about 700-800mA in Peak. This is when its powered on. In the following normal working condition it takes 300-400mA. An SSD less because it has no moving parts, just flash memory.

USB is specs:
- USB 1.0, USB 1.1, and USB 2.0 standard ports can supply up to 500 mA (milliamperes).
- USB 3.0 standard ports can provide up to 900 mA.
- USB 3.0 charging ports can supply up to 1,500 mA.
- USB 4.0 (Thunderbolt) standart port up 1,5 mA

A power supply with 2,4mA additional to the WiiU USB port provided, gives an amount of 2,9mA available for the drive.

I would check/change the Y- Cable. And disable the hdd sleep function in hidden WiiU settings:
1. Turn on your Wii U
2. Go to Settings
3. Go to Data Management
4. Press and hold down on the D-Pad for about half a second
5. While holding down down on the D-Pad, press and hold the + and - buttons and keep them pressed down until you see a prompt referring to the HDD sleep mode
6. Select disable - you will be advised that this setting might consume more energy

 

[V10lator]

If its a external HDD like WD Portable designed for USB 2.0/3.0 then it need max 0.9 Ampere.
Normaly a external HDD like this should draw about 700-800mA in Peak. This is when its powered on.

That's not true:

You must have at minimum a 2A 5V Power Supply [a good quality one]

(source: https://community.wd.com/t/my-passport-ultra-current-draw/165894/3 )

Note: I have blown up USB 2.0 ports in the past

(source: https://community.wd.com/t/current-draw-of-passport-passport-ultra-and-easystore/236757 )

"Because a USB device was drawing too much power from your computer, one or more of your USB devices have been disabled.
To prevent damaing your computer, the USB device drawing too mcuh power has ben dsiabled. Other devices may have also been disabled. When you disconnect the device drawing too much power, your other USB devices will be enabled again."

(source: https://community.wd.com/t/because-a-usb-device-was-drawing-too-much-power-from-your-computer/19747 )

Also HDDs will peak randomly (when starting some games, for example), not when spinning up (but power saving can also produce spinning up after start up, so...).

USB is specs:
- USB 1.0, USB 1.1, and USB 2.0 standard ports can supply up to 500 mA (milliamperes).

A Y-cable is already breaking the specs. So it should be clear that HDDs break the specs.

A power supply with 2,4mA additional to the WiiU USB port provided, gives an amount of 2,9mA available for the drive.

The 2.4 mA where just an example I used cause another user used it before in this thread.

What’s a RPI?

https://www.raspberrypi.org

Anker USB C Wall Charger 20W, 511 Charger (Nano Pro), PIQ 3.0 Fast Charging Block, Anker Nano Pro for iPhone 13/13 Mini/13 Pro/13 Pro Max/12, Galaxy, Pixel 4/3, iPad/iPad mini

Personally I wouldn't trust "fast chargers".

//EDIT: @m_lance Normal phone chargers are designed to give a low charging current. The "X mA max" is just what the charger is able to deliver for peaks (when you use the phone while charging, for example) but it can't deliver this much power for a longer amount of time. Fast chargers completely break the USB specs by going up to 24 V (USB specs says 5 V. The phone itself is then able to transform the high voltage, low mA to low voltage, high mA). This is something external HDDs can't use / won't benefit from. So you really want something designed to deliver high mA at 5 V, like a wall adapter designed to power a Raspberry Pi (RPI).

 

[Sypherone]

@V10lator What is not true?
Iam running a WD Elements 2,5" and WD My Passport 2,5" at the same time attached only to the WiiU. The both Y-Cable Power strips are attached to a splitter connect to one single front port. So i have a max of 1,5A for running both hdd`s. And there running fine without any issue.

The USB Specification
USB 2.0 is rated/limited for 0.5A, 3.0 is rated/limited for 0.9A as max constant output. Because of that we need a Y- Cable for external hdd for Wii/ WiiU.
Newer USB 3 Version 3.1/3.2 can provide more, there are values given between 1.5 and 3 Ampere.

There are different sources for research for the powerconsumption of external hdd , they are mostly given in Watt.
The most powerfull part is spinning up from shutdown or standby with around 0,7/0.8 A for a 2,5". If it runs, it runs and stays constantly at around 0,3/0,4A. Maybe it peaks because of loading a game, what we talking about up to 0.5A?

BTW there are external 2,5" hdd`s out, specified they can run directly on usb 2.0 Port without the need of Y- Cable. Dependend of the version of the external hdd could also a 3.1 or 3.2 USB port be recuired because of higher datatransfer and faster spinning harddrive wich results in need for more Power.

 

[V10lator]

@V10lator What is not true?
Iam running a WD Elements 2,5" and WD My Passport 2,5" at the same time attached only to the WiiU. The both Y-Cable Power strips are attached to a splitter connect to one single front port. So i have a max of 1,5A for running both hdd`s. And there running fine without any issue.

So one HDD for Wii U, one for vWii? One IDLEing while the other does its job? Then it's more like having 1,4 A for running one.
What was wrong? You stating HDDs will peak at max 900 mA. Hitachi says their drives peak at > 2 A, for example. Also a drive might peak higher while reading/writing than while spinning up. So a drive spinning up fine does not mean the power source is good enough.

The USB Specification

does not mention Y cables in any way. So a Y cable is a violation of the specs, no matter how you argue.

