UDPIH: USB Host Stack exploit + Recovery Menu

It's been a while without any major exploits in the Wii U scene, so I present to you:

USB Descriptor Parsing Is Hard (UDPIH)

An exploit for the Wii U's USB Host Stack. Pronounced like "mud pie" without the M.

The write-up can be found here!

What does this mean?​

Since the USB Stack is running before anything on the PPC side of the Wii U is booted, this allows unbricking things like CBHC bricks without any soldering!


Supported devices:​

  • Raspberry Pi Pico (W) / Pico 2 (W)
  • Raspberry Pi Zero (W) / A / A+ / Zero 2 W / 4 / 5
  • Steam Deck
  • Espressif ESP32 S2 / S3
  • Nintendo Switch capable of running udpih_nxpayload

Instructions​

Device Setup​

Follow the setup guide for the device you want to use below:

Booting the recovery_menu​

warning
Important notes for this to work:
  • Make sure no other USB devices are attached to the console.
  • Only use USB ports on the front of the console, the back ports will not work.
  • If your console has standby mode enabled, pull the power plug and turn it on from a full coldboot state.
  • Copy the latest release of the recovery_menu to the root of your FAT32 formatted SD Card.
  • Insert the SD Card into the console and power it on.
  • As soon as you see the "Wii U" logo on the TV or Gamepad plug in your prepared UDPIH device.
    This timing is important. If you're already in the menu, the exploit won't work.
    Depending on the device, you might have to plug it in sooner or later. This might take several attempts.
    If you get no video output or a distorted screen, your timing was most likely wrong.
  • After a few seconds you should be in the recovery menu.
So what's this recovery menu? The recovery menu allows you to fix several bricks:
screenshot

Wii U Recovery Menu

A simple recovery menu running on the IOSU for unbricking.

Options​

Set Coldboot Title
Allows changing the current title the console boots to.
Useful for unbricking CBHC bricks.
Possible options are:
  • Wii U Menu (JPN) - 00050010-10040000
  • Wii U Menu (USA) - 00050010-10040100
  • Wii U Menu (EUR) - 00050010-10040200
On non-retail systems the following additional options are available:
  • System Config Tool - 00050010-1F700500
  • DEVMENU (pre-2.09) - 00050010-1F7001FF
  • Kiosk Menu - 00050010-1FA81000
Dump Syslogs
Copies all system logs to a logs folder on the root of the SD Card.

Dump OTP + SEEPROM
Dumps the OTP and SEEPROM to otp.bin and seeprom.bin on the root of the SD Card.

Start wupserver
Starts wupserver which allows connecting to the console from a PC using wupclient.

Load Network Configuration
Loads a network configuration from the SD, and temporarily applies it to use wupserver.
The configurations will be loaded from a network.cfg file on the root of your SD.
For using the ethernet adapter, the file should look like this:
Code:
type=eth

For using wifi:
Code:
type=wifi
ssid=ssidhere
key=wifikeyhere
key_type=WPA2_PSK_AES

Pair Gamepad
Displays the Gamepad Pin and allows pairing a Gamepad to the system. Also bypasses any region checks while pairing.
The numeric values represent the following symbols: ♠ = 0, ♥ = 1, ♦ = 2, ♣ = 3.
Note that rebooting the system might be required to use the newly paired gamepad.

Install WUP
Installs a valid signed WUP from the install folder on the root of your SD Card.
Don't place the WUP into any subfolders.

Edit Parental Controls
Displays the current Parental Controls pin configuration.
Allows disabling Parental Controls.

Debug System Region
Fixes bricks caused by setting productArea and/or gameRegion to an invalid value. Symptoms include being unable to launch System Settings or other in-region titles.

System Information
Displays info about several parts of the system.
Including serial number, manufacturing date, console type, regions, memory devices...

Load BOOT1 payload
Loads a payload from the root of the SD Card named boot1.img and executes it from within boot1.
If the file is named boot1now.img it gets loaded automatically when starting the recovery_menu after a 5 second timeout.

Credits​

Special thanks to Maschell, rw-r-r-0644, QuarkTheAwesome, vgmoose, exjam, dimok789, and everyone else who contributed to the Wii U scene!
 
Last edited by GaryOderNichts,
Ugh, after struggling I managed to download the content I wanted from NUS to install in the Wii U, but the problem is that when I try to install it to throws the following error>
"Installing title: 00050010-1005a100...
Failed to install: fffcffe9"

I don't know what gone wrong here, I know the SD Card is in good state since I used it to install WUP stuff the same day before bricking with FTP, the only thing I can think of is that maybe the content downloaded from NUS is not compatible? I used an app called "nusdm_v1.1" to get the content.

Any help is appreciated!


This has been fixed, seems nusdm downloads stuff in some form that the WUP installer from the recovery menu doesn't like. I installed Cemu and used WUPDownloader from there, and now stuff installs correctly.
 
