Media or Nintendo?

First of all, thanks to all the posters here, I hope we’ll get to the bottom of this soon enough… Each and each day there are more cases of Wii’s that suddenly stopped reading backups.

Anyhow, today I bought new Verbatim and Sony DVD-R media and made a few more tests:

• Wiikey Update 1.9b @ 1x, 2x and 4x
• Wiikey Recovery 1.9b @ 1x, 2x and 4x

I burned it plain, filechopped and used 2 different burners I have here (using ImgBurn). Still no dice. Also, from a quick glance at YAOSM’s source code I don’t see why the SMG fix would require any extra “media-pickyness”. Basically it’s an LBA check and an A4 04 command which is supposed to fail on original media (so the chip has to provide a failed result when loading backups too).

Btw, I have my wii for 3 months only, and used it for a couple of hours mostly on weekends, so it’s not as if I’ve been straining the laser. What I find weird is the Dec 1st thing, on the stats I have a few referrers from google with the query “Dec 1 wiikey stopped working”. Coincidence?

EDIT: Check out these links for CycloWiz users with (probably) the same problem:

http://www.teamcyclops.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3727
http://www.teamcyclops.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3349
http://www.teamcyclops.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3538

UPDATE: A possible Wiinja Deluxe case and another CycloWiz one (both after playing SMG):

http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=65683&view=findpost&p=886308
http://www.teamcyclops.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3736

UPDATE2: Another Dec 1st one:

http://forums.maxconsole.net/showthread.php?t=91435

“I updated to firmware 1.9g and my Wiikey stopped reading backups”

Sounds familiar? Soon after this happened to me, I started to find a lot of people with the same problem in forums around the net. However, most are told to “check for dry joints/shorts” or “check your media”.

That’s not what this is about, I had 20+ backups that worked flawlessly for 3+ months, now a couple of days after updating to 1.9g none of them will load, only originals do. Even if 1.9g is more picky than 1.9b about media, how can you explain that it worked for a few days after the update (including loading SMG from the same DVD that now doesn’t work)? My chip installation is fine and the firmware update went without a hitch (as did 1.9b some time ago).

So, if you have a similar problem, post your experience here! Here goes mine:

UPDATE: Added black magic info.

Description – A couple of days after updating to 1.9g and playing SMG (Euro version on Euro console), all backups stopped to work. Originals work fine. I think it might have happened when the Wii was disconnected from the mains (not 100% sure).
Wii Firmware Version – 3.0E
Original/Clone Wiikey – Original
Previous Wiikey Firmware Version – 1.9b
Any problems Updating? – NO
Had Region Override ON when updating? – NO
Ran Config Disc 1.3 after the update? – NO
Did SMG work OK? – Yes
Percentage of Backups that load – 0% (all show as unknown, the disc just stops spinning. This is not the “An error has occurred. Press the Eject Button and remove the disc.” error)
Originals load? – Yes
Tried 1.9b Recovery Disc? – Yes, does nothing
Tried Config/Update Discs/GCOS boot? – Yes, none will get recognized, same as all backups
Media Tried – Sony +/-R, Verbatim -R, Fujifilm -R, Imation +R, TDK -R, @2x and 4x
Burner(s) – Nero, Imgburn
Black Magic – Tried: Taking out CMOS battery and unplug off mains for a while, formatting Wii system memory

I’d also like to see a description of what happens when you use the recovery disc successfully.