Hacking USB Loader GX (vWii) stopped working

[fredward]

Yea, if it's working in Wiiflow it's definitely a bug in GX or something else it's using. If it doesn't even spin up, it sounds like a drive_init problem. re you loading from a Channel or the Homebrew Channel?

I booted it up through both the home-brew channel and channel forwarder. I even deleted the channel fowarder and then launched it from homebrew channel with same results. Its definitely a crappy bug. I might have to end up using wiiflow most likely.

 

[Cyan]

users with the issue, could you try disabling the WiiU USB sleepmode?
https://gbatemp.net/threads/hidden-setting-in-wii-u-enable-disable-hdd-sleep-cycle.386864/

I don't know if it will help, but I'm curious to see if booting WiiU without the sleep mode ON will keep the drive alive and ready to load for the vWii homebrew.

 

[D34DL1N3R]

Edit: Sorry, please delete.

 

[D34DL1N3R]

Cyan I have tested so many revisions my head is spinning. One common thing I have noticed is that they work fine the first time around when there is no config file in the directory. The trouble comes on the 2nd try once there is a config file, then it freezes on Initialize usb devices.

1. Plug in USB drive
2. Power on Wii U
3. Start vWii from Wii U menu
4. Run ULGX from HBC (with no previous config file present)
5. Works other than NAND titles having invisible text
11. Power off Wii U
13. Power on Wii U
14. Start vWii from Wii U menu
15. Run ULGX from HBC
12. Freezes at Initialize usb devices
13. Power off Wii U
14. Delete config file from ULGX directory on SD card & insert back in to Wii U
15. Power on Wii U
16. Start vWii from Wii U menu
17. Run ULGX from HBC
18. Works other than NAND titles having invisible text

So to me it seems like one of the files being created after the first boot of ULGX is causing the issue. Not sure if it's the config file or another file but that requires yet more testing. It's like there has to be 3-4 tests done per revision to try to figure out what might be causing it, and I've already had to pull the plug on my Wii U nearly 100 times by now. That can't be too good for it. But....

No config = Works & creates config file
Config = Freezes at Initialize usb devices

Also, I have found that certain revisions do not display this behavior when booting into vWii mode by holding B on the Wiimote when powering on the Wii U. Next testing is to figure out exactly which revisions work fine after several reboots using the "Hold B" method, and then to see if there are ANY revisions that don't freeze on the second go when using the "Wii U" method from the Wii U home screen. Hope some of this helps, but it certainly seems like something to do with the config file, at least when using the "Wii U" method of testing. From here out I will be keeping the same terms. "Wii U" method is booting into vWii via the Wii U menu, and the "Hold B" method is booting into vWii by holding B on the Wiimote during boot.

Edit:

Using "Wii U" method & no prior config file on first boot of ULGX from HBC
1101 - Kicks back to HBC
1120 - Freeze on Initialize USB Devices
1124 - Works once, freezes at Initialize usb device on 2nd attempt
1178 - Works once, freezes at Initialize usb device on 2nd attempt
1180 - Works once, freezes at Initialize usb device on 2nd attempt
1244 - Works once, freezes at Initialize usb device on 2nd attempt

Using "Hold B" method & no prior config file on first boot of ULGX from HBC
1101 - Kicks back to HBC
1120 - Works once, freezes at Initialize usb device on 2nd attempt
1124 - Freezes at Initialize usb device
1178 - Works once, freezes at Initialize usb device on 2nd attempt
1180 - testing
1244 - testing

Edit: I give up. This is all too random. When I find a revision that I think works across several reboots/reloads... it randomly starts freezing at Initialize usb device again. For me there seems to be no rhyme or reason using either testing mode & all of the above results could change at any given time. It either works or it doesn't. I have found though that if you delete the config file from your SD card each time before even powering on the Wii U, most revisions will work on the 1st try but not on subsequent tries. Even if it works on the first try, if you exit from the game and try to load ULGX again... it will freeze at "Initialize". To switch games you have to power down the Wii U, delete the config file from the SD card, then reboot and load ULGX again. Wash, Rinse, Repeat.

Edit: I couldn't give up, lol. I get 1244 (and most other revisions as far back as 1124) working with this method. It's a pita switching games, but it's what makes it work 100% of the time for me.
Seagate FreeAgent Go 500GB USB 2.0 ST905003FAA2E1-RK (Black)
Single USB on Port 0. No y adapter.
d2x v10 beta53-alt (or d2x v10 beta r52) base 56 slot 249

Basically... When you're finished playing or want to change games. Shut down the Wii U, delete the ULGX config file from your SD card & reboot the Wii U. Start vWii via the Wii U menu. Load ULGX from the HBC or forwarder channel. It boots for me 100% of the time with one downside being you can't change any settings because you will just have to delete the config file before the next reboot to play again or change games. From a clean usbloader_gx folder with no config file it should boot on the 1st try. You just have to shut down, delete config, unplug hdd, reboot, restart vWii, start ULGX, plug in hdd... to play again.

