This issue is inevitable, even if you use your WiiU regularly. Those memory cells in the NAND flash will deteriorate if no write action/reflash is being performed. I really hope the modding community can find a way to boot the wiiU from the SD card slot using some custom OS that overrules the NAND flash. Kinda how free mcboot works on PS2.

I’ll never understand why Nintendo is so obsessed with triwing screws

I am one of those people that had this error during the Super Smash Bros WiiU release. Had an original 32gb launch WiiU that would crash with this error if you played 8 playersmash or certain combinations of characters. Sent it back to Nintendo at that time and was repaired. Haven't used my wiiu in like 4 years so I tested it and booted up just fine.

So I guess its only a matter of time that we have someone create a 'retail' conversion kit where the BGA chip is removed and an adapter is re-balled in its place that has a MicroSD slot. This would indeed permanently fix this issue! 👍

The SD card mod made me giggle a bit, then I remembered you can essentially do the same with the PS2 with the 2nd memory card slot.

High Key, id love to see a peripheral for PC that essentially acts like a Wii U gamepad, that'd be a good way to keep the games playable the way they were intended, even while the original hardware starts to wither away

On the point of if someone would spend the time to make a workaround for this issue despite a low customer pool, I would say there are,definitely going to be people out there who would be willing to do so no matter how niche it would be. I think this because in the last year we have seen reprints for Nuon games and a Bluetooth controller adapter for the Phillips CDi. If those systems can get new things made to fix issues or improve their experiences then a major Nintendo system is almost guaranteed to get attention to address this issue.

Prior to recent, I hadn't used my Wii U and played it. When I checked to see if it was hooked up to my new Samsung Smart TV by turning it on with the Gamepad, it worked. Yes, my Wii U is pretty much still in mint condition and still works, which is a good thing.

Memory corruption is not restricted to the WiiU. My advice is to boot up and use whatever consoles are in your possession from time to time. And make sure you store them is in conditions that don't promote the corrosion of the circuitry inside and free from dust. I think this issue with the Wii U has been overstated, but I will say when a device gets many decades old it is harder to keep them going - any number of components can fail.

It's a good thing I genuinely still use my Wii U as a regular console.

Took my Wii U out yesterday and booted it up and played some Xenoblade Chronicles X THANK GOD it works. I would have cried if i couldn't play my Xenoblade. Bought a few games too before the store shuts.

Strange how this is suddenly happening once I discovered recently how to Mod both my 3DS/Wii U. I am totally not playing my Switch anymore. So much games from previous gen to catch up on.

I wonder if there's a way to see if specific model numbers/ranges have the Samsung chip included so more casual consumers can check to see if their console is at risk, or if it's merely luck of the draw that has unfortunately inflicted a good number of Wii U's with that chip.

What I don't understand is other consoles use similar flash memory and don't seem to have this problem. Nothing lasts forever, but I don't think Wii Us are old enough to be dying like this just yet. Very fishy. Fortunately my 32GB Deluxe Wii U seems to be working, just gotta find the time to format my SD and mod/back up the nand. Hopefully a software method to flash will come, if that's even possible. I sense Wii Us will drop in value pretty quickly on at this rate

I like the Wii U and i try to turn mine on and play something every now and then lol. Sucks there’s an issue like this though. I try to make my consoles last as long as possibke

I had this problem with my Wii U and it was very frustrating. I could not play Smash Wii U online and certain games would randomly crash.

This is the kind of obsolescence that we SHOULD be suing Nintendo over.

Sad to see, even if the WiiU was never huge. I haven't played mine since June or something, was fine then after over a year of storage, but haven't checked now. I have a bunch of GBA and DS titles I downloaded to it from the eShop, but apart from that I think I only ever had two games, Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD. Would be sad to see a system go in a way I haven't experienced any other Nintendo console to do (my parents NES worked fine after 15 years of storage when I played it last and my GBA SP powers on no problem and keeps battery for several hours after several years of not being used or charged), but for my personal enjoyment of the console I'd be happy to let it go, or put it up on a shelf as a memento, if Nintendo will just port the HD Zelda games, I'll find other ways to play those GBA and DS games, several of them I even have on cartridge already, it was just a fun idea to play them on the TV.

Crazy idea, but someone could just write a custom boot code to redirect the WiiU to boot from external storage media...and make sure the code gets placed on clean sectors of the eMMC???

Always backup all the system NAND of every Nintendo console as soon as possible. That shit fails all the time on the Wii, Wii U, 3DS and Switch, and on none of them, there's a way to restore it without a backup as soon as it's out of warranty.

