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WiiConnect24 Update Causing Issues For Wii Owners

Posted by Zonk on Tue Nov 21, 2006 11:36 AM
from the connect-for-the-love-of-all-that-is-holy dept.
Wii (Games) Entertainment Games
An anonymous reader writes to mention coverage on IGN of an ongoing issue with a WiiConnect update. A faulty update may be causing some Wii consoles to become inoperative. Nintendo is replacing affected consoles, free of charge. From the article: "Several error codes have been reported so far, but the most prevalent of them are 110213 and 32002. We contacted Nintendo about this issue, and they filled us in on what you should do if you find yourself in this predicament. Currently, Nintendo has two options in place to resolve the problem. If you do not have any data saved to your system that is important to keep, then you can contact Nintendo customer service and they will ship a new console to you in 3-4 business days. However, if you do have important data saved to your system, then things get a little trickier"
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  • Similar, less severe problem (Score:4, Informative)

    by UbuntuDupe (970646) * on Tuesday November 21 2006, @11:38AM (#16932666) Journal
    I didn't have that issue (luckily) but I did have similar problems. For one, as most Wii users have noted, starting from Sunday (11/19) the updating process takes a LONG time. What's more, when I got tired of waitng and turned off the power and back on again, it brought me right back to the same screen. The only way I could get back to gaming was to disconnect the wireless router's power so there was no internet access, forcing it to abort back to the Wii menu. Luckily, updates finished last night when I tried and didn't take forever then.

    People say the delay was from the huge number of Wiiners coming online and downloading, but, uh ... isn't the same thing going to have to happen in the future, and with more people, since they have to do more similarly-sized updates then?

    Don't misunderstand me -- I *love* the Wii, and I've had a lot of fun with it since Sunday. It's worth its purchase price several times over. I'm not trying to stir up anti-Wii fud.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Broken scope (973885)
      I fully expect N to stagger the updates based on Serial number or some other thing, that or they increase bandwidth, alot.
    • I've not had any problems with this WiiConnect24 bug. I'm not sure if I've updated this content yet.

      However, the update on the night I used the Wii store was slow, but not that much. It took maybe 5mins to download the update. Perhaps that was before most people where doing their updates, but I didn't find it too bad. I can imagine it's just Nintendo's servers getting hammered all at once.

      I do find that it does take a long time to just log-into the Wii store. About 30 seconds to just load the store, whi

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by webrunner (108849)
        if you are connecting to any internet features at all you have the latest update and you do not have the issue.
      • However, the update on the night I used the Wii store was slow, but not that much. It took maybe 5mins to download the update. Perhaps that was before most people where doing their updates, but I didn't find it too bad.

        Okay, give me a teensy weensy bit of credit here. I didn't give up after five minutes. I supsect most people didn't either, as the progress bar would be filling up rapidly. When I say slow, I mean: "Leave, come back 30 minutes later, it's 10% complete. Come back 30 minutes later, it's ...

        • Okay, give me a teensy weensy bit of credit here...Wait ... *gets out ruler* ... Damn!"

          lol, I'm not saying I don't believe you. I know how networks work well enough (web dev. here) and this isn't the first time I heard people having slow downloads. It felt really slow for me as well, and I'm still surprised how slow it does connect. I just was recounting that on the time I updated it worked fine (if waiting 5-10mins for the patch is fine), to help troubleshoot the fact this might be a 'WoW Tuesday' sor

    • I suspect part of the update issue is because people update all at once and hammer the system by doing it manually (qur the 'well duh'), but for future automated updates it should be more spaced out.

