Rock Band 2 Instruments not working

[Alternity]

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.

The game isn't updated, but the first time you boot any RB games it will update the system to install the necessery IOS files for the instruments to work, like DLLs on windows. If this process was halted, or never happened, this is where the problem is. If the console was homebrewed, this is most likely it, however, I am probably not permitted to dicuss the solution on here if this is the case.

[Icemage]

The game isn't updated, but the first time you boot any RB games it will update the system to install the necessery IOS files for the instruments to work, like DLLs on windows. If this process was halted, or never happened, this is where the problem is. If the console was homebrewed, this is most likely it, however, I am probably not permitted to dicuss the solution on here if this is the case.

Are you talking about firmware? That's true of every game, not just Rock Band games, and would only happen once in any case, and automatically - and if it wasn't done the game wouldn't start at all. I have never heard of a Wii firmware upgrade that broke any controllers (there was one Beta update on the Xbox 360 dashboard that did break musical instruments, but that was on the 360 last year, not the Wii).

[Alternity]

Are you talking about firmware? That's true of every game, not just Rock Band games, and would only happen once in any case, and automatically - and if it wasn't done the game wouldn't start at all. I have never heard of a Wii firmware upgrade that broke any controllers (there was one Beta update on the Xbox 360 dashboard that did break musical instruments, but that was on the 360 last year, not the Wii).

Trust me, I know alot about the wii's file system. If the update wasn't made, the game would still boot, but th RB instruments wouldn't work. It's not a firmware version, it's really only the IOS files for the instrument that is installed.

[MomOf2Girls71]

Hi Icemage,

Thanks so much for all the helpful information. We have tried all of your suggestions to no avail. I should mention that we also have the keyboard for Rock BAnd 3, which uses a dongle, & it connects & works just fine. It was bought only a year ago. I am leary of buying something new since this one seemed to crap out just after the 2 year warranty was up. to me, was not worth the $200 I paid for the game, on top of the $250 for the Wii itself! I like you, am having a hard time grasping the idea that both instruments quit at the same time. If you have other suggestions, please throw them my way, as my kids LOVE this game & I know this time of year, it would get a lot of use!

Thanks so much again!

[Icemage]

If the RB3 keyboard is working but the other instruments aren't, then it's definitely either the dongles or the instruments themselves, and not the Wii hardware.

The only way to know for sure is to find someone else who has working instruments of the same type (Wii guitar and drums) and test both the dongles and the instrument controllers with their working dongles and instruments. This, however, may be very difficult unless you know someone who has the game on the Wii. Even if the problem is the dongles, finding replacements for those is nigh on impossible without a lot of trawling through craglist/ebay.

In any case, the "simplest" (I use quotes here because it may not be so simple) solution would be to replace the controllers and dongles, but because the hardware itself has been out of production for a couple of years, you may have a lot of difficulty finding replacements, let alone replacements at a reasonable price.