Topic: Issues Reported with Wii System Update 4.2

[Penguin_Of_Thyme]

Some North American and UK consoles are getting bricked.
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/newsArt.cfm?artid=20079

 Nintendo of America released Wii system update 4.2 on Tuesday, a patch that reportedly had the intention of shutting down Wii hacking solutions.  The popular Wii Homebrew Channel is removed by the update, and several known exploits (both hardware and software) are eliminated along with the ability to use USB loaders or downgrade your Wii firmware.  The Wii Shop Channel was also updated to reflect the new firmware.    

Unfortunately, the update has apparently had an unintended side effect: some Wii consoles are getting bricked by the patch, despite the fact that they are unmodified and have not been tampered with in any way.  A post by "NOA_TECH_JANE" on the Nintendo of America Tech Support forums confirms as much, extending an offer to repair affected consoles free of charge.  Nintendo's UK branch also confirmed to Edge  that a small subset of UK gamers are also experiencing the issue.    

Any North American Wii owners experiencing this issue can contact Nintendo of America's Tech Support line at 1-800-255-3700, 7 days a week between the hours of 6am and 7pm Pacific time.

[ThomasO]

Does it happen as soon as it's patched, or some time after? I updated mine the other day and there's no problems so far.

[MegaByte]

It would happen as soon as it's patched.

[Mop it up]

I guess I might want to get this update just to make sure it isn't going to harm my system.

So does this update mean that there will be less hackers in Mario Kart Wii?

[Jonnyboy117]

I hope this unfortunate incident teaches Nintendo not to issue firmware updates whose sole purpose is to interfere with Homebrew users.

[KDR_11k]

I hope this unfortunate incident teaches Nintendo not to issue firmware updates whose sole purpose is to interfere with Homebrew users.

I think it's more important that they learn that their boot2 update code is **** and they should not use it.

[BlackNMild2k1]

I hope this means that Nintendo took down the requirement to update to access the WiiShop channel until they can fix the unintended side effects for innocent consoles. We all expect more out of Nintendo and shoddy untested programming is definitely below the Seal of Quality that Nintendo used to wear like a badge of honor.

[Flames_of_chaos]

I hope this unfortunate incident teaches Nintendo not to issue firmware updates whose sole purpose is to interfere with Homebrew users.

I think the real lesson here is the worst place to mess around with patching code is in the boot sector and boot files. Most people said that their updates were hanging during the downloading process so half of the issue could be that there was a lot of traffic to Nintendo's update servers. From what I read only a small portion of people got their Wiis blocked and a bunch of people had their Wii update fine regardless of them hacking it or not. So in a way I think a lot of people are blowing this unfortunate incident way out of proportion.

Sony had a PS3 firmware bricking issue as well a couple of months ago or a year ago, and their latest firmware made Uncharted and Heavenly Sword unplayable.

[Morari]

Just another example of companies harming legitimate customers in the name of stopping "pirates". Of course, what really adds insult to injury is that these companies can and will never stop piracy. All they do is waste money to screw over paying customers.

[BwrJim!]

and of course its already been circumvented.  So in Nintendos attempt, all they really accomplished was unneeded repair cost to them..

shame.

[stevey]

Unfortunately, the update has apparently had an unintended side effect: some Wii consoles are getting bricked by the patch, despite the fact that they are unmodified and have not been tampered with in any way.

I don't like the way that is worded. Nintendo's software engineers suck at their jobs (assuming they even have software engineers and not just rip some game programmers from their other divisions to put them to the task they're not trained to do) Having an old version of boot2 (on all wii made before Jul 11, 2008 and a few months after) have a 100% equal chance of bricking as a wii as one with bootmii. And upgrading boot2 does not kill homebrew in any way (It kills system backup). The only real way to do it in that way they are try to is upgrade boot1 which is impossible without recalling all old Wii and replace their motherboards. Furthermore, Nintendo didn't try to brick console due to bootmii. That would be illegal and a huge waste of time and money. The only (semi)-brick Nintendo update is causing on purpose is for region changed (imported) Korean Wiis.

[D_Average]

Thanks for the heads up!  I ignore the patch for now.  No big deal as I'm going through a Gamecube phase right now.  Burnout, Wind Waker, and Wave Race 2, wahoooo!

[broodwars]

Considering I'm not planning on playing anything on my Wii till Silent Hill comes out, I'm kind of tempted to do the update just so that if it does brick I can force Nintendo to shell out the cash to fix it.  But that's a lot of hassle just to be mean to Nintendo.