HBC/homebrew not recognizing second Wiimote

I recently acquired one of the new horizontal Wii "family editions" running system menu 4.3. I had no trouble installing HBC via letterbomb or running emulators (FCE Ultra Gx, SNES9x Gx) in single player with the included wiimote but for whatever reason, I can't get any homebrew to recognize my second wiimote. There is absolutely no issue with the HBC recognizing the wiimote that came with the system, even when its synced as player 2.

As soon as the HBC launches, the second wiimote disconnects, regardless of whether or not its synced as 1 or 2. It will not reconnect again until returning to the system menu.

The wiimotes have been permanently synced via the red buttons. "Official" applications have no issues recognizing either.

I've tried multiple steps including clearing the sync by holding down the synchro button on the Wii and then resyncing one at a time, clearing sync and resyncing the controllers in a different order (when I do this, the homebrew will recognize the original wiimote as player 2), uninstalling HBC, clearing/resyncing, reinstalling HBC, etc. Throughout this process I unplugged the wii and removed batteries from the wiimotes a number of times.

I've tried syncing while in the HBC and homebrew apps as well and it does nothing.

The only thing I can think of that I haven't done is delete and reload everything on the SD card. I don't know if this will make any difference though as I don't know if the apps or the HBC store any wiimote related settings on the SD card.

One thing I initially considered as a possible root cause was the fact that I first synced the second wiimote after installing the HBC, but I assume uninstalling and reinstalling the HBC should have corrected that.

I find it strange that it always recognizes the included wiimote regardless of what player it is synced as. I did note the manual indicated that the included wiimote is factory synced. Would this mean they simply went through the red button sync process or is there some sort of permanent firmware or hardware sync? I assume that it wouldn't be the latter, but unfortunately there's not really a lot of information regarding it online, and almost no information other than press releases for the wii family edition.

Any insight or suggestions would be most appreciated.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 01/07/2012 10:08PM by skottac.

You can't sync Wii remotes while in homebrew (be it the HBC or any app). You must sync with the red buttons while on the Wii menu or in a Wii game. That's the only way to sync them.

Thats what I did multiple times, before attempting it while in homebrew to see if that would make any difference, as noted above, it did not.

I have this problem as well. I sync the two nintendo wii remotes while on the system channel and they both register fine. As soon as I launch HBC or snes9x gx (using a forwarder) from the system menu, both remote lose sync and only one regains it. Is there an app to sync the remotes after going into homebrew channel?

Use the latest version of snes9xgx. If you already are using the latest version and you've properly synced both remotes using the red button while at the system menu, your second wiimote (the one that won't sync in homebrew) must not be genuine.

I had this happen with my 4th WiiMote and from what I can tell it's some sort of internal WiiMote registration/ID conflict and/or controller#<=---=>player# mapping issue. Just remove the batteries from all the controllers and press the red button inside the battery compartment of the problematic one. Then put the batteries back into the other ones and reactivate them one by one. The one which created the conflict with your problematic WiiMote will take slighly longer as it gets reassigned a new registration/ID number or mapping or whatever within homebrew. Tada!