      I got mine home on Sunday morning, and had it connect to the internet before noon. Downloaded the update, maybe 5 minutes or so, and bam it was done. contrast that to those who started later in the day, and it was 'teh sloooooow.' The reason I suspect this won't be an issue is that part of the setup involes yo

    • Re:Similar, less severe problem (Score:5, Informative)

      by Bob of Dole (453013) on Tuesday November 21 2006, @12:53PM (#16934644) Journal
      I had the same problem, and it got stuck that way for 5 hours. Try to update,fail,reboot,update,fail,etc.
      My brother found a mention on the Nintendo.com site that their wireless implementation hates channel 4, and works best on 1 and 11 (?).
      After switching the AP over to 1, it updates in less than 30 seconds.
      So try doing that, even if you're not doing updates. It seems the connection is just horribly slow when on channel 4 (which was the default for my WRT54G router).
        • what IP address does your router have? it you type that ip address into your web browser, it should bring up a HTML based configuration utility for your router. The IP address might be written on the case of the router or in the instruction book, if you cant find it there, it is your gateway IP address on your PC (google how to find that out). You will need to put in a username and password, but these are usually "admin" / "admin". they should be written on the case of the router somewhere, or in the instr
  • 3-4 days to ship an entire Wii, yet 4-10 to ship a label?? They should be sending these things express and overnight/1-2 day them.
    Luckily my Wii updated without issue, but I'd be raising holy hell if I'd camped out, laid down the money, then had to spend 20+ days without it because they want to save a few bucks on shipping.

    • Re:Uhm.. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Black Pete (222858) on Tuesday November 21 2006, @12:07PM (#16933488)
      Except that it will still work in "offline" mode. You can play any games you want; you just can't go online.

      If you called Nintendo customer service, they essentially give you one of two choices:

      1) Give them your credit card number over the phone. They send a replacement Wii along with a postage-paid box to you, you put your old Wii in the box and ship it back. You won't have to spend a day without the Wii.

      2) If you want to keep your original Wii, you can ship it back, they fix it, and overnight it back to you. In this case you WOULD be without your Wii for a few days.

      My bet is most would go for Option 1. Option 2 is for if you have a lot of stuff on internal storage they can't live without (which is fairly unlikely this soon after launch).

      • I think this is just the state of things in the industry right now. A friend of mine just had his 360 bite the dust, and he's been waiting a week (hopefully it arrives today) for the packing label to ship it back to Microsoft. That might be unusual, I'm not really sure. But 3-4 days from nintendo doesn't seem too bad in that case :P
  • But I don't understand what the whole thing is with Option #2. I just backed up my save games to an SD card and I plan on copying them to the new system once I get it in the mail...
    • You can't back up any virtual console games you've purchased and they are tied to the console itself. So any points you'd bought and any games would be lost. Nintendo is requiring you send in the unit, and they'll work some magic to ensure you don't lose that.
      • I'm not exactly sure about it, since I was playing on my brother's and I didn't dig too deep. But I thought that the VC games were tied to the console only if you didn't tie your console to your Nintendo.com account. I thought I had read something saying that certain downloaded items would move to a new console if you attached the account to it.
      • So once these are out of warrantee and they break , then what?

        Tough shit? Buy the games again after you buy a new console?

        Hmm, that would kill most of my online purchasing.

  • What is wrong with this picture? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by voice_of_all_reason (926702) on Tuesday November 21 2006, @11:47AM (#16932926)
    This is how computers modify data:

    1) Copy current data to a backup file
    2) Overwrite current data
    3) Test new data
    4) If okay, delete backup

    Did IQs just drop sharply for this generation of consoles? If mandatory updates are bricking systems, the programmers have failed the basic aspects of design. Even the patchwork scraps which hold windows together will pop up a message saying "hay, something's fucked now." via safe mode if you screw up and give you a chance to revert it.
    • Computers do NOT do that for firmware except for a few high-end motherboards. In this situation, firmware is exactly what's being updated.