BTW there are external 2,5" hdd`s out, specified they can run directly on usb 2.0 Port without the need of Y- Cable.

That's true. Still most drives will need more juice.

//EDIT: Also keep in mind: What works for you might not work for others. Seems like you have energy friendly HDDs but others might have more hungry ones.

//EDIT²: Also how do you know where the drives peak at? WD doesn't even give that information in their datasheets (cause, you know, USB spec violations) and a multimeter isn't good enough to show these peaks.

 

[eeL20]

if it helps I'm using this
https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Expansion-Portable-External-Drive/dp/B08ZJDWTJ1?th=1
and an aliexpress Y Cable which has worked...till now lol

 

[V10lator]

and an aliexpress Y Cable which has worked...till now lol

This might be the issue: The cable might already be pretty cheap, so has a high internal resistance. Then the contacts might also be made cheap which means they corrode over time, highering the resistance untill it isn't able to deliver enough juice anymore.
So try another Y cable and maybe not the cheapest you're able to find.

 

[m_lance]

This might be the issue: The cable might already be pretty cheap, so has a high internal resistance. Then the contacts might also be made cheap which means they corrode over time, highering the resistance untill it isn't able to deliver enough juice anymore.
So try another Y cable and maybe not the cheapest you're able to find.

Can anyone recommend a better Y cable?, I got mine on amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matter...ics&sprefix=usb+y+cabl,electronics,136&sr=1-3

 

[m_lance]

That's not true:

(source: https://community.wd.com/t/my-passport-ultra-current-draw/165894/3 )

(source: https://community.wd.com/t/current-draw-of-passport-passport-ultra-and-easystore/236757 )

(source: https://community.wd.com/t/because-a-usb-device-was-drawing-too-much-power-from-your-computer/19747 )

Also HDDs will peak randomly (when starting some games, for example), not when spinning up (but power saving can also produce spinning up after start up, so...).


A Y-cable is already breaking the specs. So it should be clear that HDDs break the specs.

The 2.4 mA where just an example I used cause another user used it before in this thread.


https://www.raspberrypi.org

Personally I wouldn't trust "fast chargers".

//EDIT: @m_lance Normal phone chargers are designed to give a low charging current. The "X mA max" is just what the charger is able to deliver for peaks (when you use the phone while charging, for example) but it can't deliver this much power for a longer amount of time. Fast chargers completely break the USB specs by going up to 24 V (USB specs says 5 V. The phone itself is then able to transform the high voltage, low mA to low voltage, high mA). This is something external HDDs can't use / won't benefit from. So you really want something designed to deliver high mA at 5 V, like a wall adapter designed to power a Raspberry Pi (RPI).

thanks, do you have a link to a usb charger that you think would be best?

theres this: https://www.amazon.com/Raspberry-Su...y+pi+usb+charger,electronics,126&sr=1-10&th=1

but looks like a phone charger?

 

[Sypherone]

@V10lator Check this official document for seagste drives site 12 https://www.seagate.com/files/www-c...op-fam/barracuda_25/en-us/docs/100804767f.pdf

And this thread (including Graphical illustration of power consumption)
https://superuser.com/questions/117...of-2-5-laptop-external-hard-drive-connected-t

 

[V10lator]

And this thread (including Graphical illustration of power consumption)
https://superuser.com/questions/117...of-2-5-laptop-external-hard-drive-connected-t

They measure the average power consuption with a multimeter. We want to know the peaks through. Also they say spinup is the highest peak but real live examples show otherwise. Just search GBATemp for how often drives spin up just fine but then produce random errors untill a better power source gets added.

These are the peaks I'm talking about:

(Source: Anthony Hylick, Ripduman Sohan, Andrew Rice, and Brian Jones University of Cambridge, Computer Laboratory)

do you have a link to a usb charger that you think would be best?

Try another Y cable before investing into a charger.

 

[m_lance]

They measure the average power consuption with a multimeter. We want to know the peaks through. Also they say spinup is the highest peak but real live examples show otherwise. Just search GBATemp for how often drives spin up just fine but then produce random errors untill a better power source gets added.

These are the peaks I'm talking about:
View attachment 317927
(Source: Anthony Hylick, Ripduman Sohan, Andrew Rice, and Brian Jones University of Cambridge, Computer Laboratory)


Try another Y cable before investing into a charger.

Sounds good, is there any order the cables need to be on the back of the consol? thick main cable on top or bottom slot?

 

[V10lator]

is there any order the cables need to be on the back of the consol?

No, all USB ports are identical.

 

[eeL20]

well in that case, I'll try to get a new y cable
for better understanding though, why does the cable work at playing games and transfering data, but not installing apps?
i should also mention that I'm using the same cable for whenever I wanna play wii backups on another usb drive, is it just not powerful enough to write new data but it can read already existing one?

 

[V10lator]

Writing probably needs more energy than reading. Playing is mostly reading only. Transfairing data might be slower than writing while installing, so need less energy, too. Also the other USB drive might need less power. This is all just theory through. Could also be other weird, random reasons.

//EDIT: Another possible reason would be extended head movement while installing cause it has to read the encrypted files and write the decrypted data at the same time (while transfairing data is more or less a sequential write).

//EDIT²: Also game files might be tuned on disc to make playing mostly sequential reads, so less head movement than installing.

 

[Sypherone]

Writing needs more Power the reading. For example here a SATA Drive: