App2USB / AppToUSB by Stooged: A Modification of PKG2USB for PS4

I will post this as a separate thread from the PS4 PKG2USB as the 2 payloads vary and it saves confusion.

Original Post: I was playing around with the ext0 mount and recreating the file structure that would be there if the pkg was installed to external storage.

There is a trick I found where if you copy the CUSAXXXXX folder from /user/app to /mnt/ext0/user/app and then unplug the hdd and plug it back in it causes the ps4 to do a repair and then the game is recognized as installed on external storage and from there there are other issues.

BUT with the great work SiSTRo has done in PKG2USB with the symlinks its a lot easier to manage with exfat and just normal USB.

So building on his PKG2USB and symlinks I modified what I was working on for the ext0 mount to work with the usb0 or usb1 and symlinks.

Downloads:

• 455 Source GIT
• 405 Source GIT
• AppToUsb 5.05 (Latest Release)
• AppToUsb 4.55 (Latest Release)
• AppToUsb 4.05 (Latest Release)
• PS4 App2USB (Scene Collective)

Changlog via dbsuarez

This payload searches the entire /user/app folder and copies all installed fpkg games to usb from the system drive and creates the symlinks like SiSTRo has kindly shown us the ability to do.

If you want to target a single game not the whole folder use PKG2USB.

If you install more games just run the payload again and it will copy any new games to the USB and so on.

With symlinks you are making a link to a directory so you want to pick which USB port to have the hdd on and keep it on that same port or the links will point to the wrong directory. USB0 is what I use.

Thanks again to SiSTRo, xVortex, Anonymous, CelesteBlue!

PS4 JAILBREAK 5.05 How To Use APP2USB by seanp2500

Running PS4 Games From a USB with App2USB (5.05 Jailbreak)

Download: app2usb.rar (726 Bytes - configured to export app+update+dlcs to external disc, includes app2usb.ini)

 

[stooged]

Im not really sure what you mean with "activated psn account"
I can only guess it means using the ps4 backup / restore function and if it is that then when you goto use the restore function it will "initialize" the ps4 which is just a cool name for wiping the data which will delete the installed games and symlinks.

You would need to install the games so the ps4 would know there was a game to run and apptousb to find to link.

If its something else then i dont know what might happen.

 

[stripnwild]

nope that is what i meant, you are bang on sir! Thanks very much.
Ya adding the psn activated account (that someone uploaded for everyone) would involve re-initializing etc. I just wasn't sure if it was a matter of re-running APPtoUSB or ...(like you stated) having to re-install the games etc

Your explanation is awesome!! Being that i have 8tb ext with symlinks working it really isn't worth it for me to try to "inject" the "activated psn account" at this time and have to re-install all the games and rebuild the symlinks etc

Cheers and thank you sir for the replies! Greatly appreciated!!

 

[Sovikos]

@stooged This might have been answered already somewhere, but do you know what happens if you have more than an 8TB Hard Drive connected (and filled) on the PS4 using App2USB? Or if the combined hard drives (including the internal one) connected using App2USB are more than 8TB and filled?

I know PS4 has the 8TB hardware limit on mounting an external or using an internal drive, but wondering if App2USB ignores this?

 

[stooged]

the theoretical limit should be the maximum of the exfat file system or at least the bsd implementation of it.

the 8tb limit might just be the maximum volume size the ps4 will create using the filesystem sony uses for the ext drives

the ps4 might have a software limit it allows the console to utilize, so without plugging a 10tb hdd in and filling it you wont know 100%

I cant see any reason the console wouldn't read from a 10+ tb hdd while using exfat unless sony has something in the firmware to prevent it.

 

[Alex8965]

Hello all,

First of all, my env: PS4 pro, and I am using USB port behind PS4 for an external HDD of 4To. I am also using an ESP8266 on one usb port on front of the PS4, but I think we don't care.