      However, there is a catch to this particular story. According to the reports, Nintendo is telling Wii owners that it's not the firmware update itself or anything the owner did. Some of the units apparently have defects. When the firmware update is applied, it's exasperating the defect, causing strange behavior. The reports of the problem seem to confirm this, as the system doesn't completely brick. (i.e. it still boots into the menus) But since it is unable to play games, it might as well be bricked.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by webrunner (108849)
        Actually most reports CAN play games. Most of the time, the only thing that breaks is the online functionality.
      • Article is unfortunately blocked from work, so I had to interpret "Wii consoles to become inoperative" as "bricked." Thank you for correcting me.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by TeleKawaru (639739)
        The only thing you can't do if you run into this problem is the online functionality. Everything else works just fine EXCEPT copying save data from the SD card TO the console. When I first had this happen to me, I checked online and a lot of people said doing the full wipe on the system fixed it, so I copied off my save games and tried it. Well, that didn't fix the problem and it wouldn't let me copy my save games back on the system. When I called nintendo after reading that the 110213 problem required my s

        • Re:Grammar check (Score:4, Funny)

          by Sygnus (83325) on Tuesday November 21 2006, @02:01PM (#16936444)

          The word you want here is "exacerbating", not "exasperating." Their similar, but exasperate usually refers to a person and exacerbate doesn't


          The word you want here is they're [reference.com]," not "their [reference.com]." They're similar, but "their" is possessive while "they're" is a contraction of "they are."

  • The real problem here (Score:3, Interesting)

    by earnest murderer (888716) on Tuesday November 21 2006, @11:54AM (#16933150)
    is that your purchases are tied to your console and not your account. Fine for nintendo, but what happens if your console is out of warranty. A much more reasonable solution would have been to associate your content with your account rather than the console. Similar to what apple does with it's iTunes store.
      • But you can save them to a CD or email them to yourself and activate them on your home PC.
      • With iTunes you can authorise up to 5 computers at a time to play song files downloaded with an account. However, you can only download a song file once, if the file is lost you're screwed and have to buy it again (even though iTunes knows you've bought it), so making a backup is a very good idea. (I think this may be another great music industry idea, but I'm not certain). To play tunes on multiple computers you either have to manually copy the song files across, or use the library sharing.

        The Steam (and X
      • I think Valve/Steam does it much better. You can install on as many machines you like, but you can only run one instance at once. I'm good with that. iTunes is a bit more restrictive and annoying. Why you can't have your music on your laptop and your desktop at the same time is a bit of a puzzle IMO. Unless I'm clueless as to how it works.

  • 32002 is an easy fix (Score:4, Informative)

    by gaminRey (569220) on Tuesday November 21 2006, @11:56AM (#16933210) Homepage
    I had the 32002 for the first day. Their description for the error code says it is a problem getting stuff from the server, and to try again later. I figured it was due to release day overload. In the end, I followed their advice and changed my WiFi channel from the default 6 to 11 and now it works fine.

  • I haven't connected yet. I can get it to talk to my access point, but it won't get an IP address by DHCP. When I gave it a static one, that didn't work. I'm going to try having it connect to another AP in my house tonight. The one I've been using is an Apple Airport Express that I've never had a problem with. My error was 53010 or something like that (I looked it up on Nintendo's site).

    I've heard about this problem, and it does make me worry some.

    Then again, I also found the weird tip on Nintendo's web si

    • for some reason the Wii wont pick up the gateway settings from my airport express. i had to manually configure mine (including dns) for it to work properly.
    • Then again, I also found the weird tip on Nintendo's web site that you can speed up downloads by making sure your AP is on channel 1 or 11. I've heard complaints about how "fast" things were, so maybe that's it.

      Out of the box, Linksys, DLink and other routers run on channel 6, and it's relatively unlikely that new owners will change it. As a result, you would expect to find areas with multiple wireless APs all running on 6, and causing interference (and slower speeds.) In my experience, this has been the c
  • I was a bit worried when I was hearing problems about it, but so far everything seems okay with my Wii. I was able to download the first, and second and am at firmware version 2.0U (the latest, I believe) with no errors. The updates took maybe 10 minutes to download. I can access the store, and the email thing seems to be working fine.

