Wii System Update 4.2 bricking unmodded consoles

by Griffin McElroy { Oct 1st 2009 at 3:57PM }

We've received a ton of tips from readers reporting that the recently released Wii Menu Update 4.2 has killed their console. The patch was designed to remove homebrew applications from modded consoles, providing users with the following warning: "Because unauthorized modifications to save data or program files may impair game play or the Wii console, updating to Wii Menu version 4.2 will also check for and automatically remove such save data or program files." However, a number of Nintendo forumites are complaining the update has bricked their completely unmodified Wiis.

This problem can be attributed to the fact that the update makes changes to the Wii's all-important bootloader. If any problems arise during installation, the bootloader becomes corrupt, and the Wii becomes incapable of loading any software. A Nintendo technician has responded to the reports, saying anyone who's experienced these problems on their totally legit hardware can send it in for free repairs.

In the mean time, you should probably shy away from installing Update 4.2. Unless, of course, you're using a modded console. In that case, you totally deserve your comeuppance.

[Via Escapist]

Tags: brick, hardware, nintendo, patch, update, wii-system-update, wii-system-update-4.2

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)

Spirit @ Oct 1st 2009 3:59PM

I should mod my dusty old Wii in retaliation >_>

Prof. Von Manifest of the Clan McCloud (illogical logic is still logical) @ Oct 1st 2009 6:48PM

I was think the same!
Might as well put it to some use.

WREturns (Looking for a graphic designer) @ Oct 1st 2009 4:00PM

Free repair? That's better than Sony's "tough shit" offer...

Archon (PSN: Archonik, XBL: DarkARHN) @ Oct 1st 2009 4:10PM

I don't know about US but in Europe, Sony is very happy to fix your console for free when on guarantee, and often you can get your PS3 repaired even after POST guarantee if you didn't break it yourself.

acefondu @ Oct 1st 2009 4:11PM

Yeah, Nintendo is the best for repairs. I sent my Wii in after the GPU overheated causing little green artifacts on my games. They sent me back a brand new one for free, as apparently this was happening to some of the first launch Wii's like mine. And they were SO fast about it too, it was over New Years too, came back in just 3 weeks. I haven't dealt with Sony's customer service yet though. I know MS is pretty bad from what my friends have told me though.

Troy Powers (PSN: TroyPowers) @ Oct 1st 2009 4:19PM

Well, the company is supposed to fix the product for free when it's their fault it broke.

WREturns (Looking for a graphic designer) @ Oct 1st 2009 5:07PM

Troy Powers,

FYI...

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/10/01/sony-ps3-disc-drive-errors-not-a-firmware-issue/#comments

MinimumWageNinja @ Oct 1st 2009 6:32PM

That was a great comment. So true.

Maka @ Oct 1st 2009 7:44PM

Easy enough for people in the US to return their consoles if they brick, but I brought my US console with me to Europe so if my unmodded console bricks I'm screwed.

ScottG13 @ Oct 1st 2009 4:00PM

Another grandslam for Nintendo. Bricking unmodded systems and requiring hax0rs to spend 15 minutes disabling their fix.

They can simply do no wrong.

Shadsy @ Oct 1st 2009 5:30PM

Well... do you understand what bricking is? The system doesn't work at all. It's dead. Completely unusable. A $250 paperweight. There's nothing you can do to work around it.

Durando @ Oct 1st 2009 9:23PM

@ Shadsy:
Wii hackers have found ways to fix bricked wiis, it's been done. Generally, any software malfunction can always be fixed if the hardware is still intact.

Brucie B @ Oct 1st 2009 4:00PM

CoverFloader FTW!

jynxycat @ Oct 1st 2009 4:01PM

People complain about every firmware bricking all sorts of electronic devices.

