PSVita: How to create PBOOT Homebrew Bubbles on 3.60+ with PSVIMGTools

Oh yeah!! Thanks to yifanlu, Proxima, xyzz, Qwikrazor87 and Davee everyone who missed the opportunity to create PBOOT Bubbles on a lower Firmware or updated above 3.60 can now also create Homebrew Bubbles without the need of a second Vita on lower firmware. Much more is possible with the PSVIMGTools but for now we are going to focus on how to make our own Homebrew Bubbles on our Vita or PSTV with the PBOOT Method.

What you need:
PSVita with a PSP Game installed
psvimgtools
CMA/OpenCMA/QCMA
ARK 3.60 PBOOT and Savedata

1. Get your PSN Account AID. To get it you will need to connect your Vita to your PC if you have never done it before and open CMA so that it can detect your Vita. If you have done that you can find your PSN AID like this: PS Vita/PGAME/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/NPJH00053/game/game.psvimg

The xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx will be your PSN AID that you can use to decrypt your CMA Backups.

2. Now generate your decryption Key at cma.henkaku.xyz.

3. Now find your PSP Games Folder and copy it to your psvimgtools folder. If you have multiple PSP Backups you can find the correct game by going to PS Vita/PGAME/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/xxxxxxxxx/sce_sys/
The second xxxxxxxxx is the ID of the PSP Game you backed up. Just open the sce_sys folder and look at the icon0.png to check if it is the correct game.

4. Now open the psvimgtools folder in a cmd shell and run: psvimg-extract -K Decryption-Key Path-To-game.psvimg Output-Directory

MAKE SURE THAT NEITHER YOUR INPUT DIRECTORY FOLDER NAMES OR YOUR OUTPUT DIRECTORY FOLDER NAMES HAVE SPACES IN THEM OR IT WILL NOT WORK CORRECTLY!
Here is an example of me running the program:

Yes I left part of my Key in it to make it easier to see where you will have to put your Key.
Leave the CMD Shell open since we will need it again later.

5. Extract the ARK Folder. Copy the PBOOT.PBP to J:\PSVita\Extracted-PSVIMG-Files\ux0_pspemu_temp_game_PSP_GAME_NPEG00006\
It should now look something like this:

6. Now we need to rebuild and encrypt our modified PSP Game. To do so run: psvimg-create -n game -K Decryption-Key Input-Directory Output-Directory
Here is an example of how I did it:

If it finished building correctly we can now copy our modified PSP Game back to our Vita.

7. Copy your modified game back to your CMA Folder. Next copy the ARK Savedata Folder called ARK_01234 to PS Vita\PSAVEDATA\xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx\

8. Now copy your modified PSP Game and the ARK_01234 Savedata to your PS Vita.

Congrats you now have a fully working ARK Homebrew Bubble on your PS Vita without the need of a second Vita :D. Now you can do this with other Pboots as this works for all of them and we have some already done here.

Big Thanks to Yifanlu, xyzz, Proxima Qwikrazor87 and Davee for their Tools to make all this possible. With all these ways to modify a non hacked Vita we can now potentially use Savegame exploits and more which could potentially allow for new exploits on 3.61+ so I’m quite excited to see what we will be seeing done next with the help of psvimgtools. Maybe someone will even program a easier and more straightforward Application for his 😀 Also with this new way of putting Ark on current FW we could see a new FW update soon as we all know Sony love to kill those Kexploits.

Source: Reddit

About Darthsternie

Interested in everything Technical. Loves self-repairing Tech. Collector of Firmwares. Enthusiast Gamer and Anime Fan ^^

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31 comments

  1. will we be able to recreate tn-v and tn-x with sound with this new method and is there a video tutorial

    • No not yet. For TN-V someone would have to port it to the new exploit so that it could be used on 3.60+ and for TN-X we would need a new PSX Exploit

  2. Can you play vita back ups by using this method or that still only for 3.60?

  3. Wanted PSVIMG tools for Windows 32x

  4. question, extracted files are still pfs encrypted?

  5. Could you make a video guide on this pt 4 was a bit difficult for me. And others have the same problem

  6. I’m seriously having trouble with step 4

  7. I keep getting error during step 6. The program keeps saying that my input directory is not a directory.
    What is odd is that I use that same input directory as and output directory and it writes to that directory, so clearly it can read the directory.

    • What are you using as Input Directory for Step 6? Don’t use the exact directory name of the extracted game like this: psvimg-create -n game -K Decryption-Key J:\PSVita\Extracted-PSVIMG-Files\ux0_pspemu_temp_game_PSP_GAME_NPEG00006\ Output-Directory but instead use the directory above the extracted folder like: J:\PSVita\Extracted-PSVIMG-Files\

      • im getting a message of WARNING: skippin game/game.psvimg because it is not a directory
        plsss help im stuck at step 6

  8. I keep getting an invalid Key error when trying to use my decryption key. What am I doing wrong? I’ve typed out the decryption key exactly as the henkaku site gives me. I even checked it over, and found no mistakes.

  9. MY virus scanner tells me that psvimg-extract.exe is a virus so access is denied on step 6

  10. Hi, i did all the steps bellow correctly but nothing is shown on my PS vita, like the “Ark” bubble.

    I have 3.63 fw installed and did not had henkaku or anything before i tried this tutorial.

    Did i get something wrong?

    Thank you

  11. For me i’m stuck at step 1, i’m unable to find my PSN AID. Ive install QCMA, Open CMA and the official CMA and i see in QCMA my username but cannot find my AID.

    I have on my Vita two PSP game, but QCMA dont see anything to backup.

    I have Windows 10 with the anniversary update.

    Why i cannot pass the step 1??

    Thanks alot (from canada)

  12. hey so I read it needs a psp game, is there any chance of losing that game/that savefile? if this is a chance would buying a cheap game be enough?

  13. I can’t run psvimg tools, it close immediately after I clicked it

    • you may need to do things manually like i had to.

      1.open up your command line
      2.cd to the directory where the tools are located and then do the commands listed (after inserting your AID ofcourse)

  14. Hi I do this but every time I connect my PS Vita to the PC and go to content manager (with QCMA), it saids “corrupted files” instead of showing ark…

  15. Help please in step 4, it says : no such files and the file is there

  16. Please help me, I can’t pass step 4, I tried everything just like you picture, this is my command:

    psvimg-extract -K a8fe79186aa601b3f4640902b86ddb48a94001e3c076c2f6a55100240c9f048d C:\Users\*****\Downloads\Vita\psvimgtools-0.1\psvimgtools-0.1\PGAME\6ee3fcd44b01ac20\ULUS10297\game\game.psvimg C:\Users\*****\Documents\Output

    What I’m doing wrong? It keep sayig its not recognized.

  17. Hi, it said i needed a psp game on my vita but i dont have any. is it possible to get one without updating my vita? i do have a ps1 game on my vita tho.

  18. I’ve followed the tutorial and I managed to follow the complete tutorial. ARK working fine on a Vita 3.60 that I used to connect via USB to my PC and transfer all files.
    Then I put the card on a PSTV 3.63, tried to launch ARK and getting:
    “Cannot start this application. You must download the application again from [Download List] in [PS Store] (C0-9249-4)”
    Any idea what has gone wrong and how I can fix it so that I can launch ARK on my PSTV 3.63?

  19. The game got corrupt and needs to be reinstalled.

  20. So I did everything in the guide, got it copied over and all it does when I launch it is very quickly I can see the Starting text on the top left of the screen, but then flashes to a red screen and goes back to the menu screen.

    Not sure what I did wrong, but yeah…