Easy Nintendo Wii U Homebrew Channel Hack Guide [5.3.2, 5.4, 5.5.1, 5.5.2, 5.5.3, 5.5.4]

Hiya mate sorry to dive on such an old topic/comment, but Ive been asking around and can't seem to get any help from anyone or anywhere. Im not techie at all, like nothing, a friend added the home-brew channel to my WiiU and its there, on the WiiU dashboard, Ive gone in to it, so assume its all OK but my question, I really want to play NTSC/US and JPN original Wii games (Kirbys Dream Collection and Wii Radirgy) on my PAL/UK WiiU is that a possibility? Hope this makes sense because the few people Ive asked seem to respond to this not understanding any of what Im asking! Thanks in advance! M
 
On your Wii U you can have two Homebrew Channels, one for the Wii U and one for the Virtual Wii.

Any idea which you have?

If you load the virtual Wii from the Wii U's homescreen then load the Virtual Wii's homebrew channel you can load most Wii homebrew apps from there. For example USB Loader GX which will load Wii games from any region or Nintendont which will allow you to play GameCube games on the Wii U.
 
InsaneNutter said:
On your Wii U you can have two Homebrew Channels, one for the Wii U and one for the Virtual Wii.

Any idea which you have?

If you load the virtual Wii from the Wii U's homescreen then load the Virtual Wii's homebrew channel you can load most Wii homebrew apps from there. For example USB Loader GX which will load Wii games from any region or Nintendont which will allow you to play GameCube games on the Wii U.
Click to expand...
Hi, I am absolutely useless at following the tutorials on how to homebrew my wii u. I would love to be able to download the files already to just put on the sd card and plug card in wii u and wait for the loading. I would love a step by step slow tutorial if I cannot just do what I just explained. Sorry for sounding pathetic and lazy but I really am useless at things like this, I even need someone to setup and have ready to use fmcb on my ps2. If anyone can help then please help.
InsaneNutter said:
On your Wii U you can have two Homebrew Channels, one for the Wii U and one for the Virtual Wii.

Any idea which you have?

If you load the virtual Wii from the Wii U's homescreen then load the Virtual Wii's homebrew channel you can load most Wii homebrew apps from there. For example USB Loader GX which will load Wii games from any region or Nintendont which will allow you to play GameCube games on the Wii U.
Click to expand...
Hi, I am absolutely useless at following tutorials on YouTube so when I want to put homebrew on my wii u, I am out of my depth slightly. What I was wondering is if there is a way of me downloading the sd card files in the order that they need to be in and then just put the card into the wii u and turn on? I am not lazy or thick but as I said, useless. I have many wii u games in iso format that I want to play, my favourite is to try and play zelda breath of the wild.I also have wii, nes, snes, advance and ds roms on my fat32 1tb usb hdd. Please someone help as I love this console and I want to use it to its full potential. On screen it says ver 5.5.4 and it is the 32gb console. As I said please anybody help, I am a disabled man with one leg in a wheelchair with arthritis all over but the size of the wii u controller is nice and big and comfortable in my hand's. Please reply.
All my thanks
Bill
 
I don't think I can personally explain the process any better, or make it any easier than I already have unfortunately. Maybe you could get a more technical friend to try assist you?
 
InsaneNutter said:
I don't think I can personally explain the process any better, or make it any easier than I already have unfortunately. Maybe you could get a more technical friend to try assist you?
Click to expand...
Thank you very much for replying to my post. Maybe I should read all the posts and try again. Should persevere and keep trying really, I do have time lol.
Thanks again.
 
I may be a Big Stupid Head.

But I really wanted this to work and have been reading everything I can for weeks...
But I have to ask because your method did not work for me. When I enter wiiu.insanenutter.com
I Just get the Browser start to Load with a blank page & blue line only about 1 inch across the top.
And system freezes. Pulled the power removed & reinserted the SD. Tried it several times with always the exact same result.

So I deleted your files back off the SD. The files from your Wii U Homebrew Starter Pack v3.zip ...
I then put on my SD the files from the wiiu.hacks.guide method.
Then I went to their site in the browser, clicked the button and it all went thru on the first attempt!
It is currently performing a nand dump as I type this. While that is great for me, I want to know what or why yours failed.
As some others have also posted.

Comparing what files your Wii U Homebrew starter pack v3.zip contains, vs their methods folders and files that go on the SD Card.

I am very confused!

You say all the files we need are in that starter pack zip. But it appears to only contain files & subfolders in the wiiu/apps/ folder.

The other method has files that seem to be missing on your starter pack.
I realize their gonna have some different things than you do.
However, it seems like there are some critical things missing.

For example payload.elf,,, and many other various files & folders besides what you have in the wiiu/apps/.

Am I missing something here? Are we supposed to know these other unmentioned files are needed and obtain them ourselves.
If so why do you seem to state that .zip file contains everything necessary to get this to work?
Again their browser method worked the very first time i tried it on 5.5.3u.


Not trying to rag just want to understand.

p.s.
I am in S.Central USA and...
The DNS Number 35.164.240.189 seems to be dead. Cant pull up google or anything. Changed it to the NL DNS
& the browser works. But your Method still did not.
 
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The other guide you have followed is very different, that's why different files exist for it. For example it includes the Mocha CFW which patches signature checks allowing unsigned content to be loaded from the home screen (until the console is powered off)

With this guide you are keeping the system as stock as possible, when you power it off it's like its never been hacked. If you install Mocha CFW and start installing unsigned titles to the nand, they will remain permanently and you greatly increase the chance of bricking the Wii U if you mess something up. That's why this guide doesn't cover that as its not required to enjoy homebrew on the Wii U.

