Homebrew [RELEASE] PotatoHax - A free haxchi

[Xpl0itU]

Hey everyone, a few days ago I announced that I was working on a free haxchi, so here it is.

PLEASE BE CAREFUL WHEN INSTALLING, YOU WILL BE MODIFYING THE SYSTEM FILES, IF YOU FOLLOW THE GUIDE NOTHING WILL BREAK

A new installer has been released

Installing:​

1. Download the latest release of potatohax-installer from here and put its contents in your sd card
2. Download the attached zip, copy the contents of the SD folder to the root of the sd card
3. Open homebrew launcher, load FST_patcher.rpx and patch Wii U Chat
4. Once done, reboot your console and open hbl again
5. Now on hbl, open potatohax-installer and press A to install it
6. After it's done, exit the installer, hbl, reboot and try to open Wii U Chat, it will launch mocha, you want to have these settings: relaunch os off and return to system menu on, you can turn on skip this menu on launch if you want

Uninstalling:​

1. Open homebrew launcher and launch the PotatoHax Installer
2. Press B to uninstall

If you don't want mocha you can use sign_c2w_patcher if you want, just rename it to mocha.elf and put it into the apps folder.

Spoiler: Old guide

Steps to install:

1. Download the attached zip, copy the contents of the SD folder to the root of the sd card
2. Open homebrew launcher, load FST_patcher.rpx and patch Wii U Chat
3. Once done, reboot your console, open hbl again, launch mocha with relaunch os off and return to system menu off
4. Open ftpiiu_everywhere and connect to your Wii U with your ftp client of choice (FileZilla, Cyberduck...)
5. Go to storage_mlc/sys/title/00050010
6. Now, it's going to depend on your region, for EUR consoles go to 1005A200, for USA 1005A100 and for JPN 1005A000
7. Open the code folder
8. Make a backup of the doors.rpx and cos.xml files
9. Drag and replace the cos.xml and doors.rpx files with the ones I provided
10. Close ftpiiu_everywhere, hbl and turn off your wii u
11. Turn it on, and try to open Wii U Chat, it will launch mocha, you want to have these settings: relaunch os on and return to system menu on, you can turn on skip this menu on launch if you want
12. That's it!

Uninstalling

1. Follow steps 3 to 7
2. Get the files you backed up before (doors.rpx and cos.xml) and drag and replace them

Please let me know if you have any questions and if you do it successfully please share it

Thanks to:
@Maschell for PayloadFromRPX, homebrew_launcher_installer and discovering FailST
@Rambo6Glaz for the FailST installer
@GaryOderNichts for his mocha fork and indexiine-installer

Source Code (GPLv3 compliance):
https://github.com/Xpl0itU/homebrew_launcher_installer
https://github.com/Xpl0itU/PayloadFromRPX
https://github.com/Xpl0itU/potatohax-installer

 

[Pattelicious]

100% nice work for the community! sadly some years to late for me Had used Phantom Hourglass for Coldboot

 

[Lacius]

It was pretty easy to setup, and it works. Good job.

 

[nl255]

This is very good news and will come in very handy once the eshop is eventually shut down.

 

[NinStar]

Is it possible to replace the Health and Safety app instead? I'm pretty sure it would make more sense for most people.

 

[Xpl0itU]

Is it possible to replace the Health and Safety app instead? I'm pretty sure it would make more sense for most people.

You could, but the whole thing is designed around wii u chat, and if you do it on h&s if aroma comes out you won't be able to install it. Also, wii u chat is dead anyways, even if it gets revived by pretendo no one will use it

 

[NinStar]

You could, but the whole thing is designed around wii u chat, and if you do it on h&s if aroma comes out you won't be able to install it. Also, wii u chat is dead anyways, even if it gets revived by pretendo no one will use it

I know, but I saw them working on that app, and as far as I remember it had some kind of integration with the HOME menu whenever people made a call to someone else profile, that's the thing I'm concerned about if I mess up with the Wii U Chat app.

 

[Xpl0itU]

I know, but I saw them working on that app, and as far as I remember it had some kind of integration with the HOME menu whenever people made a call to someone else profile, that's the thing I'm concerned about if I mess up with the Wii U Chat app.

If you install this in wii u chat, that feature won't work directly, it won't cause any weird issues, don't worry about that

 

[GaryOderNichts]

So this is basically taking parts of Aroma which are already public (PayloadFromRPX / homebrew_launcher_installer) combined with the FailST installer?
Not sure if I would call this "A free haxchi". This is basically just a guide for using those tools.

Also keep in mind that manually messing with FtpiiU everywhere can be dangerous! Also this will do permanent modifications to the system since no backups of Wii U Chat are made during the installation.

And yes, I modified some code of the above mentioned repo's, I will publish the corresponding source code to comply with GPLv3

Where can this source code be found?

 

[pwsincd]

Is there a further guide to follow including backing up of modified content and an uninstallation process ? or maybe if a user factory resets ?

 

[Xpl0itU]

So this is basically taking parts of Aroma which are already public (PayloadFromRPX / homebrew_launcher_installer) combined with the FailST installer?
Not sure if I would call this "A free haxchi". This is basically just a guide for using those tools.