 

[Cyan]

Thank you for all your time spend on the tests.

You went up to r1100! even before 3.0
so it happens with a lot of old revisions, it's not something I did recently which caused that issue.

I will check what's wrong with the config file, and what could cause it to happen only on vWii.
But it seems to freeze before it even tries to load the config files, you don't see the "loading config..." text message.
I will have more time to test on May 1st-15th.


My setup:
I'm using SD card 1GB (not SDHC, if it makes a difference), free agent go 250GB USB2 (I didn't try without Y-cable but I think it should work), FAT32+WBFS.
no cIOS installed yet, only using IOS58 to boot to the loader.

 

[D34DL1N3R]

I changed my last paragraph a bit to take out not plugging in the hdd until the timer starts, as that is not necessary when there is no config file present. Also.. I HAVE seen it freeze at loading config several times. Maybe there's more to the config file than though?

Edit: Damn. 1244 is not working at all for me now regardless of the config file being present or not. It freezes at initialize using both test methods unless I plug the drive in during the coutdown. And I tested it over and over again yesterday by deleting the config file and it worked many, many times in a row. And now... nothing. GAH! I'll keep trying for a bit to see if I can come up with anything else.

Tried 1180 again also, same thing. The deleting config file worked last night over and over again. Now it's not working because both 1244 and 1180 are freezing even on the first try with no config. But... that seems to be random. Sometimes it will load, sometimes it will freeze. That's probably why people reported it happening with different revisions and why no one can seem to get it pinned down to a single version. Because results even within a single version can change. Very odd.

 

[GreyWolf]

I changed my last paragraph a bit to take out not plugging in the hdd until the timer starts, as that is not necessary when there is no config file present. Also.. I HAVE seen it freeze at loading config several times. Maybe there's more to the config file than though?

Edit: Damn. 1244 is not working at all for me now regardless of the config file being present or not. It freezes at initialize using both test methods unless I plug the drive in during the coutdown. And I tested it over and over again yesterday by deleting the config file and it worked many, many times in a row. And now... nothing. GAH! I'll keep trying for a bit to see if I can come up with anything else.

Tried 1180 again also, same thing. The deleting config file worked last night over and over again. Now it's not working because both 1244 and 1180 are freezing even on the first try with no config. But... that seems to be random. Sometimes it will load, sometimes it will freeze. That's probably why people reported it happening with different revisions and why no one can seem to get it pinned down to a single version. Because results even within a single version can change. Very odd.

Can you try putting ULGX on an SD card instead of the hard drive if you haven't already? That should basically make the USB drive read only and I'm curious to see if it works then.

EDIT: nvm... you tried that. My setup absolutely refuses to write anything to my USB drive that's more than a few kilobytes unless d2x is being used... was hoping that might be your problem, too.

 

[D34DL1N3R]

I have never tried having GX on the USB drive. It;s always been on an SD. Until it's been figured out I'm just sticking to plugging the drive in during the countdown.

 

[Cyan]

I updated WiiU to 5.3.2 today.
I still don't have the freezing issue

I'm using ISO58, SD card 1GB, my Seagate free agent Go 250GB doesn't work without Ycable (it makes tick sound).
tested With and without "init drive at launch".


Did you try to disable the option to init drive at launch? so we are sure it's not a drive init issue and really a file access one.
Settings>HDD setting>mount at launch : disabled.
exit (to write meta.xml automatically) and relaunch.

It will also confirm if SD card access or USB access is at fault.

 

[D34DL1N3R]

I updated WiiU to 5.3.2 today.
I still don't have the freezing issue

I'm using ISO58, SD card 1GB, my Seagate free agent Go 250GB doesn't work without Ycable (it makes tick sound).
tested With and without "init drive at launch".


Did you try to disable the option to init drive at launch? so we are sure it's not a drive init issue and really a file access one.
Settings>HDD setting>mount at launch : disabled.
exit (to write meta.xml automatically) and relaunch.

It will also confirm if SD card access or USB access is at fault.

Which rev? 1244? And are you entering vWii via holding B or through the Wii U menu?

 

[Cyan]

I'm usually holding B to boot to vWii, but I tried once from WiiU Menu and it worked too.
not sure which version I had on vWii (it's one of the 1243 mod I did before releasing 1244, it could be latest test version which is equal to 1244)
sorry, it's a vague answer.

 

[D34DL1N3R]

I'm usually holding B to boot to vWii, but I tried once from WiiU Menu and it worked too.
not sure which version I had on vWii (it's one of the 1243 mod I did before releasing 1244, it could be latest test version which is equal to 1244)
sorry, it's a vague answer.

Will try disabling init drive at launch with 1244 and see what happens, with both 249 & 58, using both methods.

Wii U method:

249 - No prior config file
Error: USB Device not initialized. Switching to channel list mode.
NAND channels were in the list but had invisible text.
Froze in Hard Drive Settings after trying to manually init the drive.

