Tutorial: Installing the PSP XMB – a 3.52 TN-V11 Custom Bubble – without an exploitable PSP game!
If you’re interested in using the PSP XMB on your PS Vita, even on firmwares 3.50 to 3.52, then you are going to love the following tutorial.
To successfully install the TN-V11 Custom Bubble we need a random PSP game as a base game & around 10-15 minutes of reading comprehension.
Qwikrazor’s Custom Bubbles for Firmwares 3.5x
Qwikrazor has decided to release a TN-V11 Custom Bubble for the PS Vita firmwares 3.5x, which may be easier to install than the ones of Major_Tom & Mr.gas.
While Qwikrazor’s Bubbles have less possibilites in terms of customisation, they do have the advantage of simplicity. Qwikrazor’s Bubbles are very easy to install.
Before I start with the tutorial, let me tell you that your PS Vita must not run Firmware 3.55 (or above) to follow this. If it already runs 3.55+ then you can’t follow this!
Requirements & Restrictions
At first you have to know what you need to successfully follow this tutorial, right? right!
We need a Playstation Vita (Fat/Slim/TV) that is running a firmware between 3.00 and 3.52. If you are on a lower firmware (such as 3.18, 3.36 or even 3.50) then there is no need to update to 3.52.
I would even say that updating from a lower Firmware to 3.52 is a bad idea. Keep in mind that you need to run at least system software 3.00, though.
We also need to have an Email account, the QCMA PC programm, a random PSP game as a base game, WinRAR/WinZIP/7-Zip and preferable the Thunderbird PC programm.
Before you can follow this tutorial, be sure that you have properly set up your Email application to enable you to write to the system partition.
If you didn’t do that yet, check out parts of this Article on how to do it. You only need to successfully set up the writer.eml for your Email account. No “dumping” required.
I assume that your Email application is properly set up, that you’ve have properly installed QCMA, Thunderbird, a ZIP opening programm and everything else you might had to install, so let me continue.
Always have a backup handy!
Before we start with the real deal, I would like you guys to connect your PS Vita to your PC and create a backup of your random base game. Just copy your base PSP game from your PS Vita to your PC and that’s pretty much it.
On the PC you should check the directory of your PS Vita related files (for me it would be Documents/PS Vita/PGAME/Letters&Digits/), in which you will find your game backup. In my example I am going to use UNO™ PSP (EU), which has a TitleID of NPEG00020.
It is important that you know your base game’s TitleID, since we are going to need it at a later time in this tutorial.
One Email and we’re done
As the header already tells you, we only have to send ourselves one Email and we are pretty much done with the whole PC part. But what should this email contain?
At first we should download Qwikrazor’s TN-V11 Files (for firmwares 3.5x).
Just click the download button at the top and it should download a ZIP-file which contains a TNV_0000 folder. This folder has to be copied to our other PS Vita savedata files (mine are located in Documents/PS Vita/PSAVEDATA/Letters&Digits/). It also contains a PBOOT.PBP file, which is the file we want to extract.
Now we should have this lone PBOOT.PBP file on our Computer and the TNV_00000 folder next to our other savedata files. Click on the QCMA icon in your tray (bottom right of your windows statusbar) and refresh the QCMA database.
Next we have to open Thunderbird. We open a new compose sheet and send ourselves an email. This email should contain no message at all, it should have the subject ux0:pspemu/PSP/GAME/*YourTitleID*/PBOOT.PBP (in my example it would be: ux0:pspemu/PSP/GAME/NPEG00020/PBOOT.PBP) & the email needs an attachment.
We choose our PBOOT.PBP as an attachment for the email and then, after the PBOOT.PBP file has been attached, we right-click the email’s attachment & rename the attachment from PBOOT.PBP to #0.
Everything done right? Subject is ux0:pspemu/PSP/GAME/*YourTitleID*/PBOOT.PBP and the attachment, our PBOOT.PBP file, is now called #0? Great!
Now send the email. – Some email providers will flag the just sent email as “suspected spam”, because it contains GAME in its subject.
This “suspected spam” detection might change the subject from ux0:pspemu/PSP/GAME/*YourTitleID*/PBOOT.PBP to *spam* ux0:pspemu/PSP/GAME/*YourTitleID*/PBOOT.PBP, which prevents us from installing the Custom Bubble!
Temporarily disable your email providers’ spam detected to get an email that has the proper subject: ux0:pspemu/PSP/GAME/*YourTitleID*/PBOOT.PBP.
Final steps – The Custom Bubble
If we have done everything right, we should now only have to use our PS Vita to get our own TN-V Custom Bubble.
Open the PS Vita’s Email application and search for your just sent email. Remember, as I said at the beginning, this only works if you have used the writer.eml trick before!
This said email should have an attachment called #0. This #0 attachment should have a photo icon, not a ?-icon! If it is not a photo icon then you’ve done something wrong.
If we click on this photo icon we should get an “Cannot display this image” error message. Any other error message is not what we want to happen.
