Project M Troubleshooting Guide [2.6]

[Mithost]

Mithost's Project M Troubleshooting Guide

In an attempt to help people become proactive in fixing their problems with Project M, I decided to make this thread. Many glitches and problems can be diagnosed and fixed by going through the same checklist, so I'll try to provide this checklist here. Before you post a thread, try the actions below to fix your problems yourself. These are meant for console problems such as Freezing, Missing/Corrupted Content, Desyncing Online, and problems loading the game.

What you should try before you ask for help:

1. Make sure your SD card is a non-SDHC/SDXC 2GB (or below) card. The Wii's hardware and all three methods of loading P:M have major compatibility issues with higher storage and SDHC SD cards.
2. Make sure the SD card is not locked. There is usually a small switch on the side of the SD card that will have a locked and unlocked position.
3. Your SD card should be formatted in FAT32 or FAT format (FAT32 is suggested). If you are unsure on how to do this, click this link. http://www.ehow.com/how_4923639_format-sd-card-fat.html (This will remove all content from the SD card, so back up any important information beforehand)
4. Try defragging your SD card. Depending on your operating system, removable media drivers, and other factors, the method for doing this is different. However, formatting your SD card using the steps above will accomplish the same effect.
5. Ensure that all content from the installer/zip is on the card. Missing/replaced files will usually crash the game
unless you are well versed in P:M customization.
6. Make sure your custom content (if you use any) is Project M compatible. Audio and retextures are usually OK, but PSAs, stages, and 'renamed bones/rigs' need to be tweaked for P:M by their creators. If you are not sure if your custom content is breaking Project M for you, try loading vP:M via the installer or zip with no extra content.
7. "Downgrading" selective content to a previous version by file replacement or codeset changes is not supported, so crashes/unintended glitches are to be expected if you do so.
8. Always make sure vBrawl works on your Wii. P:M uses a lot of the data on the disc, so if it is damaged or your Wii cannot read discs, P:M will probably not work as intended.
9. If you are using the Hackless Method, make sure you have zero custom stages on both your Wii and your SD card. The Brawl save file comes with three stages, and the Smash Service will place a stage on your save as well, so make sure to remove them.
10. Only the Wifi-Safe version can save replays and go online. Custom content and version differences will also cause problems with these two features. (edit: Nintendo WFC is officially offline. There are alternatives that you can find via a simple google search. This guide will not cover any issues that have to do with such alternatives.)
11. If vBrawl is freezing at the Stage Select Screen after running P:M Hackless, make sure that you remove your SD card from your Wii. The custom stage that loads P:M gets semi-loaded during stage selection, and Brawl doesn't know how to deal with it outside of the Stage Builder screen.

If you have any questions regarding the steps above, feel free to PM me or post here.

 

[Exodo]

hello, today my friend came to my house telling me if i wanted to get my wii hacked, getting homebrew channel. so basically what happened was that he hacked my wii got me the homebrew channel and all the other stuff and when i tried to play P:M with him, hackless method, through the disk, while using the pokemons squirtle ivy and charizard, we had some problems, for example the new colors didint work and went to the old version from brawl colors and when the match ended it appeared as if we where using the pokemon trainer, and another problem we had was that while trying to put hyrule castle map form n64, the world from brawl loaded instead and the game freezed, we tried formatting again the sd card and again adding everything from the zip file back in the sd but still we had the problems. so i thought it has to do with the fact he hacked the wii but i dont know, HELP!!

 

[HyperrCrow]

Someone needs to sticky this

 

[Mithost]

hello, today my friend came to my house telling me if i wanted to get my wii hacked, getting homebrew channel. so basically what happened was that he hacked my wii got me the homebrew channel and all the other stuff and when i tried to play P:M with him, hackless method, through the disk, while using the pokemons squirtle ivy and charizard, we had some problems, for example the new colors didint work and went to the old version from brawl colors and when the match ended it appeared as if we where using the pokemon trainer, and another problem we had was that while trying to put hyrule castle map form n64, the world from brawl loaded instead and the game freezed, we tried formatting again the sd card and again adding everything from the zip file back in the sd but still we had the problems. so i thought it has to do with the fact he hacked the wii but i dont know, HELP!!