I just booted up my Wii U to check and it's working. Always sad to see the Mii Verse home screen so barren though.

Sadly, My Wii U did end up with corrupted memory, so now it'll never be repairable. I'm also not keen on the idea of getting a replacement console to dump the NAND from, to prepare for a possible future fix. Wii Us are too rare and expensive.

Mine sat in my closet unused for probably 4-5 years. Just plugged it in and charged it up and mine still worked fine, thankfully.

I don't think this has anything to do with NAND "losing charge" over time. I think it's a manufacturing defect with a certain model of chip, that not all of the systems have. Thankfully my Wii U is still fine. I just tested it last night. (I do keep it plugged in, and I turn it on once a month to check the clock even if I'm not playing games.)

I'm wondering if this has happened to people who kept their Wii U consoles in storage and not plugged in for an extended period of time. Upon watching this video, I powered on my Wii U after not touching it for a few years because life gets in the way. In the time it's been inactive, I've kept it plugged in and on standby, intending to power it on when I have a chance to play my Wii U games. When I powered it on, it asked me to update the system and it did that with no problem. I started up Yoshi's Wooly World and all is well with my system. I'm just surprised that I haven't touched this game in almost 6 years since I bought it.

Mines been plugged in for like 7 years but haven’t actually switched it on, played it yesterday and it fired straight up

Is this only an issue with the black wii u? I have a day one 8gb white wii u and I’ve never seen this issue on mine.

So is this only for Samsung chips? What model numbers are the ones with this error or does this affect ALL Wii Us?

Someone will definitely come up with a ribbon connector that will allow soldering directly to those contact points if I'm looking at this right 07:08 . I've done mods to all my retro consoles but I'm definitely not at the point where I'm ready to reball a BGA NAND package. At worst, maybe some people with the tools and skills can do a mod service where the NAND package is replaced with a little PCB with a micro SD card slot on it.

I really wish nintendo would port over zelda twilight princess and windwaker to the switch because that's only reason I break out the wii u every few years. It's still a bummer for these issues to be happening on a console that's not that old . My 25 year old n64 still runs perfectly lol.

I started up my Wii U for the first time in a long while after reading about this. It booted fine but it wanted me to do a system update, so I did, and after it restarted I almost had a heart attack because it gave me an error message. Thankfully, it turned out to be the external HDD I have hooked up to it that was having issues, so the Wii U itself is still fine.

Would enabling the standby functions prolong the system's life, since it would perform read/write operations more frequently? Or will that damage in the long run any external memory device?

It would be fun to see Spawn wave atempt this replacing emmc chip with a SD card and make a guide for others to do so as well.

When I first heard about this I literally ran to my Wii U turned it on and had a sigh of relief when everything seemed totally fine. Mine was a late 2014 Wii U so I'm hoping I've avoided this Samsung nand flash or whatever issue. I mean at this point I guess it's time to go down the rabbit hole of doing the full jail breaking/hacking. It's about to lose pretty much all support from Nintendo so I'm not too worried at this point.

I’m beyond happy I’ve been able to keep my Wii U in pristine condition all these years, especially since I got it when I was 12 yrs old. Runs perfectly

the ssd solution opens the possibility to put a ssd reader on its place and them expand the internall memory of the wii u, this is awesome.

I am one of those people being faced with this error code at sporadic intervals. Would it still be possible to get a new Wii U and do a normal system transfer? or would this transfer over the error? I really hope someone comes up with a solution... honestly had fun with the Wii U.

I'm kinda dreading bringing my early wii u 32gb model out of storage, just have to pray that it still works and mod it immediately.

Hi, I am the guy with the SD card. I agree with most what you said, except one thing. You said there were many claims that Samsung chips are the problematic ones. Where did you find the claims? From the data we collected so far the problem seems to by with Hynix chips from 2012 and early 2013. In the picture you showed of my mod you can even see it's a hynix. It would be interesting to see the CID of your Hynix as it contains the date it was made. From the date code I saw on the Package I believe yours could be outside the problematic time frame, but I can't tell for sure as I nowhere found how to decode it properly.

The Wii U is definitely gonna be expensive in the future. I mean it’s already popular for modding and homebrew and once it hits its inevitable nostalgic renaissance around 2030 when people wanna rebuy their childhood it will go wayyy up in price. Sure most popular games are on Switch but once again the Wii U is where these games originated and it feels much more unique on there. This is why I’m trying to get a full set within the next 2 years!