249 - With config file
Same

58 - Using config file created from 249 test
Error: USB Device not initialized. Switching to channel list mode.
NAND channels were in the list and did NOT have invisible text.
Did NOT freeze exiting from Hard Drive Settings after doing a manual init on the drive.
After exiting clicked on "Select loader mode" on the top GX toolbar and enabled Wii games to be displayed.

Is it possible to have an option to automatically reinit the drive after the menu has loaded? There would also then have to be something that set display Wii games to always, or else the user has to re-enable them from the toolbar.

Edit: I'm going to chalk up the randomness at this point to not having a y adapter. I can't get one for another couple weeks so I'm going to cease testing until then. I've read enough in various places that people with the same drive have needed one.

 

[Brunho]

Don´t know if Cyan is stil checking on this, but I wil give my two cents:

My HD is a "WD My Passport Ultra - 1 TB", connected to the 2 back ports of the WiiU through a Y-cable. It´s formatted on FAT32 and I tried to use it for the first time with USB Loader GX yesterday (v3.0 rev 1244).

USB GX had worked with a 32GB flash drive before, but with this one it froze when "checking usb device". It wouldn´t work even disabling "init drive at launch" or trying to plug it later.

However, it worked without problems with WiiFlow. So, I set the Loader´s IOS to 58 on USB GX and then it worked without problems too, both through the HBC and the forwarder channel.

EDIT: forgot to mention, my vWii has d2x-v10-beta53-alt-vWii installed.

 

[GreyWolf]

WD MyPassport drives have hardware-level encryption. You *may* be able to disable it with the utilities they make for it. You also need to completely nuke the drive and partition table as they include hidden partitions that contain their management software as virtual CD drives.

USB flash drives are always iffy as a lot of them don't support the complete USB storage protocol.

Wii games will not work with just IOS58. They require a custom IOS like d2x.

 

[Big D]

Hello folks!

I've been searching for a long time to find a working answer to this problem. The Wii U does some basic booting before actually switching to vWii mode. It's during this switch that I noticed my external WD 1TB passport hard drive enters into "standby" mode with its indicator light flashing on and then off at @ 2 second intervals. If I boot into ANY USB loader (USB Loader GX, or Cfg USB Loader, etc) while the drive is in standby, the loader will freeze, even if it appears to wake up and the light normalizes.

However if I wait until the Wii U has booted into vWii mode, or any time after that point, then the drive remains awake and the USB Loader works. There must be some way a USB loader can wake the hdd first before attempting everything else it does. Or maybe there's a simple Homebrew app that can be run before the USB loader and, I don't know, "ping" the hdd to kick it out of standby mode?

FYI I've already disabled the Wii U hdd sleep mode and used Western Digital's software to disable the hdd sleep timer so none of those things are the issue. I can run all games with various USB loaders, but ONLY if I wait until I'm in vWii mode to plug in the hdd. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated!!

 

[Cyan]

A user found that you can "ping" the drive by going into HBC > Press 2 to access the settings > select HDD instead of SD. it will try to mount it. Then select SD back, and the loader works.

There's a thread about that issue, I'll merge your thread into it.
edit: thread merged.


After I implemented neek2o I'll come back to this issue.
Maybe I'll need to add more wakeup timing before trying to access the drive's partition.
Wiiflow works, other homebrew too, so there's no reason USBGX wouldn't.

 

[Big D]

A user found that you can "ping" the drive by going into HBC > Press 2 to access the settings > select HDD instead of SD. it will try to mount it. Then select SD back, and the loader works.

Hey I just wanted to give an update and thank you for your help! I followed your instructions and it worked, with 2 differences. I pressed 1 instead of 2 to access the options and selected the HDD. But I never selected the SD again. Now Homebrew wakes up the HDD every time it starts! That's exactly what I was looking for. I have the HB apps and such on the SD and only games on the HDD so I'm not sure what's even being selected when you choose that option in HBC itself. Anyway thanks again for your help man!!

 

[Cyan]

yeah, I never remember which is the correct button

this is a temporary fix, I didn't gave up on this issue. I just don't have enough time for the moment and it's hard to test myself.

 

[wiitf]

Was there any further progress on this topic? Sorry to revive it, but it recently started to affect me too. Days ago my loaders were all working pretty well, then I updated to the most recent revision in the app, and GX now can't initialize the HDD / see any games. I won't list every detail unless I hear back to know this is still being worked on, but I have rev 1256, 5.3.2U, USB 3.0 hdd using y-cable, app files on the SD.. all in all pretty similar to previous posters. One interesting thing I noticed that hasn't been mentioned is in GX's settings, for 'Install Partitions', the options include 'Remove Update'. I don't think that was there previously. What could it mean?

I also want to warn others seeing the recent posts about pinging the HDD through HBC settings: that technique caused my system to lock up. I might've just done it too quickly, but I advise others to use caution.

 

[Cyan]

no progress done yet.
I didn't touch the loader since august.
I will get holidays in 15 days, I'll try to work on it a little. But I'll start fixing network issue first.