It is important to say that if you get an error message you must not click on the OK button. Just use the PS-Button & close the email application after you got the desired error message.
Now disable your PS Vita’s Wifi & enable its Airplane mode. The next thing to do is to reboot the PS Vita.
After the PS Vita has turned off and on; we continue with the last step: Copying some files via the Content Manager.
Simply open the Content Manager and select “PS Vita -> Computer”, since we want to copy something from our Vita to our PC.
Now select PSP/other (Applications, at the top – Not savedata at the bottom!) and copy your base game from your PS Vita to your Computer. In my example I would copy my UNO game from my PS Vita to my PC.
If this was done successfully proceed with simply closing the Content Manager Application.
Now we re-open the Content Manager App and copy some files from our PC to our PS Vita. At first we go to our PSP savedata files and copy the TNV_00000 folder (blank name & icon) from our PC to our PS Vita.
Now we go back and select PSP/other (Applications, at the top) once again. We search for our base game (In my case the UNO game) and copy our base game from our PC to our PS Vita. We want to do this twice!
After we have copied the TN-V savedata & dealt with the base game stuff we should now see a TN-V eCFW Custom Bubble on our PS Vita homescreen. On the position your base game was should now be the TN-V Bubble, assuming you’ve successfully followed this tutorial.
Using TN-V for the first time
If this is your first time using the TN-V eCFW on your PS Vita, then you have to keep in mind that you have to an initial setup, before you can enjoy the XMB on your PS Vita. You only have to do this initial setup once.
For this initial setup you have to copy the 660.PBP (choose the 6.60 for the non-PSPgo devices) file into the TNV_00000 savedata folder, and transfer this (now updated) TNV_00000 folder to your PS Vita. The name of the downloaded EBOOT.PBP file has to be changed from EBOOT.PBP into 660.PBP.
Before & while you are starting the TN-V Custom Bubble, you have to keep the R trigger pressed. If done right a Recovery Menu should appear.
In said Recovery Menu you have to select Advanced, which will open a new sub-menu. This new sub-menu should contain an Install 6.60 Files function.
Select the Install 6.60 Files function and the device should install a few files onto your Memory stick. After this has reached 100%, you have to exit the Recovery Menu.
The PSP’s main menu – the PSP XMB – should now run on your PS Vita. The next time you run TN-V you won’t have to re-do this initial setup.


















So how does one install homebrew and such from here?
I have tried doing this 2 ways. Tried using a Base Game, but I get stuck at the Email Part. The File can not be accessed because it is in a Format that the Vita can not be used or executed. I tried setting up my Gmail Account on my Vita, but Gmail says the Vita is not secure enough to be used on it.
I tried Installing over ARK 2, but it does not work
You can manually approove your Vita in the account settings on google website. Account-> Sign-in and Security -> Allow less secure apps: ON
U need to setup Gmail for less secure apps
does this not work with apache overkill? I got everything installed, but when I try and run the game I just get the minis logo, followed by a black screen even though i’m holding R.
3.51 the base is “World of Pool”, “Patapon”, “101-in-1 Megamix” still got the WHITE SCREEN of death..
HELP!!!
tn-v11 installed, run fine.
but kingdom hearts bbs final mix (english patched) got black screen after psp start up logo, and cannot do anything. i have to hold the power button for 10 sec to bring vita recovery mode.
base game talkman travel tokyo and harvest moon holv.
HI, i followed this on 3.50 and got a white screen. so i downloaded 3.50_TN-V_BUBBLE.zip from somewhere and it worked great.
Thanks mate, totally worked for me. Googled “3.50_TN-V_BUBBLE.zip”, used first result of hackinformers and downloaded the file(s). Working on 3.30.
I am coming up with “done” under the image and the image is not openable. Can someone help me here?
Same here, did you figure it out?
Figured it out, I used hotmail and they rework the email internally apparently, created a gmx account like theZ uses and it works fine. Cheers
Can anyone tell me, how to install homebrew like Snes Emu+ Roms? I tryed anything but i have no clue how to get it working. Please some help
I you want I can walk you through it at this time tomorrow. I’ve got ISO’s and home brews running on 3.52 ark so it will be the same on TNV.
Hello, could you please walk me through this also? I have TNV running, but like Naughty said, i dont know how to install anything.
is there a way to install ARK TN-V and VHBL with custom bubble in the same time ??
Hi guys, can I use rejuvenate and tnv, can both of them coexist without any problem?
Thanks
Confirmed working with echochrome demo (npug80135)
Is there no way to get the PSP XMB working with ARK 2.0?
