Ps vita play logs

[luck]

Just to let you know, we are now installing homebrews.
This means the ps vita will add our homebrews (their IDs) to its logs ( ban wave is coming? )

The only log file i found till know is located in:
ur0:user/xx/shell/playlog
( xx = your user number )

maybe we should use stealth vpk, like stealth ps3 homebrews

Advertising

[kuh]

This does worry me a bit. I did some experimenting:

Deleting the file doesn't break anything. However, if you delete the file to erase tracks and then run another application (be it a game or homebrew), the whole playlog is recreated, so it means there's another copy, possibly in RAM.

If you delete the file and reboot the Vita then play a 'real' game, when you enter the shell you will see only that game you played (so the list previously in RAM is gone after rebooting.) MLCL0001, which is MolecularShell, didn't show up in the playlog until I closed the shell and opened it again.

Here's how I experimented, using Retro City Rampage (PCSE00546 iirc) and Resogun (PCSA00137 iirc).
First: Run RCR and Resogun, and then shell to check the playlog - all three apps present. I deleted the log and then opened only RCR and then MolecularShell. all three apps were present again (even though I did not open Resogun.)

Second: Run both games, then shell - all three apps present. Deleted the playlog and rebooted, then only ran RCR and then MolecularShell. Only those two apps were present, with Resogun missing

Third: Run several games (five tested), then shell. All of the apps are present. Rebooted without deleting the playlog. Ran only one game (RCR) then MolecularShell. All of the apps are present.

Therefore, to fully wipe tracks you need to delete the playlog AND reboot the Vita. If you're gonna play legit games (especially online) I'd do this before opening the game. I don't know how the Vita uses the playlog, but for the time being I'll sign out the account if using homebrew, and perform a full wipe of the playlog and reboot before signing back in.

Advertising

[Nysek]

Have you seen the file "m.log" located in ur0:/ci/file ?

[kuh]

I just checked that m.log file, and it appears to be a 'step-by-step' log of which applications were open, and in which order. If you open MolecularShell several times in a row, it appears multiple times, and the games I tried out are also present, in the order I opened them in.

On the other hand, playlog only keeps one entry for each app ID, and I guess whatever comes after it is an usage number or perhaps a timestamp of the last use.

I had a 13.7 KB m.log. I deleted it and opened applications without rebooting. After opening the shell again, the file reappeared with 14.4 KB this time, but when I opened it, it appeared empty. I'm not sure if it's also kept in a separate copy, so I just deleted it and rebooted to clean any traces.
Now I checked again, and m.log has 15.3 KB, but it appears to be empty. For some reason the size keeps increasing, but after FTPing the file I noticed that the 13.7 KB of the original file I deleted are all padding with 00 bytes, and then the file suddenly starts logging again.

Would a database rebuild fix this weird padding? Time to check.

[bunnymod]

Actually, I believe this may be sort of like how it worked with Playstation 3 for example, back before mine got YLOD after all those years, there was a similar situation I tested on an alt account. If you launched Homebrew apps/games, it could actually show up on your friends list as playing those things, in my case it was Multiman. I was *never* banned. I know the Vita works differently, but this is just my understanding of it, as just a local log file that just figures out what to display on psn when online and such.

Here is a pic someone took on ps3hax.net.



Would be best in general just doing as previously mentioned to just go offline when using the unofficial apps and things. I do the same thing with my 3ds, my old 3.55 ps3, etc.

[kuh]

I was thinking that it could be related to that active application being shown on a PSN profile, but m.log is of particular interest to me.
Unlike the Wii or 3DS, the Vita doesn't have any kind of 'activity log' that shows how many hours and times you play a given game. If playlog.dat has timestamps it could be used to monitor parental controls timeslots, but I wouldn't bet on that.

So whatever info m.log holds, I don't see any place in the Vita system where it is being used. It'd be neat if we could monitor file being read to see if these files get used by any process (particularly network processes).

In a thread over at Reddit, an user got a free-to-play game and used its PARAM.SFO file for MolecularShell, so whenever MS is run, the game's info appear on the 'playing now' field. So we know that info shown in the online friends list is derived from PARAM.SFO, but additional info could be sent from other parts of the application.

[Byte]

With m.log, perhaps somewhere an index or pointer is being kept to the last entry, which is a possible explanation. It just keeps adding new stuff 'at the end' and something (perhaps the filesystem?) creates the zero padding so it can add at the required location in the file.

[bunnymod]

Hmm, do you think maybe the log file could be what is submitted when reporting crashes and such? Since it is a record of all activity surrounding the crash, however I'm just making inferences at this point.

[kuh]

Hmm, do you think maybe the log file could be what is submitted when reporting crashes and such? Since it is a record of all activity surrounding the crash, however I'm just making inferences at this point.

I don't think so. There's the app IDs and just a few other bytes after each entry on m.log. This file is not reset when rebooting, so I doubt its utility for debugging purposes (a proper log for this kind of debugging should track the applications used during the active session from a cold boot).

Also, confirmed: A database rebuild resets the m.log file properly - now my log is only 1.12 KB. One of the .db files should hold the pointer for m.log - time to dig around.