Rock Band 2 Instruments not working

[MomOf2Girls71]

Hi!

My Guitar & Drums are not working for my Rock Band 2 & I am out of warranty, Harmonix website suggested possibly posting here for some help in fixing it myself, or finding someone local to fix it for me, does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks!

[Alternity]

Would be nice to know on which console you are, and more details on what's happening.

[MomOf2Girls71]

I'm sorry, I am using it on Wii.

When turned on, the lights flash but the instruments do not respond. We have changed batteries more than once.

Thanks.

[Alternity]

You have the dongles plugged in the wii? Are you sure the update that came with the game were made?

[MomOf2Girls71]

Yes the dongles are plugged in. Not sure what update you are referring to, or how we would do this, we don't use internet on our wii.

[Alternity]

The first time you boot the game, it asks to do an update for the instruments support (it doesnt say that it's for the instruments, but it actually is), I'm not sure on how to verify that the update has indeed been done. You say that the lights on the guitar and the drums are flashing, flashing as it would be trying to connect to the dongle?

I think that the instruments works, and the problem is more software than hardware, but obviously, I can't confirm. Try pressing the button on the dongle and the button on the instrument to pair them.

[nuttzo31]

I thought the wii uses the wii remote and there are no dongles?

[Alternity]

The guitar hero instruments are detected as classic controllers, they are plugged in the wiimote. The rock band instrument uses dongles, like on the PS3.

[MomOf2Girls71]

Yes, the drums & Guitar both have dongles. We have tried pressing the reset buttom as well as the Home button at the same time as the button on the dongle, the 4 lights just continue to flash, all at the same time, at a rather fast speed. It almsot seems as though it is the dongles, do these go bad, if so, can they be replaced?

[Icemage]

Couple of clarifications:

The Wii version of Rock Band (all editions) were never updated in any way because the Wii console itself does not lend itself well to games being updated, so that's not your problem.

A few more questions to try and rule out some possible causes:

(a) How are your dongles connected to the Wii? Looking at my Wii unit, there are 2 USB ports in the back of the unit, and I don't recall offhand if the Wii version of Rock Band 2 came with dongles that allowed daisy-chaining (connecting dongles to one another) or whether it came with a USB hub.

First thing to try is one dongle at a time (disconnect the other while testing), and switch it from one USB port to another. It defies belief that both would malfunction at the same time (dongles are usually the last thing that will go bad on an instrument, since they consume very little power and have no moving parts).

(b) Another thing to try is find a friend who owns a Wii and test the dongles on their system. It could be your console itself that is having some sort of internal issue with the USB ports.

Be aware that if you try this and find out that the Wii hardware itself is the problem, your headaches may not end if you've purchased any downloadable content for Rock Band (or any other game, including games on the Virtual Console) on your Wii. Your purchases are tied to the hardware, and only Nintendo is able to move purchases - which usually involves you buying a new console and paying for shipping for both units to Nintendo for a "repair" service where they'll move your purchases over.

There's also one last option, which is purchasing the new Wii U console and using the Migration Tool to move your content from the Wii to the Wii U, but this won't fix anything if the dongles or the instruments themselves are the issue.