Thank you, i have already installed the custom bubble, very nice, but i can do nothing with it, bacause i dont know how to install snes emu or FTPvite, or pspfiler, can anyone tell me in a little tutorial, how to install?
ive done these steps multiple times but I keep getting a ? in my email what can I do, can you make a video for step by step instructions?
you have to use the writer.eml first. send the email to your account. open it and click on the photo. dont hit ok, just hit home button and close email app. open email app. setup your email account again then you are setup to use the #0 file
Although i haven’t done this yet, I am curious. ICurrently I have made a custom bubble with a working game using Ape quest. After the bubble has been made, what would happen if I deleted the base game from the Ps vita? Would the custom bubble stop working? What else could go wrong, and what happens if I want to use the same base game to make other bubbles?
Although i haven’t done this yet, I am curious. I currently I have made a custom bubble with a working game using Ape quest. After the bubble has been made, what would happen if I deleted the base game from the Ps vita? Would the custom bubble stop working? What else could go wrong, and what happens if I want to use the same base game to make other bubbles?
Although i haven’t done this yet, I am curious. I currently have a custom bubble with working game using Ape Quest. What would happen if I deleted the base game? Would the custom bubble stop working? Can i still use the same base game for other bubbles such as this tutorial?
I can’t seem to get the 660.PBP files to install. I get a 0x80010002 error. What does that mean? I extracted the eboot to the TN folder in PSAVEDATA file/lettersanddigits….
What am I doing wrong?
Does anybody know why it doesn’t work with Metal Gear Solid or how to fix it? (PSX game)
Hi,
Im on 3.50 and when i start the TVN Bubble it turns white and nothing else is happening. same for holding the R Trigger at the start.
Those are the wrong files use these: http://www.mediafire.com/download/g3oo2qi16ozolq3/3.50_TN-V_BUBBLE.zip
Follow the same instructions and it should work; it worked for me! 😀
Can someone please mirror the 3.3x files all from Z are down now and the direct link does not have the .PBP file….I tried more than 5 different tutorials for my 3.36FW using Patapon 1 as base game and King of Pool both did not work. Am I missing something?
Same here, only I found the file at http://www.psx-place.com/ps-vita-news/1779/ps-vita-tnv11-ecfw-for-fw336350-amp-a-new-game-exploit.html . It and others I have downloaded don’t have the EBOOT.PBP needed for this to work on 3.36
I’ve tried 3 times this tutorial using 3.5x bubble files and 3.3x (the direct link, since ZLOAD.net is out) both did not work. I’m on 3.36FW and using PATAPON 1 or KING OF POOL as base game….what am I missing? The error I get is a black screen for a long time till C1-2858-3 message. PS: My other vita that has 5.52FW worked with both base games at first! Please Help me I bought another one just for Rejuvenate but TN-V11 is not working =(
TNV 11 supports TNX (teken exploid)?
Why multidisk games are not working?
I’m on 3.52, will I lose the exploit if I install the bubble and THEN update to 3.55 ?
I updated to 3.55 on the ark 2 bubble and it still works.
So I’d assume it would be the same…..
But I’m just assuming.
So I got this working on 3.52. If I update to 3.55, will my TNV bubble still work?
Got this working with 3.52… Now if I update to 3.55, will my custom bubble and ability to use TNV be preserved?
How are you guys install PSX games using this version of TN-V (3.52 TN-V11). I can get PSX games on, but they are not playable. They simply have the icon in the menu. I have tried the byepass plugin as well as converting the eboots to ISO and then adding them to the vita. Any help would be much appreciated!
can someone please help me no matter what I try I’ll get the ? icon instead of the photo icon in the email app
You’ll need to refer to this: http://hackinformer.com/2015/09/24/mr-gas-releases-methode-to-write-to-the-vita-filesystem-pstv-whitelist-patch/
Just follow the instructions for writing the file and ignore the PSTV bs.
Please write tutorial for 3.36. Witn this TV files i got white screen:(
when i tap on the #0 image, the system did not pop up the massage that we want to see, instead it shows:
An error has occurred.
C1-2738-0
Anyone else have this problem? Any idea what might be the cause and how to solve it ?
can I use a mini for this as my base game?
Following instructions to a T and getting a black screen and a C1-2858-3 error on initial launch. I’m on 3.36.
On my pstv 3.51, i have a C2-15411-2 error when i launch the TN-V bubble ( have also same error when try to launch psp demo)
hey guys I’m kinda confused on how to add homebrew and plugins to the TN-V 11 bubble, any help would be greatly appreciated.
Work with PS1 game ?
Ps VIta (Phat, Firmware 3.52) I’m following all of the instructions to the letter, though I’m stuck on the email part. I keep getting the “?’ part. I’ve done the “Mr. gas trick”. Dude I need help -.-
Hi, I’m a noob to PSVita. Can the TN-V11 cfw plays UMD VIDEO iso ? I have plenty of them and mine PSP is spolit now?
Thanks in advance for an advice.
Hi i’ve been trying to download this, im stuck at the email part.
it always shows ? icon.
if i done something wrong then wat is it?
so glad for hackers bought ps vita on 3.50 gonna be starting to learn, darn d psp was so easy in its time, just sold my psp-go, such a small screen my poor eyes.