PS3 How to backup PS3 game updates

CDog · Jul 21, 2019

Hello!

Is there a way to backup PS3 game updates that get downloaded to the PS3 when a game prompts for an update/patch? Where does the update file/pkg get stored in the PS3 harddrive structure, if it does get stored?

I'd also be perfectly fine with downloading PS3 game updates on my PC, but didn't know if asking for a website/program that does that would fall under piracy discussion here. I own the games, but I want to have backups of the updates/patches for the inevitable time when the update servers do go down. There was a particular website that begins with an "E" (don't know if it's against the rules to mention them) that allowed you to download game updates/patches for backups, but that website has shut down.

NOTE: I was going to try AldosTools as I saw there was a PS3 Updates Tool in there, but I get Trojan warnings from Anti Virus programs. I've read on here that this is normal because AldosTools acts similar to viruses, but I don't feel comfortable with that.

Ideally, I'd like to see if there is either a way to backup Updates/Patches from the PS3 itself, a website to download them from, or a standalone program or tool that does not trigger virus/trojan warnings.

Thank you!

Cypher_CG89 · Jul 21, 2019

CDog said:
NOTE: I was going to try AldosTools as I saw there was a PS3 Updates Tool in there, but I get Trojan warnings from Anti Virus programs. I've read on here that this is normal because AldosTools acts similar to viruses, but I don't feel comfortable with that.

This is a False positive from your AV because of the nature of some of the tools conatined, especially the brute forcing tools. It will do nothing to your PC. I have it installed and have done for ages and so do many other people.

CDog said:
Is there a way to backup PS3 game updates

No need to back them up, you can find them all over the web to download as a PKG. Here is one place you can find them:

https://store.brewology.com/updates.php?lang=

Or you can just use Google and say search "BLES01717 Black Ops 2 v1.19 PS3 update pkg download" or something along those lines for whatever game your using.

Or again you can use ManaGunZ directly on your PS3, highlight your game, press triangle and select game update and it will search and download any/all updates it can find to "dev_hdd0/packages" for you to install. Most, if not all, backup managers can do this. Not sure of the functionality on HEN of this but works fine on CFW.

I tend to manully download all the upadates for the game's I have and keep them on an Ext HDD for future use.

fall under piracy discussion here

Defo not as Game updates are free to the public for the game's they own. and I certainly wouldn't have typed all that above lol.

CDog · Jul 21, 2019

Cypher_CG89 said:
This is a False positive from your AV because of the nature of some of the tools conatined, especially the brute forcing tools. It will do nothing to your PC. I have it installed and have done for ages and so do many other people.

No need to back them up, you can find them all over the web to download as a PKG. Here is one place you can find them:

https://store.brewology.com/updates.php?lang=

Or you can just use Google and say search "BLES01717 Black Ops 2 v1.19 PS3 update pkg download" or something along those lines for whatever game your using.

Or again you can use ManaGunZ directly on your PS3, highlight your game, press triangle and select game update and it will search and download any/all updates it can find to "dev_hdd0/packages" for you to install. Most, if not all, backup managers can do this. Not sure of the functionality on HEN of this but works fine on CFW.

I tend to manully download all the upadates for the game's I have and keep them on an Ext HDD for future use.

Defo not as Game updates are free to the public for the game's they own. and I certainly wouldn't have typed all that above lol.

Wow, what a tremendous response! Thank you so much! I will give some of these methods a try.

atreyu187 · Jul 21, 2019

CDog said:
Wow, what a tremendous response! Thank you so much! I will give some of these methods a try.

Yeah sharing free licensed stuff is ok. But if it takes money away from devs it isn't ok is the easiest way to remember. Also updates exist outside PSN. So you can just grab them with your console. Sony can't block banned users from getting updates as it's against the law to not offer updates on validly owned content.

Coro · Jul 21, 2019

those virus warnings are because sony dont want you using stuff like that (they cant stop u). its not because the antivirus people think its a virus.

AaronZ · Jul 22, 2019

Interestingly there do exist game updates that have infact been taken down (Resistance Fall of Man (BCUS-98107) and MotorStorm 1 (BCUS-98137) to be exact), googling doesn't seem to bring up anything for either game, which both actually require updates in order to use the DLC which I think is still on the PS Store. The updates also added vibration support among other things since there was no Dualshock 3 at the time.