So far I was using AppToUSB v2. I have a few games games on internal HDD, and I didn't have any issue to move wanted games from internal to external HDD. In .ini, I was setting fields like this:

To check the usb root for the pkg file to save time copying from the internal ps4 drive then uncomment the line below.. but remember this will move the pkg from the root directory to the PS4 folder.

CHECK_USB

To rename previously linked pkg files to the new format uncomment the line below.
//RENAME_APP

To disable the processing of icons/art and sound uncomment the line below.
//DISABLE_META

To leave game updates on the internal drive uncomment the line below.
//IGNORE_UPDATES

To move DLC to the usb hdd uncomment the line below.

MOVE_DLC

To use this list as a list of games you want to move not ignore then uncomment the line below.

MODE_MOVE

And below MODE_MOVE, when I was listing CUSAs, these CUSAs were correctly moved from my internal HDD to external HDD.

But since I moved to AppToUSB v3, even if I am listing CUSAs below MODE_MOVE, I am seeing that ALL my games are moved from internal to external HDD. And I don't understand why, because there are some games that I want to keep on internal HDD, they are not listed in the MODE_MOVE list, but they are moved anyway...

Could you tell me what am I doing wrong with V3 ? Which options should I comment/uncomment ?

 

[crisis5]

Hi everyone!

I having a issue trying move games from the internal to external HD. When i activate app2usb in the exploit shows the message: "The defined MOUNT_POINT is incorrect. MOUNT_POINT=0 is defined but the drive is mounted to USB1".

I downloaded the last update from @stooged (html version) and tried all combinations, i mean, erasing //, switching mount point to 1, connecting the HD to both ports in PS4 (slim), but nothing seems work. I will appreciate so much your help !

I use just a single HD unit and im not expect to use more. So what is the correct cofiguration in that case ?

 

[lightc]

Has anyone experienced any freezes while using apptousb? I have a lot of DLCs that I've been installing and I noticed that apptousb would not symlink many of the DLC pkg files for some reason and I verified that they did not give an error upon initial install on the internal HDD.

I think the DLC issue I've been having is related to my system freezes while using apptousb. Seems to only happen during the 'running on dlc or update' portion of the apptousb process. Maybe it has something to do with the updates or DLCs not being correctly married to the initial fpkg install file.

@stooged, have you encountered anything like this? Is there a way to have a log file record what is being done so I can see what causes the system freeze?

 

[The Number Wind]

@stooged Small Issue Report: Unlike Games and Patches, DLCs don't keep the name of their original pkgs and instead use I believe their ContentID as the name instead.

Also, I could be wrong, but I think it doesn't check if the DLCs are already in the External HDD when moving them.

 

[MRPC85]

@stooged since the new version the app2usb is copying the games even when the pkg is in the root, why is this?

Its fine I used to have app2usb on the root, didnt realize it created a new one within the ps4 folder, i was reading the ini file does this mean you can have more than one attached usb hard drive and symlink to either usb 0 or 1?

 

[zentis]

Just a quick comment in case it's helpful to someone since I spent half on hour solving this.

When I used apptousb I got a message saying that my hard disk was connected to usb1 but MOUNT_POINT=0 was defined so it wouldn't copy the games. I only had one hard disk connected so I was confused.

The reason for the error was that the hard disk had been formatted on a mac which creates a hidden partition for EFI.

The way to solve this is to use gdisk to edit the partition:
BEWARE BE CAREFUL RUNNING THE FOLLOWING

Connect the hard disk to your mac, start the terminal

gdisk /dev/diskx (do diskutil list to see the list of disks and select the correct disk)
press 'p' to see a list of partitions

You should see the first hidden partition:
1 40 409639 200.0 MiB EF00 EFI System Partition

press 'd' to delete it
and then press 1

After you're done, press 'w' to save the partition table.

I REPEAT BE CAREFUL WHEN DOING THIS, MAKE SURE TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT DISK

@crisis5 See my reply just above. You probably ran into the same problem. The other alternative if you don't care to lose the data on that disk is to format it again but chose Master Boot Record as a partition scheme instead of GUID Partition Map.

@stooged Many thanks for your great software.