People need to learn not to power shit off in the middle of the process :\

Ghen @ Oct 1st 2009 4:11PM

In this particular case it's of no fault to the user. Wii hacking teams found a long time ago that the Wii's boot firmware is buggy and could lead to problems like this. The hacked firmware fixes all the problems but Nintendo did not. So when you update your wii it re-writes the firmware and in certain cases (the cause of which hasn't been determined) the Wii writes the wrong information to memory during boot and bricks the system. The only fix for this is apparently replacing the entire motherboard which requires sending it to Nintendo. Hacking teams haven't found a way to un-brick wiis afflicted by this problem yet (AFAIK, I don't follow the scene since I'm on Xbox).

tmacairjordan87 @ Oct 1st 2009 4:04PM

Why can no one do a simple firmware update anymore? I'm gonna be too scared to even turn my Wii on when I get it at this rate.

[ArchiGamer] [Soon to be a major religion] @ Oct 1st 2009 4:11PM

Well, look at it this way, if you do end up having your Wii bricked, then at least you don't have to pay for if you haven't modded it.

Mr Khan @ Oct 1st 2009 4:11PM

Any new Wii would be fine. The key is that older Wiis have boot2v2 or boot2v3, but newer Wiis have boot2v4 already, which is unexploitable by certain programs (BootMii i think can't get around it). I don't know what the cutoff date is (and i heard all this from secondary sources anyway), but all new Wii's shouldn't really need this update, and if they are getting it, it won't brick them, since it won't be messing with your boot loader

Ghen @ Oct 1st 2009 4:13PM

That's irony. The only systems that don't need this update are the only ones that can handle it perfectly fine. :)

Fernando Rocker @ Oct 1st 2009 4:19PM

tmac getting a Wii... me playing Uncharted 2 Demo with him and sheppy yesterday... soon, cat and dogs will be living together.

Captain Planet [Planeteer | Power of Captain Planet] @ Oct 1st 2009 4:27PM

I'm dubbing this as:

FIRMWAREGATE 2009

lawlersauce @ Oct 1st 2009 4:27PM

http://www.merriam.org/e-merriam/dog-cat.jpg

Vidikron @ Oct 1st 2009 4:31PM

Just don't immediately update. It's not like there's much you likely be doing online with your Wii and games that force the update typically don't appear for a while after the update.

tmacairjordan87 @ Oct 1st 2009 4:52PM

That was pretty fun, we need to play that horde mode thing tonight or something. And its good to hear my wii won't die as soon as I get it

Lonecow @ Oct 1st 2009 5:28PM

I had to update last night to get onto the Wii Shop Channel (damn my recent obsession with old SNK fighters and NEEDING to buy Art of Fighting at 1 o'clock in the morning knowing that the next day I could pick up about 20 SNK games for $10 at Sams with SNK collection Vol 1. NE WAYS)

I have the Homebrew channel installed, and went there first, it updated my homebrew to 1.0.5 and then I got the 4.2 upgrade and everything worked fine (so far).

Nintendo is so stupid. They are only punishing people who don't mod their systems. They should be thankful to the mod community. I use my Wii on a daily basis now, which I never did before installing the Homebrew channel and as you can see from above, I still willingly pay them ass tons of money for games that I can get cheaper elsewhere. Just let us have out Homebrew channel and you still get to make tons of cash Nintendo.

borland502 (SDF Macross) @ Oct 1st 2009 5:54PM

@Fernando: "tmac getting a Wii..."

Hell I'm getting a 360 delivered in a week. Truly we live in remarkable times. By God, I think the Joystiq community could forge world peace if this brotherly console love keeps up.

Spartan [Planeteer | Power of Sunshine & Lollipops] @ Oct 1st 2009 6:06PM

*He finally holds hands with the Playstation fanboy within*

PS3 here I come

bongoes the Black Lantern @ Oct 1st 2009 6:31PM

"Truly we live in remarkable times. By God, I think the Joystiq community could forge world peace if this brotherly console love keeps up."

Who thinks we should sing a song?

No one? Okay then.

Mr Mobius - the wandering artist @ Oct 1st 2009 4:06PM

To be fair, at least it's an easily fixed software problem unlike its console cousins.