So yeah I wonder if anyone still has these updates on their PS3 from way back when and is able to somehow dump them, I believe MotorStorm' last update was v3.10, not sure on Resistance.

CrashV · Jul 22, 2019

CDog said:
NOTE: I was going to try AldosTools as I saw there was a PS3 Updates Tool in there, but I get Trojan warnings from Anti Virus programs. I've read on here that this is normal because AldosTools acts similar to viruses, but I don't feel comfortable with that.

Nah, don't worry, it's perfectly safe, i use this tool on one of the most vulnerable machine on this planet, i have a throwaway Windows XP machine that i have never downloaded or installed any security update on it cuz i'm lazy, and it also doesn't have an anti-virus software installed, and so far it's running great, except for one time that fucking shortcut virus fucked it up and had to spend my entire day working on removing it manually

Berion · Jul 22, 2019

CDog said:
Is there a way to backup PS3 game updates that get downloaded to the PS3 when a game prompts for an update/patch? Where does the update file/pkg get stored in the PS3 harddrive structure, if it does get stored?

On PS3? Let's say not, because patch data is (almost always, depend on the developers choice) mixed with DLC and cache data (all ends in the same folder). It is pointless in most of the cases. PKGs are unpacking and deleting after procedure. On PS3 and PSV they are only installation archives.

Just download them on PC. Sony doesn't restrict access to them, so You can just ask servers itself like PS3 does to get packages. For DLC and digital games case unfortunately it will not work that way and You need retrieve link from Your sniffed communication (or just found direct link to the file). You can also try looking PKGs on the pirate sites but You have not guarantee they are not modified so I strongly recommend getting original ones.

Additional thing are license files. Free content like patches, demos, trials, themes etc. doesn't need them but pay content does. You will find them in "dev_hdd0/home/<user number>/exdata/".

You need also NP Account ID which determine the owner of the content (also this is mandatory only for pay content). And speaking about keys, it is worth to mention that You should dump also ERK (EID Root Key) because if/when Your PS3 will die, You still will be able to retrieve content from encrypted HDD (ERK dumping is possible only on CFW).

BUT, in some rare cases the better option instead of backuping PKGs is backuping cache folder ("dev_hdd0/game/<Game ID>/"). Because those games using internal patching system or just caching there other important data (i.e Gran Turismo 6 using his own patching system independent from PS3 build-in, Little Big Planet download to cache community levels and also keep there saves and Your levels).

I'd also be perfectly fine with downloading PS3 game updates on my PC, but didn't know if asking for a website/program that does that would fall under piracy discussion here.

Both, depend of Your will.

I was using Khilla's Updater (or something like that). Yifanlu have also update finder wrote in php and usable via web but he intentionally break it one day to stop working... Probably @aldostools have some updater app in this ps3toools collection.

Only retail network work BTW.

sandungas · Jul 22, 2019

Step 1
Open a new tab in your web browser and paste this URL in it (but dont load the page yet)

Code:

https://a0.ww.np.dl.playstation.net/tpl/np/<TITLE_ID>/<TITLE_ID>-ver.xml

Step 2
Replace the <TITLE_ID> in the URL (there are 2) by the TITLE_ID of your game
Im going to use this game as example https://www.gametdb.com/PS3/BLES01894 so the result is:

Code:

https://a0.ww.np.dl.playstation.net/tpl/np/BLES01894/BLES01894-ver.xml

Step 3
Load the page, if your web browser displays a warning advising that is an insecure page... just acept it and continue loading it

Step 4
In this example the file is named BLES01894-ver.xml, you can right click in it and "save as" in your PC, this is how it looks:

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<titlepatch status="alive" titleid="BLES01894">
	<tag name="BLES01894_T2" popup="true" signoff="true">
		<package version="01.03" size="392976416" sha1sum="eb16c390b85746d230f33a134587fd0092122770" url="http://b0.ww.np.dl.playstation.net/tppkg/np/BLES01894/BLES01894_T2/57956f7e91f015af/EP0006-BLES01894_00-NFS14000PS3000EU-A0103-V0100-PE.pkg" ps3_system_ver="04.4000">
			<paramsfo>
				<TITLE>Need for Speed™ Rivals</TITLE>
				<TITLE_01>Need for Speed™ Rivals</TITLE_01>
			</paramsfo>
		</package>
	</tag>
</titlepatch>

----------------------------
In it you can see the download links for all the game update PKG's
You need to install all them in the same exact order that appears in the XML !!!