What kind of SD card are you using? Is the SD card locked? Have you tried using a different SD card (like the one your friend uses)? It seems like the Wii is having some trouble accessing certain .pac files, but gecko was able to load the codelist fine.

 

[Exodo]

im using a minisd 1gb with a mini sd adapter, you might be right i guess, i think i should get another one then :/, thanks for helping me!! ill tell you if it fixed the problem.

 

[Mithost]

Yeah, I've heard that mirco SDs don't have a high success rate for P:M. The Wii just isn't made to use them I guess.

 

[Exodo]

PROBLEM SOLVED!!! thanks Mithost, this game is awesome i f*cking love it, looking foward for 2.7, i hope it comes soon or else O.o.... :D

 

[Mithost]

You're welcome.

 

[Mithost]

Could this possibly get a sticky? It provides a lot of information that prevents a lot of duplicate threads :U

 

[Ezzee]

im using a minisd 1gb with a mini sd adapter, you might be right i guess, i think i should get another one then :/, thanks for helping me!! ill tell you if it fixed the problem.

I did this too without realizing it and now not only does P:M not work, but I'm having serious problems with just getting Brawl to work. Any suggestions?

 

[bberenato]

Hello I'm having trouble, I can start up P:M but once I get to to the title screen the background is not correct im not sure why and then when I try to play the Game freezes. I tried reinstalling it a few times and changed formats so im not really sure what to do. Would really like some help if possible.

 

[MaxThunder]

Hello I'm having trouble, I can start up P:M but once I get to to the title screen the background is not correct im not sure why and then when I try to play the Game freezes. I tried reinstalling it a few times and changed formats so im not really sure what to do. Would really like some help if possible.

http://i.imgur.com/2XJcbly.jpg see if this pic locates the problem... if not make sure the maximum capacity for the card shown in properties isn't 3.something gb... also it's better to make a new thread than resurrect an old thread like this... or at least post in a more recent thread...

 

[ElPanandero]

I go through stage builder, get to the Screen with "launch, update, about and quit" on it, and when I click launch it freezes, and when I click about the verion and codeset lines say unknown. Anyone got any help?

 

[MastaDontay72]

i get to the screen where it says play and update and about and stuff and when i click play and the game loads up i dont have the correct screen and the game freezes im on my wii u and i have a wii sd card 2g can someone help please

 

[MrNeonShot]

I'm using the homebrew version of project m. When I try to use a nunchuck on the wiimotes, it sometimes won't work properly.
When I tried to use Samus, it didn't work, and it gave me an error screen. I'm re-installing it to my SDHC 8gb sd card, and I formatted it just in case. If it doesn't work, I'll reply. What do I do?

 

[Swswan]

Im using a pal wii and have loaded an ntsc version of the game through usb loader gx.
Whilst running regular brawl the loader seemed to work well, i changed some settings trying to fix the first issue i had (i will explain) and i think it caused it to freeze, but not sure at this point.
One problem i have definitely had is problems loading project m in the usb loader.
I both switch ocarina on and change the hook to what is instructed. It loads to brawl (so there is no project m banner that appears and the characters in the intro are not hazed purple). When i get to the character select i move my cursor around a little and the console will freeze and emmit a buzzing/humming noise.
This was the first issue i had.
Next, i changed the video settings to 'force pal50'.
This slowed everything down a LOT and ruined the pixel quality, however it meant i could try out some of the new characters that were on character select.
As it turns out, project m wasnt even active at this point as the only 'new' chars was the division of the pokemon trainer into 3 seperate areas. Same for Shiek and zero suit samus.
The melee styled gravity and play style did not work.

i've followed the 'project M on a pal wii' guide from this forum to no avail, ive completed step 10 and 11 and have the sd card in my wii to load the usb loader gx and then smash bros brawl with ocarina.