    So I'm wondering what the specific problem is. Did Nintendo put out a bad update at some point that borked the system or did some have defective WiFi hardware?

  • As if backups weren't hard enough... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by John.P.Jones (601028) on Tuesday November 21 2006, @12:23PM (#16933914)
    This is a systemic problem with all these closed console systems with storage. Storage needs backup. Imagine what it will be like in 4 years when these systems start failing in mass and people realize they lost all their save games. Nintendo is on the good side since its storage isn't HDD based and you can rely on SD cards which are easilly backupable. I suppose the PS3 has Linux backup options but only a small percentage will be able to use it. Xbox360 has the advantage that the HDD is easilly replaceable but I'm not sure how easy it is to back up the data.

    That is why open systems are essential for storage. But hey I guess people are weened on DVD and its ilk so they expect to be unable to back up their data.
  • After several false starts I got the Wii connected to my Wifi (many thanks to the Slashdotter who recommended 'mixed' mode rather than 'G-only'). Then I kept getting the 'Try again later' messages. Last night at 11:30 PM (Eastern) I got connected to the Nintendo server. It immediately did a download that took about 45 minutes. Next a screen popped up asking me to identify which country I was in. I did so, and it did a second 45 minute download. It looks like either installed a patch file (or more like
  • sWiit.

    In stark contrast to Sony and MS.

  • OH NO! Quick! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Jace of Fuse! (72042) on Tuesday November 21 2006, @01:49PM (#16936142) Homepage
    Oh no! Quick! Everyone! For the sake of your Mii! Get them off of that Wii and put them on the Wiimote! It's every Mii for themselves! You don't want your Mii trapped inside that Wii if an update causes it to lose functionality! You wouldn't want that any more than you would want your babies trapped in a burning building, possibly even less!

    Save the Mii! Buy more Wiimotes if you have to!

    DON'T LET YOUR MII BECOME A STATISTIC!

    Act now!

    • Re:Wow Zonk (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Turn-X Alphonse (789240) on Tuesday November 21 2006, @11:49AM (#16933006) Journal
      Nintendo arn't perfect, no one would claim so.

      The difference is the rate of failure with Nintendo is usually much lower and they have an excellent returns policy. I'll give you an example.

      About 10 years ago my SNES broke a week before Christian. We contacted nintendo and they sent us a new one no questions asked and you know what really sold me? They gave me a couple of t-shirts, a huge bag of badges and stickers. All because it died just before Christmas.

      When Sony give a fuck about their customers like I saw Nintendo did then we'll talk about the bad press. Untill then I'll judge Sony on their actions.
    • This is good press for N. They are replacing consoles pretty much no questions asked.
    • Exactly. Look how well Nintendo is handling this problem. No real questions, just cross ship a replacement. Failure rates at launch are common (or are reported more because so many go out at once and media attention is high) and Nintendo is dealing with it very well.

      Compare this to the overheating issues the XBox 360 had, or the disc scrapping on the PS2.

      Kudos Nintendo.
    • Apparently it has nothing to do with the setup. A (probably small) number of Wii consoles ended up being defective or something similar to which attempting to update the firmware would totally disable the Wifi. These consoles need to be replaced.

      I've had no issues with my Wii, personally. I'm able to get online and browse the store, but haven't tried to download any games yet. However, I got both updates available in a reasonable amount of time. Just now playing with the message board.
    • This isn't a problem with inept users having trouble getting it set up...this is some sore of bug in the code. If it was just people having problems, they wouldn't be sending out replacement Wiis as that doesn't change the ineptness of the end user.
      • not in code, Nintendo has stated it is a hardware issue with certain units that is uncovered by the update process
      • Perhaps you should read the article.

        I never said these error codes were wrong, I said this exact error might not happen. Repeatedly getting the same two error codes? Of course instead of swearing a blue streak I actually thought about this, but then again we all play to our strengths.

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