That's why I play all my systems once in a while. Was a little too late with my neo geo pocket color and Gamegear systems.

I used my Wii U a lot back in the day, up until the launch of the Switch actually. After retiring it for a bit I decided to replay LoZ:WW HD and it ran just fun for a few weeks, retired it again until earlier this year when I decided to fire it up again to see what I can get from the eShop before it officially shut down. Everything seemed normal, was able to navigate through the eShop, launch a few Virtual Console games, and navigate through the setting to apply one of the newer updates. It was until I tried to launch LoZ:WW HD again that I encountered that 160-0103 error code. Only happens when launching games though, hopefully someone's able to find a fix for this.

Never knew I'd be thankful to have gotten the 8GB at launch because the 32GB sold out, but here we are. Just backed up all my eshop stuff, and need to look up how I softmodded it so I can NAND backup just in case (and to play stuff I never bought) Thanks for the video explaining what we know!

I know nothing last forever, but these aren’t even 11 years old! My older brother’s NES from the late 80’s still works! Things like this is why I support emulation of backed up games.

This is concerning as someone who owns 3 Wii Us. One I use almost daily, one I haven’t used in over a year, and one I haven’t in almost 8 years! Hopefully the homebrew community will easily fix this.

I’ve had this same issue. It happened to me when I tried to update the software to the latest version I stopped it around the halfway point of the update because it was over 2 hours and it wasn’t moving. Once I cancelled it the system crashed and gave me that error code. I force shut down the system and powered it back on and it kept on freezing right before I could get to the main menu. I did the same thing multiple times afterwards but the same thing kept happening.

Just booted mine up yesterday to play through Breath of the Wild again before Tears of the Kingdom releases. Everything seemed to be ok with mine. It's been about 6 months since the last time I played.

I'm sure someone out there will make some kind of flex PCB to replace the EMMC with a MicroSD slot that can be installed by filing part of the case. As you said, it would be incredibly niche, but the moment that's available, I'd probably do it even with a functional WiiU anyway just to preserve my system in the long run. Games that have been ported will probably be most unique on WiiU (Fatal Frame), plus there's still exclusives for it that will likely not be ported (Xenoblade X and Devil's Third), so it's not like the console will become useless even years down the line.

I’m not sure if it’s been posted here if not, but the Wii U does have an internal clock battery. It is hidden under a cover with a Phillips screw. I have a feeling that it is like the PS3 issue we saw. I could be wrong, don’t crucify me if I am, but it’s something to wonder?

I had a wii u that I hadn't touched in 5 years, as in playing. I did take care of it and stored it properly, kept my screen touchpad clean and that sort over the years. I did pull it out and hook it up, it runs fine however my touchpad no longer functions normally. It was never dropped, at any point... I can't stress this enough. But the ability to navigate the icons becomes hard because the thing that scrolls across the the games for you to pick, simply disappears... I have found the only way to make it function normally is to apply some pressure to the bottom of the screen. Which is very worrysome....

This happened to me. Took it out of storage a few weeks ago after years of it being not used. I replaced the CMOS battery, updated the OS, and tested my games out. After awhile most games got the error - Either right away, when loading a save file, or just randomly in a game. My solve was to delete the game completely and redownload it from the Nintendo shop. If the system allowed me to keep the game saves then I choose to keep them, but the remaining game files were deleted and then redownloaded.

I've had this since day 1. It happens randomly in every app (usually just when powering on though). Weirdest thing of all is it consistently got that error at a certain point during the credits of New Super Mario Bros U. Too bad I was too young back then to know what a warranty was

This is gonna be like the PS3 ylod. Gonna be a good few years before someone like RIP Felix shows up to actually prove what the problem is, and how to fix it(if at all)

Strange that it fails from inactivity. Emmc suffers from very low write endurance, so I would assume a more active system would stress it out with more writes than a console sitting inactive.

Nintendo Land is a legit great game and I'm shocked Nintendo hasn't ported it to Switch.

Is it possible to tell what chip you have inside your Wii u without having to open it up? Like by using serial numbers on the side or something?

Monster Hunter on the Wii U was absolutely amazing. Hundreds of hours were spent by my friends and I yelling at each other with the game pad while playing online. It was to the point that we were all pissed that MH4 was 3DS exclusive

I'm in the market to buy a wii u again..but after this video I'm not so sure anymore..is it a common issue? The seller did tell me the unit I'm interested in functions 100% but now I'm not convinced

Mines been off for a very long time but never really unplugged for too long but I always got a little nervous when it would freeze all the way and I’d have to hold the power for 30 seconds till it finally shuts down safely. I kinda thought of that like it had a stroke so I don’t run it too hard when I play it anymore so I don’t fully damage the chip. What might be a good fix for this problem? Is there a more reliable aftermarket chip we can buy ?