Is it possible i need to load gecko through the usb loader gx, onto the ntsc version of brawl using the custom map/arena generator?

I would very much like to have P.M working on my wii and i've looked everywhere i can for solutions to these problems which is how i got this far.
Can someone please show me the way?

In relation to this thread in particular, i think the sd card is named 'project m' so il change that.
im thinking im gonna need to do a clean reinstall at this point :/ please help!
if all of these fail il try a new sd card.
the one ive got is psd 1mb.
I'm not sure if its a good model of sd card - it was used for my phoe but its definitely formatted to fat 32 with all of the project m and usbloadergx files available.

 

[Colin Smith]

It seems like a unique glitch considering that no one has been able to help me, but I recently reinstalled a fresh version of Project M because my previous version was too glitched out, but the problem is that when I start up Brawl, go to Stage Builder, it'll go to the Gecko OS page like normal, I'll start it up, it'll say "SD codes found. Applying." But then it'll simply restart Brawl. I've tried EVERYTHING to fix the problem but nothing works. What should I do?

 

[Mithost]

It seems like a unique glitch considering that no one has been able to help me, but I recently reinstalled a fresh version of Project M because my previous version was too glitched out, but the problem is that when I start up Brawl, go to Stage Builder, it'll go to the Gecko OS page like normal, I'll start it up, it'll say "SD codes found. Applying." But then it'll simply restart Brawl. I've tried EVERYTHING to fix the problem but nothing works. What should I do?

Try clearing everything off of the SD card and getting the files fresh from the site. It sounds like you are either missing files or using slightly outdated ones.

 

[OMN15145H]

Ok, I just got v3.02 yesterday, and it works fine on my Wii right up until I select "Launch Game" on the boot menu. Instead of starting the game, the system just resets back to the Wii Menu. Any ideas on what I should do?

 

[Colin Smith]

Try clearing everything off of the SD card and getting the files fresh from the site. It sounds like you are either missing files or using slightly outdated ones.

That's the weird thing... I've done that and I come up with the same result. I've tried deleting everything, formatting the SD card and neither work. I downloaded a fresh copy from here as well. I'm getting a new SD card to see if that's the issue because I feel like the card is too glitched out for P:M because there was a weird glitch one time where it started creating infinite folders that I couldn't delete. I even had to jump hoops to format the dang thing.

 

[YoshiDragon240]

My SD Card says it only has 1.83 GB of space. Is that normal, or will my card not work?

 

[Colin Smith]

My SD Card says it only has 1.83 GB of space. Is that normal, or will my card not work?

That's normal. It needs to use a tiny bit of memory to handle file management.

 

[Mithost]

That's the weird thing... I've done that and I come up with the same result. I've tried deleting everything, formatting the SD card and neither work. I downloaded a fresh copy from here as well. I'm getting a new SD card to see if that's the issue because I feel like the card is too glitched out for P:M because there was a weird glitch one time where it started creating infinite folders that I couldn't delete. I even had to jump hoops to format the dang thing.

The card might be dying out. Just as another precaution, what format is your SD card formatted too? It could be possible that it's just on some obscure formatting that the Wii can't handle.

 

[Colin Smith]

The card might be dying out. Just as another precaution, what format is your SD card formatted too? It could be possible that it's just on some obscure formatting that the Wii can't handle.

It's set on FAT. I tried FAT32 as well and got the same result.
The weird thing is that I got a new 2 GB SD card today and I got nowhere with it! i EVEN TRIED DOWNLOADING v7 (damn caps) and it didn't work.

 

[YoshiDragon240]

Can having an SD Card with Project M freeze or overheat your Wii? Because I've had the card in my Wii and played NORMAL Brawl and it froze and started beeping, but I took it out and my Wii was fine.

 

[Mithost]

Can having an SD Card with Project M freeze or overheat your Wii? Because I've had the card in my Wii and played NORMAL Brawl and it froze and started beeping, but I took it out and my Wii was fine.

Hi there! I have this covered in the guide above. I'll quote it below.