Last edited by CrazySquid,
However... I installed the titles that I messed up while I was using WIIUFtpServer and it still doesn't work. What really bothers me is that in the past I have uninstalled both Wii U Chat and Nintendo TVii using FTPiiU and my system would work just fine, I wonder what happened now...
What could I do now? I tried also reinstalling the Wii U Menu, OSv9,OSv10,OSv255... and the results are pretty much the same. I do have NAND backups from 2020 where my Wii U worked fine, is there a chance of restoring them using this recovery menu? I thought for an instance that maybe my NAND just gone wrong, but WUPs appear to be installing correctly...
 
However... I installed the titles that I messed up while I was using WIIUFtpServer and it still doesn't work. What really bothers me is that in the past I have uninstalled both Wii U Chat and Nintendo TVii using FTPiiU and my system would work just fine, I wonder what happened now...
What could I do now? I tried also reinstalling the Wii U Menu, OSv9,OSv10,OSv255... and the results are pretty much the same. I do have NAND backups from 2020 where my Wii U worked fine, is there a chance of restoring them using this recovery menu? I thought for an instance that maybe my NAND just gone wrong, but WUPs appear to be installing correctly...
Can you dump the system logs and upload them here? Also reinstalling OSv10 is very risky, since udpih depends on OSv10.
 
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Can you dump the system logs and upload them here? Also reinstalling OSv10 is very risky, since udpih depends on OSv10.
Sure thing! I will leave the whole logs folder attached here in a .zip .
Also I think I will stop installing more stuff on my own, I don't want to make things worse than what already are lol.
Thanks Gary!
 
Sure thing! I will leave the whole logs folder attached here in a .zip .
Also I think I will stop installing more stuff on my own, I don't want to make things worse than what already are lol.
Thanks Gary!
Do you have a disc inserted into the console?
Your disc drive seems to be failing, might be a hardware issue.
 
Do you have a disc inserted into the console?
Your disc drive seems to be failing, might be a hardware issue.
Nope, I don't. Physically the disc drive seems to be working, it doesn't make weird noises and the mechanism that sucks the discs in works pretty well (Just inserted a Wii U disc game).
Man, I could test this before with a Wii disc since vWii is working fine, but Tiramisu is not working now that I changed the coolboot title 🤦 ...

EDIT: Just if it's useful, the Wii U GamePad loops it's boot sound forever, it just stays like that.
 
Nope, I don't. Physically the disc drive seems to be working, it doesn't make weird noises and the mechanism that sucks the discs in works pretty well (Just inserted a Wii U disc game).
Man, I could test this before with a Wii disc since vWii is working fine, but Tiramisu is not working now that I changed the coolboot title 🤦 ...

EDIT: Just if it's useful, the Wii U GamePad loops it's boot sound forever, it just stays like that.
Your disc drive transitions into a fatal state at startup:
Code:
--- 2. ODM internal status ---
Current FSM state:ODM_STATE_FATAL
Previous FSM state:ODM_STATE_FATAL
For now it's probably best to wait until a method to disable the disc drive is available.
 
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I see, in that case I will just unplug my Wii U for the time being and focus on other stuff.
Thanks Gary for the assistance and clarification! At least now I have some peace of mind knowing why it doesn't boot lol, thought for an instance I personally screw something up with ftp.
 
For now it's probably best to wait until a method to disable the disc drive is available.
it seems to me from what I've tinkered with, that the disc drive is only checked at the wiiu homemenu. If you boot into other titles or as long as you avoid it, you can work without a disc drive plugged in.
 
it seems to me from what I've tinkered with, that the disc drive is only checked at the wiiu homemenu. If you boot into other titles or as long as you avoid it, you can work without a disc drive plugged in.
Oh yeah that's true I wonder if unplugging the drive would prevent it from transitioning into a fatal state.
Still wouldn't really help though since you can't get into the menu without a disc drive :P
 
Hm... I wish I hadn't uninstalled Tiramisu, so at least could test the disc drive in vWii.
I just find it hard to believe it's not working now because I used the thing to play Bayonetta (disc version) like 2 weeks ago, and it didn't have a single issue, there weren't signs of the the drive starting to fail and that's what's shocking me. But oh well, I guess all I can do for now is to just wait. Although as long as Maschell and you Gary are around I have faith in the Wii U Scene. Thanks guys for your hard work!
 
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Just to be sure, If I did the stupidity of installing a pirated copy of the DS game and running the CBHC will this fix the system ?
 
I already bricked it, I want to know if this works for this specific brick.
I didn't follow you situation, sorry, but you cannot fix something already not working with a solution that will brick your console.... Because CBHC will run before than your system.....
 
And the USB Stack is running before anything on the PPC side of the Wii U is booted. Why do you think it can fix cbhc bricks?
Maybe you miss understood, I just replied that CBHC will not fix it, read my message before than one that you quoted .....
 

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