I feel like the Wii U is too underrated and unappreciated. If not for that the Switch probably wouldn’t existed

This happened to me a few months ago. It was unrecoverable…had to buy a second unit.

I homebrew mine so I’m good. Is a shame this is happening to them since normally they are the top brand having systems that last for decades.

This is an interesting hardware flaw, because unlike the 360 Red Ring or PS3 Yellow Light, we know exactly what it is. Since it is the NAND, we do have a way to back that up and restore it later, but the major issue is the chip itself. Ball Grid Array chips aren't really meant to be replaced, this isn't a PC motherboard CPU slot we're talking about. So the only real solution we have right now is to back up the NAND and just cross your fingers each time you boot the console until it shits and dies, and then either get a new Wii U or an emulator and then restore your NAND to that.

Mine has not been used for 4 years. I just plugged it in, works fine lol. There is no logic behind it having to do with the console being off for an extended period of time. People just have faulty NAND, which has been a thing for the Wii U since it launched.

Poor Wii U, never seems able to catch a break 🥺

I would love to see a 100% sure solution for this problem. I have a spare Wii U 8GB that has this problem. It will boot, but gives this error when you try to do anything.

I have one CIB Mario Maker Edition and one that is connected to my TV setup. I think Jon forgot to mention, if you get the error after staring a game, do not do a factory reset. There are tutorials that can fix it by making a second user. I think Jon had links to it in a previous video.

Does this effect all WiiU's? Mine was in storage a while so I checked on it and it booted up and played games fine?

Are there any good/easy guides to follow just to back it up? I don't care about homebrew, but I use my Wii U for both Wii and the Wii U library and want to make sure it stays that way years from now.

This is the first I’m hearing of this, so I decided to pul my WiiU out and check after so many years. At the moment, everything seems fine and I’m updating the software. I have most game data on a separate hard drive, so I hope that keeps things ok.

How do you back up the NAND?

$1200 I put into this system, including games.

I play my Wii U for a few hours every few months. I haven't had a problem yet. I have a lot of Virtual Console games downloaded to it, and I'm scared of getting this error and losing all of them.

Fun fact: emmc flash is exactly the same as an sd card, it's just in a different package.

I still use my dark Wii U and my white Wii U use still to this day and they have no problems whatsoever so far and as of right now

Does “not being used” mean only for consoles that have been unplugged and tucked away for a long time? I’ve not played my Wii u for a little over a year but it’s been plugged in the whole time. Does this mean it’s safe or is it still at risk?

I literally found out about this and actually had my Wii U collecting dust for a good 5 years. Luckily enough It didn’t brick, now I’m constantly using it.

I owned the black Wii U but then didn’t like the glossy black finish and sold it and went with the white Wii U which came with skylanders. Haven’t used it in years I hope it still works!

My wii u is completely broken then? Nintendooooo why

I have a question. My Wii U has been acting... weird while gaming and loading. For example: Wind Waker HD: called all the islands Tingle Island until I turned the console off and on again. Wii Fit (wii mode): The trainer did not load in so the exercise was just the gym background with the music but no dialogue. Also it seems to take a weirdly long time to load between the logo and homescreen and while opening games It's a model: WUP 101(02). Could it be a memory issue?

I have a bricked WiiU, it was a modded 32gb. Now, it just has a red blinking light when it powers on, no screens, no input responses. The only possibility of a fix that I have found involves using a modded Switch.

Nintendo Switch has a similar problem. The issues comes from Nintendo going with cheap Nand-components. The same Nand components on cartridges that may become corrupt over time.. Yes you can reflash those, but in my opinion that goes beyond the knowledge and or equipment that people posses at home.. I had mine Launch edition give up with corrupt nand at which point wasn't worth fixing it.

Would you be willing to do a video walking through the steps of how to backup the nand?