11. If vBrawl is freezing at the Stage Select Screen after running P:M Hackless, make sure that you remove your SD card from your Wii. The custom stage that loads P:M gets semi-loaded during stage selection, and Brawl doesn't know how to deal with it outside of the Stage Builder screen.

 

[BludragonXX]

Hey I'm new to project M but I felt I had to ask this question because its been driving me crazy for 4 days. I downloaded project M at first and it worked fine with no glitches or anything, but I wanted the Patt Edition. I've downloaded and extracted the files from his website, that didn't work. Then I got the exact files from my friend who has the edition, but when I go to stage builder, you see the loading circle for a second (so it recognizes that there's an SD card) but then it proceeds on as if there's nothing on the card. I can check my card to see if there's any stages (there aren't) but it won't load. What should I do?

 

[gameprodigy12]

For some reason I downloaded Project M and for some reason it wont load from stage builder. I deleted all custom stages from my wii and sd card, but it still wont load it.

 

[EA4X]

I used the homebrew method and for some reason, not every custom file is loaded. After the warning screen and the link, it goes back to vanilla brawl assets until I get to the character selection screen. On top of that, stage selection is broken. The stage icons are on top of each other, and when I pick a stage it shows "loading" and then freezes. I've tried reinstalling at least 8 times. I'm using a 2 GB FAT32 SD card I've had for a few years. Could anyone here help me? I may be doing something wrong.

 

[Narpas_sword]

post a pic of the root of your SD

 

[EA4X]

Pardon the messiness

 

[Narpas_sword]

so... you obviously dont use it jsut for PM.

but i feel like you should at least have a 'projectm' folder.

 

[EA4X]

Yeah, I tried that as well. it didn't work either.

I think I'll just clear my sd card and add everything necessary to run project m and see how it goes.

 

[Narpas_sword]

'tried that'?

Dude, you NEED the projectm files.

or theres nothing for it to load...

 

[EA4X]

I put them there. It didn't work, after many tries. After that, I just started fiddling with the folder locations. I even tried manually putting pf in the RSBE folder(which is where it was at the time of that screenshot, sorry). Got the same result, and that's why I'm asking for ideas. It may be my SD card, though I'm doubtful. I had the same problem installing Brawl Minus, but I eventually got that to work after a time

 

[Narpas_sword]

So, what happens when you unzip the homebrew download, open the homebrew folder and stick what's inside it on the root of your Sd card like you should?

 

[EA4X]

Don't worry, I got it working. Thanks though. I was trying to run the launcher version through Gecko OS, which was my own fault. I read the install instructions but couldn't tell that when it said

"If you're using a Homebrew method, simply delete any previous version of Project M, extract the files to your SD card then boot Homebrew and select Gecko OS."

it was referring to the "Gecko GCT". I couldn't tell which version I was supposed to download—all I knew was "homebrew version". Sometimes I need things spelled out for me ^_^

Again, thanks for your time.

 

[Boss N]

So I gave my Wii away to my girlfriend and ever since I've been running PM on my WiiU. It worked fine for awhile but a week ago when the new system update downloaded, every time I try to load it, it goes to the menu but then immediately cuts to a black screen filled with code. Something about Exception (SSI) occurred and stack Dumps, then I can't do anything and have to unplug my WiiU just to turn it off. No one I've asked around knows how to remedy this. HAAAAALP

 

[Harhardee]

So ever since 3.5, my game has been randomly crashing either when I start a match, during name selection, or right after stage selection. It's never happened before 3.5, and for some reason it seems to happen randomly, sometimes I can play a few matches before the crash, sometimes it does it the first try. The console can read all other discs fine, including Brawl, just not PM. I've tried re-downloading, re-formatting, and cleaning discs, but nothing seems to be working. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks

 

[Panudroid]

Any of the music PMBR replaced isn't working for me. For example, instead of playing the P:M 3.5 theme, it plays a sped up version of the menu1 song.
I have formatted and installed the game multiple times. Can someone help me?