Also keep in mind that manually messing with FtpiiU everywhere can be dangerous! Also this will do permanent modifications to the system since no backups of Wii U Chat are made during the installation.


Where can this source code be found?

The code will be made public tomorrow

Is there a further guide to follow including backing up of modified content and an uninstallation process ? or maybe if a user factory resets ?

Will expand on that later, as of a factory reset nothing will happen, no bricks and potatohax will still be installed

 

[CeeDee]

Excuse me if I sound stupid or something, but would coldboot hypothetically still work with this method? AFAIK all that does is tell the OS to boot the DS game at boot, could you do the same with the modded Wii U Chat app?

 

[BaamAlex]

I'm pretty sure it would make more sense for most people.

Does that really matter? Both are apps which no one uses.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Hey everyone, a few days ago I announced that I was working on a free haxchi, so here it is.

Steps to install:

1. Download the attached zip, copy the contents of the SD folder to the root of the sd card
2. Open homebrew launcher, load FST_patcher.rpx and patch Wii U Chat
3. Once done, reboot your console, open hbl again, launch mocha with relaunch os off and return to system menu off
4. Open ftpiiu_everywhere and connect to your Wii U with your ftp client of choice
5. Go to storage_mlc/sys/title/00050010
6. Now, it's going to depend on your region, for EUR consoles go to 1005A200, for USA 1005A100 and for JPN 1005A000
7. Open the code folder and drag and replace the cos.xml and doors.rpx files
8. Close ftpiiu_everywhere, hbl and turn off your wii u
9. Turn it on, and try to open Wii U Chat, it will launch mocha, you want to have these settings: relaunch os off and return to system menu on, you can turn on skip this menu on launch if you want
10. That's it!

If you don't want mocha you can use sign_c2w_patcher if you want, just rename it to mocha.elf and put it into the apps folder.

Please let me know if you have any questions and if you do it successfully please share it

Thanks to:
@Maschell for PayloadFromRPX, homebrew_launcher_installer and discovering FailST
@Rambo6Glaz for the FailST installer
@GaryOderNichts for his mocha fork

And yes, I modified some code of the above mentioned repo's, I will publish the corresponding source code to comply with GPLv3

Huh, I thought the code folder was sig checked and couldn't be modified and still launch on stock FW.

Excuse me if I sound stupid or something, but would coldboot hypothetically still work with this method? AFAIK all that does is tell the OS to boot the DS game at boot, could you do the same with the modded Wii U Chat app?

Certainly. You just need to make the right change to system.xml to autoboot Wii U Chat.

 

[E1ite007]

Excuse me if I sound stupid or something, but would coldboot hypothetically still work with this method? AFAIK all that does is tell the OS to boot the DS game at boot, could you do the same with the modded Wii U Chat app?

Modifying system.xml the same way CBHC does.
Although, without this doing any backup or explaining how to do it, I wouldn't use this at the moment.

When OP releases source code and addresses the backup situation, it will be a different story. Until then, modifying system.xml to launch this potatohax, is dangerous.

 

[Xpl0itU]

Excuse me if I sound stupid or something, but would coldboot hypothetically still work with this method? AFAIK all that does is tell the OS to boot the DS game at boot, could you do the same with the modded Wii U Chat app?

It could work, but it needs some more work asides from modifying system.xml, which I’m not willing to do, so please, don’t mess around with that file

Modifying system.xml the same way CBHC does.
Although, without this doing any backup or explaining how to do it, I wouldn't use this at the moment.

When OP releases source code and addresses the backup situation, it will be a different story. Until then, modifying system.xml to launch this potatohax, is dangerous.

The source code that will be released contain minor changes from the original repos, mostly path changes, except from homebrew_launcher_installer where some minor work was needed to boot directly to mocha

 

[godreborn]

I think the only change to the system.xml for cbhc is the title id, which is like the second or third line down. it doesn't specify a specific location, only the title id is used, so I think that's why it's forced to be on the mlc (it's hard coded).

 

[pbsk8]

I am sorry, OP

you should make a more detailed tutorial.

From step 3 I got completely lost! I only see mocha.elf when running HBC

what is "relaunch os off and return to system menu off"?

I just ran mocha.elf and soemthing should happen?

Previously should we look for ftpiiu_everywhere? Because I dont have it, Where do I download it from?

 

[Xpl0itU]

I am sorry, OP

you should make a more detailed tutorial.

From step 3 I got completely lost! I only see mocha.elf when running HBC

what is "relaunch os off and return to system menu off"?

I just ran mocha.elf and soemthing should happen?

Previously should we look for ftpiiu_everywhere? Because I dont have it, Where do I download it from?

1. That’s really weird, you should see FST_Patcher.rpx too, try copying it again
2. Those are the options you should run mocha
3. If launching mocha puts you into the home menu, try holding B when opening mocha
4. Get it from here https://wiiubru.com/appstore/zips/ftpiiu-cbhc.zip

 

[godreborn]

I am sorry, OP

you should make a more detailed tutorial.

From step 3 I got completely lost! I only see mocha.elf when running HBC

what is "relaunch os off and return to system menu off"?

I just ran mocha.elf and soemthing should happen?

Previously should we look for ftpiiu_everywhere? Because I dont have it, Where do I download it from?

hold B iirc, when launching mocha.