Is the controller on the nand flash being stressed, like would a heatsink(assuming it could physically get space) help and make it last longer?...well trying to see if it could fit under the big plate, heatsink u pulled, i see there is like a dent going down to the chips on it.. im guessing it not make contact since no thermopaste, and seems not really made to actually touch it.. but i guess makes less space for adding own heatsink

Modded mine back in 2014 and had it ever since. I pulled it out last year or the year before and ran through wind waker again since it's the best way to play the game currently on actual hardware. No issues. Guess I'm just lucky

Thank you for this PSA. I'm going to look into backing up my NAND. I was going to "jailbreak" my Wii U anyway once the eShop shut down.

Thinking back, I did get an error a couple times while I was streaming LEGO City Undercover a couple months ago, I didn't think much on it before, but I'll need to go back and look at the streams to see what the error was

My Wii U was u touched for almost 2 years and when I booted it up 4 months ago, ALL OF MY SAVES were gone?!? What???

I bought a used Wii U. Modded the console really fast and started to use it

Nintendo didn't wanted to make a videogame that lasted long. I believe this is how Nintendo thinks: When the console is discontinued they don't get any more money from it but people still spends money on them, money that could be used on the newest Nintendo hardware.

do you think we can in the future upgrade the mmc contollerr in the wiiiu to like 1tb

Re Game Preservation: many of the WiiU titles that have gotten ports feel DRASTICALLY different when played on Switch. Heck, the original Splatoon has completely different mechanics than Splatoon2, including how the map and superjump work during matches. And yes, some of us do still play the OG. Pretendo Network has done amazing work to get online play functional again.

I’m devastated and this has quite frankly shook my commitment to collect physical games only. I tried plugging my WiiU in last month and discovered it was bricked 😢 .

The Wii U was massively underrated

i have this exact issue. i dont get the error message at all though, it will just infinitely play the startup screen

Seems to me like this error has nothing to do with “not playing for a certain amount of time”. Seems the chip could just fail at any time.

My Wii U didn’t work when I started it up after a few years but I just had to swap the battery in the console. They luckily made it easy to access and that fixed it. I think even having no battery in was better than the battery that had been in there iirc.

Points for the Wii U for having an actually retro store. RIP

Kinda related, but I've had a couple of perfectly fine Wii U games just QUIT WORKING. The discs are completely fine, but the games won't play. The games appear on the Wii U menu, and they'll even show the title screen when launched, maybe. But after that, the error code pops up: 150-1031. Happened with Super Smash Bros. years ago and slightly more recently, 3D World. I've tried formatting the Wii U, deleting save data (ouch!), and nothing worked. Even though that was years ago, I'm still kinda ticked.

I was a staunch defender of the Wii U during it's life, and my black 32GB Wii U with Super Mario 3D World pre-installed is still running well... ...but now that I have a Switch and as more issues with the Wii U pop up now a decade after its launch, I'm starting to see that tech-wise: the Wii U was a _horribly designed_ machine by Nintendo standards. Take upgrading memory storage, for instance: The Switch, 3DS and the OG Wii all use generic SD cards that you can pop in and out of the system to expand save space. For the most part, not a hassle and doesn't get in the way of anything. _But not the Wii U!_ The Wii U only gives you 32GB to start with (8GB if you only have the white model) on a proprietary permanently soldered-in chip, then makes you hook up bulky external hard drives with their own A/C adapters and everything. And now we know that very same internal NAND is a ticking time bomb. Brilliant. One really has to really wonder what was Nintendo thinking with that, and what corners were cut when designing the Wii U. That's annoying in and of itself, but what really turns storage into a nightmare is Nintendo Network ID - All purchases on NNID consoles (Wii U and 3DS) are _locked to the original console only._ A disk-based game will work on any Wii U, but downloadable games and DLC that you backed up to said external drive will only work on _your_ console. The only way to transfer those purchases to another Wii U or 3DS is by using your original system to do a System Transfer. But if your Wii U is bricked and Nintendo will no longer service them - well, your Shit Out Of Luck. You would've had to rebuy everything, but now that Wii U and 3DS eShop is closing you can't even do _that._ (The OG Wii also has this problem, though 80%+ of it's games were all physical with no DLC anyway. Other than Virtual Console and a few standouts, there's not much lost tbh. Plus there's 100 million Wii's out in the wild, so it's easy to replace.) People love to complain about Nintendo Accounts and Switch Online, but it's a godsend over what the Wii U and 3DS had. Switch purchases are all tied to online accounts just like Steam and Microsoft, so you can at least redownload your games onto a new Switch if your current one bricks. I loved it during it's time, but frankly the Wii U is a bad system with bad infrastructure. And if Nintendo finds a way to port the last remaining standouts, it won't surprise me to see the system fall off the face of the earth entirely.