This guide is purely from a homebrew point of view. As their is no permanent hack for the Wii U to boot homebrew when the system is powered on, recovering from a brick will be difficult for most people even with a nand backup.

The browser web exploits can also be unreliable, i've had great success with my own mirror, however some luck is involved as to have quick its successful. If someone else mirror works better then by all means use that. Certainly browsing the web to get some data in the browsers cache seems to help I find.

The DNS servers are hosted by other people so if they go down its out of my control, that said the latest version of the Wii U firmware is hackable. If you let me know which DNS servers work I can update the guide.
 
Ok. Yea I did not go thru the Mocha part. Just the first few steps on theirs. Just enough to get Homebrew to show then I quit.

So I guess that means I am still stock if I reboot?

As far as yours, I just wanted to confirm whats in your starter zip file is the only files I need on the SD for yours to work?



p.s.
O' Can I still do your method even after I have dont their first few steps without going thru Mocha?
I stopped right after completing a full nand backup...
 
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Also to answer the last part of your inquiry regarding the DNS numbers...

There are three in the list. The DNS-U and the LA. Do not seem to work anymore.
The third one. The Netherlands one is the only one that I could get to work for me at least.
081.004.127.020 & 000.000.000.000 Is what I have in my DNS settings.
Should I put the 081 in for both or leave zeros for secondary DNS to prevent a potential future N update?
 
If you follow this tutorial, you can then follow the link at the bottom to install the homebrew channel permanently to a DS VC game if desired.

All the files I used for this are included. You can download new / later homebrew apps from the homebrew app store which is included.

That's all I personally do, you can mess about with system files on the Wii U to make it boot normally, then reboot in to a Emunand from the SD card, however if all you really plan on doing is loading homebrew then its a bit overkill and you end up with a really long boot time sadly. This is also risky as you can brick if you mess that up, which is why I personally just have a hacked DS VC game for reliable homebrew launcher loading.

It will never hut to have a nand backup, historically that wasn't possible when i first created this tutorial. However i'm a big believer in not messing with the Wii U's nand anyway as theirs no easy way for the average person to recover a bricked Wii U.

I've changed the list to only use the Netherlands DNS server. I'm blocking updates on my router so have never personally used them in my setup.
 
What I was wanting to do this for is to be able to run the emulators. So am I to understand that cant be done without those steps
you are warning against doing? Like snes9x GX. I only got interested in doing this whole thing when I heard I could likely dump
my old school collection of fceu & snes9x Roms onto the Wii U with Homebrew... I have done invested in a massive USB storage
etc... So Haven't plenty of others done this same thing without issue?
Yea I already knew about buying Big Brain Academy for $6.99
But don't I also have to be able to run unsigned apps to do any of what I was planning.
Whether I launch each time from the browser or go on with the Permanent VC DS thing.
 
Yes you can run emulators perfectly fine, that's exactly what I do from the Homebrew Launcher, which you can also do by following this tutorial. Emulators are perfectly safe to use.
 
Is there a utility(or link 2 a Tutorial) available either in homebrew or something else that would allow me to
move my Roms folder over to this USB Drive I have plugged into the back of the WiiU?
The emulators seem to indicate I could select the USB but
I have yet to figure out a way to get the Roms over there...

I have been looking for a Guide or Tutorial but haven't found the exact answer.
I did run across some mention elsewhere of "enable the memory card emulation option,
then USBLoaderGX will ask you where you want to store the memory card : SD or USB"
Dunno if that would help me do this...
 
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USBLoaderGX is a program for the Wii that will load ISO's of Wii discs from a USB hard drive, it's nothing to do with loading Wii U homebrew. The memory card emulation option is probably talking about Nintendont, a Wii homebrew application that will load GameCube games on the Wii.

On the Wii U the emulators you have will load roms from the Wii U's SD card. I have a 64gb SD card in my Wii U for homebrew and emulators. Depending on the emulator you might also be able to load roms from a FAT32 formatted USB drive, RetroArch is supposed to support this on the Wii U, however an open issue suggests it might not work. You'd have to try though and see if it works or not for you.
 
Need to ask someone in the "know", so I don't Brick my WIIU. I went ahead and bought Brain Age and did the Initial Haxchi and WUPIGX2'd The HomeBrew Launcher Icon. And really don't Intend to ever CBHC... So at this stage its working, albiet I think the
"Haxchi icon & The HomeBrew Launcher Icon" behave a little Clunky. As you can easily freeze the device depending on which one
of those Icons you click on next. I guess that takes some getting a custom too... But my Q? The way its setup now if the SD gets
removed and someone forgets and Turns the WiiU on will it Brick? Or if a different copy of all this SD Hack Stuff is stuck in the device does that create a problem?
Right now I 've got two or three SD cards with all the HB setup files, Retroarch, roms, etc.
But only one of the SDs was in the device when I did the Brain/Haxchi/HBL steps... Obviously!
 
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You are fine, if you don't CBHC then you shouldn't have any reason to worry about a brick.

If the SD card is not present and you load homebrew then you will just get an error saying something about not been able to mount the SD card if i remember correctly, nothing to worry about anyway.

The DS game you hacked will be on the Wii U's internal memory, so which ever SD card was in the console at the time is irrelevant if they all have the homebrew launcher files on.

It appears you are good to go, I hope you enjoy homebrew on the Wii U!
 
When i try to go back to the wii u menu after running homebrew, I receive an error which says there is a problem with my system memory... Is it because I use an 8 gb sd card or isn't that the problem?
 
Hi there,

I have this installed and working and have loaded games through loading.

Wondering can you use Nintendont or similar to play GameCube games etc? If so how?

Thank you!

Nick
 
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