Trouble inserting files into PSP iso

[DumbDuck]

I am trying my hand at translating menus in SRW OE (yes, this is already done by someone else). Anyway, what I did:
1) Unpacked iso with winrar equivalent
2) Unpacked game files with cripaktools
3) Detected and extracted SJIS-formatted text
4) Injected some gibberish for testing purposes
5) Inserted my modified file with isomaster (default setup) back into the game
6) Got the blackscreen after booting (PPSSPP 1.12.3)

My guess is that I messed up somewhere at step 3 or 4 (the only steps done with my own tools), so here are my questions:
- How do work PSP pointers: do they point at a file and then at an adress within a file? In other words, if I modified an EBOOT file, for example, can it have a size unequal to that of the original?
- If original text is 4 bytes, and I want to replace it with a 6 byte word, do I have to modify something that goes after it within a file? (again, pointers)

 

[master801]

If I had to guess, the lock up is caused by the SHIFT-JIS text not being in the right encoding (most Japanese games refuse to have text in any other encoding besides SHIFT-JIS) or improperly repacking the CRIPAK file.

Extract the files, don't modify them, insert them back into the ISO file and go from there. If it doesn't lock up, your issue lies either in the SHIFT-JIS or CRIPAK repacking. It's pretty easy to figure which is which.

 

[FAST6191]

Why those tools and not umdgen for the iso aspect.

Equally assuming it is not compressed (possible but rare for the PSP -- only reason to compress stuff really is to avoid bandwidth bottlenecks rather than save space) then see about finding the text in the straight iso and modifying it in place there.
After that then as above break down each step to see where the problem lies.

 

[slaphappygamer]

Agreed. Try umdgen. It’s a very powerful tool. I used to use it all the time to extract images and rip languages, even remove dummy files from iso/cso.

 

[DumbDuck]

UPDATE
After througtfull testing and several rewrites of my program I came to the definite conclusion: CriPakTools sucks at reinserting files back to archive. It messes up the ordering, also endresult is bigger than the original.

Too bad all(?) the links describing the algo are dead.



I am using a Linux (and custom at that) hence only tools which are os and can be compiled.

 

[master801]

UPDATE
After througtfull testing and several rewrites of my program I came to the definite conclusion: CriPakTools sucks at reinserting files back to archive. It messes up the ordering, also endresult is bigger than the original.

Too bad all(?) the links describing the algo are dead.



I am using a Linux (and custom at that) hence only tools which are os and can be compiled.

Try "Repacker CPK" (some random video on YouTube has a link to it) and experimenting with its settings.