I bought a Wii U a while back and eventually decided to add on the Wii Fit U package with the balance board and all, because you know I love movement games. But it's been the biggest pain of the games, because it has a really bad freezing problem. I looked online and got past my first issue, but when it recurred (no idea why) I called Nintendo to see if they had an answer. Nope, they told me to send the game & console back for repair, which I didn't particularly want to do. Thankfully, I found a work around right after, so I'm writing up my experiences in hopes that this might help someone else.

First issue: Freezing when attempting to sync the Fit Meter (pedometer)

I booted and played the game for the first time, no troubles... this included syncing my Fit Meter to my profile. However, the very next time that I tried to run the game, it froze going in when it tried to sync again ("Transmitting!" *dies*).

Frustrating. Internet searches told me I might have a problem with my Mii (user profile) if I had moved it from the Wii and I had previous Wii Fit data associated to it... which I didn't, but I did move it from my 3DS, so I thought maybe there was some issue. They suggested deleting my game data on the Wii U and trying with a different Mii - in the end, I deleted my game data which let me load the game normally, but I didn't delete that Mii, I used her again. It's unclear to me as to whether this eventually caused my later problem, so if I was doing it all again, I'd probably have just recreated my Mii on the Wii U rather than transferring her.

So, game data deleted, went back in (and irritatingly had to do the opening tests again, which I wasn't much in the mood for while troubleshooting the game). This time, when I connected up the Fit Meter, I told it *not* to try to sync on start up. You have to do this before you power down the game that first time. I haven't had a problem syncing since, though, so this was the solution for me.

Second issue: Freezing and buzzing on loading screen

A month or so later, after no troubles at all, I went to load up the game and it froze on the loading screen. It would bring up the "Wii Fit U" logo and play its little tune, and then when it got to a certain point in the fade-down, it froze and made a buzzing sound. It was reproducible: I tried a lot of things, some suggested by the internet and some basic troubleshooting. Here's the things I tried, none of which helped the game load.

- Shut it down and restarted (the basic "turn it off and on again")
- Checked the physical disk (no damage)
- Unplugged the system from the wall for 30 seconds
- Updated the console (it did need an update, but it didn't help)
- Tried another game (New Super Mario Bros U, worked fine)
- Set my Miiverse language settings to English only (suggested by the internet)
- Removed my internet connection entirely in case it was trying and failing to phone home for some reason (suggested by the internet)
- Checked the fans were running (suggested by tech support)
- Deleted the game update data and reinstalled it (suggested by tech support)

I was pretty frustrated at this point. Nothing had changed at all, and the game simply stopped working. Eventually (the next day, perhaps), I guess I remembered my previous Mii problem, so I tried starting up the console under M's profile. It worked no problem, and I could switch to my profile in game.

What the hell.

If you are having freezing problems, try a second profile - a local profile with no Nintendo network account was the one that worked for me. It turns out my problem is also inconsistent: I booted the game today (twice, actually) while writing this post and had no problem loading it directly under my profile. I'm suspicious that it is a Nintendo network issue, but I have no proof as such... just that the day it wouldn't load, there was a heavy traffic issue because of the Mario Kart launch & second game redemption. And that the second profile that couldn't even try to connect was the one that worked.

For all my frustration, I'm loving the game. I'll try to write up a quick review soon, but it's a really solid choice for if you want a movement/fitness game but don't really have the space to play Kinect games. I don't have to rearrange my living room for this one, and I can play with it while watching TV if I want because of the gamepad, so I can feel like I'm being sort of productive by doing step routines or boxing.