Hello!

This is a tutorial on how to do a coldswap, an obscure and rather bizarre bug I discovered while dicking around with backups.

Because a picture says more than 1K words:

Most notably, this will allow you to bypass this blocking screen without restarting your Vita:

which can be useful in rare cases, and get onto the PS3 side content manager.

All you need is both a PS3 and a PC. This is loosely inspired off the original USB swap trick. First, open the Content Manager, then PC > USB cable. Upon pressing USB cable, watch closely the screen and have a finger ready near the PS button..

When this screen fully fades in:

(Please Wait in English) IMMEDIATLY press the PS button then plug off your USB cable. Bring it over to your PS3 and if you have got the right timing, you should be able to access the PS3 content manager (although PC-side.)

You are now able to fully use the Content Manager PS3-side. Do not worry about the PC text, everything will switch to PS3 when prompted. Make sure to not exit whether it by pressing the PS button or exiting the Content Manager: as soon as you do, the coldswap is cancelled.

 

[lpchaim]

Interesting, thanks OP. It pretty much feels like I bump into some thread about obscure Vita tips from you every day haha.

 

[yifan_lu]

Interesting. Can you use qcma and see if you can install packages by selecting the option to copy content downloaded to ps3?

 

[xy2_]

Answered you on IRC, @yifan_lu , but yes, this allows installing packages as if you accessed the PS3 CM legitimately.