Extinction @ Oct 1st 2009 6:16PM

its not fixable...

Slaziman @ Oct 1st 2009 4:07PM

hey, some people mod the console to make it region free

if you would live in europe you'd understand :(

Slaziman @ Oct 1st 2009 4:10PM

oh and by the way, hackers already worked around this, good job screwing legit customers while achieving nothing.

AsherR [Planeteer | Power of The Hoff] @ Oct 1st 2009 4:14PM

Thus we find the problem for most forms of piracy protection.

mirumu @ Oct 1st 2009 4:54PM

That's the only reason I hacked mine. Yep, I'm a PAL Wii owner. I've no interest whatsoever in pirating Wii games, but legal imports are another matter entirely.

mahouneko @ Oct 1st 2009 5:33PM

I have a Japanese copy of Muramasa sitting next to my US pre-order copy of Muramasa and no Wii to play them on. The Japanese Muramasa was supposed to be a birthday present for a friend of mine but I didn't learn about the Wii's region-lock until after we put it into his Wii.

Fucking region-locks need to go away.

Marco le Polo @ Oct 1st 2009 4:07PM

I haven't updated mine in months. Looks like it may have been for the better. Maybe I'll try to get it bricked so I can send it in and hopefully get the gc controller port cover fixed for free!

Rob S. @ Oct 1st 2009 4:10PM

I used mine this mourning and it worked fine, must just be some people's Wii's. Of course some people might be lying about not having a modded Wii, for whatever reason they may have.

Warlock @ Oct 1st 2009 4:54PM

It's not going to brick *every* console. The problem is that if the installation is interrupted (i.e. you are a moron and shut down your console while it's installing), the boot loader becomes corrupted which prevents your Wii from booting, period. It was really a stupid firmware update to issue *just* to screw over modders.

Taylor @ Oct 1st 2009 4:10PM

I guess I'll just keep letting that blue light serve as a beacon for the neighborhood until this is fixed.

uncle jesse @ Oct 1st 2009 4:10PM

Has anyone tried blowing in it yet?

[ArchiGamer] [Soon to be a major religion] @ Oct 1st 2009 4:12PM

Why, that solves nothing! Why would any of us blo-oh wait, you mean blow into the system, never mind....

Burnt Meatloaf @ Oct 2nd 2009 6:03AM

If you send it to Nintendo, they'll blow into it for you.

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/03/09/smash-bros-brawl-not-working-on-some-wiis-nintendo-responds/

Guinea Rabbit @ Oct 1st 2009 4:12PM

Good thing I haven't updated mine recently.

This is what you get Nintendo for being stupid and greedy.

Imagine having this happen to you multiple times. Now you know how us 360 owners feel.

Rob S. @ Oct 1st 2009 4:14PM

Actually, it seems to only happen mostly to hacked Wii's and a few unlucky people.

[ArchiGamer] [Soon to be a major religion] @ Oct 1st 2009 4:15PM

Also, if it does, the service is free.

How is that greedy?

Jamar @ Oct 2nd 2009 1:19PM

How about offering it to all region Wiis in all regions for a start? If I have a JP Wii because I want to play JP games and it bricks as I update to 4.2, I'm screwed simply because I wasn't satisfied with US games (hello, where's Captain Rainbow?)? Or if I modded a US Wii to accomplish the same purpose I'm a dirty hacker and deserve to be struck down?

Mr Khan @ Oct 1st 2009 4:14PM

The strict point of this is "if the update goes wrong." I've heard of a few people who thought it had frozen, because this update takes longer than most. When it started, it stayed at 0% for a minute or two, and then started going along at a normal rate. Perhaps some thought it had frozen and pulled the plug, and a few probably did experience problems from bad connections (router mistake or whatnot)

As long as you don't screw with it, your connection is reliable, or you have a newer Wii (though again, not sure of the cutoff date there), you should be fine.