In this example the update version is 1.03 but most probably 1.01 and 1.02 existed at some point and was took down because 1.03 is a "cummulative" update (1.03 includes the previous improvements from 1.01 and 1.02)
In other words.... if for some reason you find the updates 1.01 and 1.02 hosted somewhere else (out of official sony servers) you should not install them !
This is why i use to keep a copy of that XML files

If you want to see some complex examples of how some standard game updates combines with cummulative game updates take a look at gran turismo or grand theft auto, this games had tenths of updates

Aymen_Nazar985 · Nov 30, 2019

I need a way to copy PS3 games updates because i really prefer getting them from a friend instead of waiting the whole day with my internet that can't work faster than 50kb\s and that have a big chance of slowing down to a level that makes
the PS3 think that i don't have internet

PS3ddd · Mar 15, 2021

Hi,
I can't find updates for Motorstorm (BCES00006).
I've tried the method mentioned by @sandungas but can't open the xml, ps3tools don't find anything either. Is it just me or has Sony changed something?
Is there another way to get the updates?
Thank you.

Sonic3320 · Mar 30, 2021

One advice is to see on the savedata what the SKU code truly is. Sometimes the game receives a reprint and the SKU code changes on the box, but the game still seeks for the files present on the folder named after the first SKU of the game. Example, my Motorstorm Apocalypse if I put the code printed on the box (BCUS90275), it fails to find any update files, but inputting the first SKU of the game (BCUS98242) it finds the update files and are installed on the game successfully.

sandungas · Mar 31, 2021

wk1207 · Mar 31, 2021

Yeah Motorstorm updates seem to have been gone for a while now. Checked every "update finder" that I know of online, none of them found anything.

Sonic3320 · Mar 31, 2021

The gran turismo updates were not taken down, a few weeks ago I downloaded fine, but again, my GT6 is the Brazilian version (Ayrton Senna, which counts as the Anniversary version on the title info) so the SKU code of the savefile is different from the one printed on the box. In this case it worked fine searching for the SKU of the box for some reason. I think it is because the game had two different versions released at the same time (instead of having a reprint) and mine counts as the Anniversary one.

What REALLY was removed is the GT5 DLC. The game has a really weird system for them, buying them wasnt enough, you had to click on the red button on the main screen to make the console seek for purchased content and save this information on your savefile, so yes, even though PKG and RAP files of these DLCs do exist plenty on the internet, they dont work because the authentication doesnt work. What is funny is that now it is really easy to use these DLCs by using a save editor or a previously hacked savefile even on an unmodified system.

https://gbatemp.net/threads/unlock-all-gt5-dlc.584757/#post-9398576

Sonic3320 · Mar 31, 2021

BUT, in some rare cases the better option instead of backuping PKGs is backuping cache folder Because those games using internal patching system or just caching there other important data (i.e Gran Turismo 6 using his own patching system independent from PS3 build-in, Little Big Planet download to cache community levels and also keep there saves and Your levels).

Yes, but GT6 you dont need exactly to back up the cache files because it still packs up updates as PKG files, what happens is that after around 5 updates, Polyphony implemented a in game compression instead of relying solely on the pkg system of the PS3 to save space, like when you download some RAR file on the internet then inside it is a ZIP folder, decompressing two times. You can download all updates in PKG form just fine, but after installing them, when you open the game it will appear a screen saying "Preparing your game, please wait".

--------------
https://www.reddit.com/r/PS3/comments/32dccj/is_there_any_way_to_update_the_original_motorstorm/

This game is so old it doesn't update like a normal PS3 game. I have to go in the game, go to Online, and click on it for it to tell me there is an update. Unfortunately, whatever service hosted this update either isnt working or is down completely because I cant update it...

I called Sony, and as expected there isn't any way that they know of to update the game.

PS3 How to backup PS3 game updates

CDog

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Cypher_CG89

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CDog

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atreyu187

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Aymen_Nazar985

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sandungas

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