HENkaku Vita

Henkaku
General
Author	henkaku
Type	Exploits
Version	Rel.11
License	MIT License
Last Updated	2018/02/20
Links
Download
Website
Source

Henkaku is a homebrew enabler for PS Vita. This is for 3.60 firmware only. For the latest firmware, please use H-Encore2 or follow the guide here.

What is Henkaku?

HENkaku is the first ever homebrew enabler for PS Vita and PSTV. It is akin to jailbreaking your iPhone or rooting your Android device.

Homebrew are games and other software not officially approved. For example, VitaDoom is a port of the classic game DOOM and mGBA lets you play Game Boy Advance ROMs. You can find more homebrew games in the List of Vita homebrew games page.

Best of all, HENkaku is 100% free. No cost. No ads. No “donations”.

What are the requirements?

You need a PS Vita or PSTV running system firmware 3.60.

In order to transfer homebrew to your device, you also need a FTP client for your computer. We recommend FileZilla. Finally, you need an internet connection to install HENkaku.

• Vita on firmware 3.60
• Internet connection
• FTP client on your PC

It is important that you never update your Vita past 3.60 if you ever wish to use HENkaku now or in the future. If you do update, all your installed homebrew will no longer work and you cannot install any homebrew in the future.

Upgrading to 3.60

Since only firmware 3.60 is supported, you can upgrade any Vita on a lower firmware version to 3.60 with these instructions. Be careful not to update to the latest version through official means or you will not be able to use HENkaku!

Simple Instructions

Set your DNS to 212.47.229.76 and choose to update from Wi-Fi. Proceed only if the message says “A new version of the system software is available. Firmware 3.60 (変革 Compatible)”. That’s it!

Detailed Instructions

• Open the Settings app
• Select “Network”
• Select “Wi-Fi Settings”
• If you are not connected to the internet, do so now. Select your current connection (there should be a green dot to the left).
• Select “Advanced Settings”
• Under “DNS Settings” choose “Manual”
• Under “Primary DNS” set it to 212.47.229.76
• Leave “Secondary DNS” blank. Make sure “Proxy Server” is set to “Do Not Use”. Press OK.
• Back out to the main settings screen. Select “System Update” and then “Update Using Wi-Fi.”
• If you get an error saying your system is up to date, that means either your Vita is on 3.60 already or your Vita is > 3.60 and is not supported by HENkaku
• Otherwise you will see a pop-up saying there is a new update. Make sure the message says “3.60 (変革 Compatible)”! If the message does not say that, do not proceed and try to repeat these steps to see if you missed something.
• After ensuring you are updating to “3.60 (変革 Compatible)”, proceed with the steps on screen to update.
• After updating to 3.60, you can follow steps 1-5 again and then set “DNS Settings” back to “Automatic” to restore your DNS settings.

Installing HENkaku

• Make sure your Vita is running firmware 3.60
• Open the Web Browser application and visit https://henkaku.xyz
• Press the “Install” button
• Once the installation is complete, the browser will be closed automatically

Hint: If you've installed HENkaku before, you can install it again directly from molecularShell's LiveArea. Just open the "shell" bubble and use the orange "install" button.

You must run the installer each time you reboot the device before you can launch any homebrew application. You do not need to reinstall when you place the device into sleep mode. If you press the power button once, you are in sleep mode and do not need to reinstall HENkaku. If you hold the power button and then choose the option to Power Off, then you do need to reinstall HENkaku. You also need to reinstall if the battery runs out. Installing HENkaku requires an internet connection.

The first time you install HENkaku, a new bubble named “molecularShell” will show up in LiveArea. This application allows you to install other homebrew bubbles. However, once you reboot the device, molecularShell and any other homebrew bubbles you installed will not be able to be launched until you run the installer again.

It is important that you never update your Vita past 3.60 if you ever wish to use HENkaku now or in the future. If you do update, all your installed homebrew will no longer work and you cannot install any homebrew in the future.

Installing HENkaku Offline Mode

Run this homebrew once with HENkaku installed and hijack the email application to install HENkaku again the next reboot–no internet needed.

To install or update HENkaku offline:

• First, install and activate HENkaku from https://henkaku.xyz
• Download the Offline Installer VPK and install it
• Make sure unsafe homebrew is allowed (molecularShell->press Start button->Enable unsafe homebrew->on)
• Launch the offlineInstaller bubble
• Follow the instructions: press CROSS to install
• (Do not delete the bubble after the exploit is installed. You should redo the installation when you have internet access to ensure that you get the latest version of HENkaku)

To run HENkaku offline:

• Reboot your PS Vita
• Disable Wi-Fi
• Open Email app. If at some point it asks you to enable wifi, press “No”. If you have wifi switched on, the message list will not load.
• If you have multiple email accounts, select “HENkaku Offline”
• Select “Inbox”, then click on the first email
• Wait about 10-20 seconds. You might get a “Please wait” screen multiple times. You might also get an “An error has occurred” screen multiple times. If you get any of these more than five times in a row, reboot your Vita and try again.
• You should see the same screen as with online installation (black screen with text and molecule logo)

To uninstall HENkaku offline:

• Launch offlineInstaller
• Press CIRCLE to uninstall

Using molecularShell

The first time you install HENkaku, the molecularShell bubble will be added to your LiveArea. This will be your portal to installing homebrew.

Installing Homebrew

• The homebrew package you wish to install should be a file with the .vpk extension.
• Make sure Wifi is enabled and you are connected to the same network as the host computer.
• Open “shell” by launching the bubble.
• Press SELECT to start a FTP server. Please note that the FTP server is not password protected. Only run it on a trusted local network.
• Note the IP address displayed in a message popup.
• Open your FTP client on the host computer and connect to that IP address.
• Navigate to “ux0” (this is the root of your memory card or internal storage) and you can upload the .vpk package here or in any subdirectory.
• Once you upload all the packages you wish to install you can disconnect the client.
• Back in molecularShell, press CIRCLE to stop the FTP server.
• Navigate to “ux0:” and then to where you placed the packages. To install, select the package and press X.

Screenshot

Running Homebrew

Once you installed HENkaku, running homebrew is as simple as launching the installed bubble directly from LiveArea!

molecularShell's Troubleshooting

Error C1-6775-5 when launching molecularShell.
You must run the HENkaku installer again. Follow the directions above.

FTP error
Check if you have a firewall on the host computer. Also make sure you’re on the same network as the host.

Not all files/devices are shown
You need to enable unsafe homebrew mode. Open molecularShell and press Start. Then choose the option to enable unsafe homebrew. Back out of the menu, quit molecularShell, and relaunch it again.

Troubleshooting

Error C1-6775-5 when launching molecularShell.
You must run the HENkaku installer again. Follow the directions above.

The web browser shows grey “Please wait…” screen
This is normal. Just wait for it, eventually it should load the page and trigger the exploit.

The web browser crashes (error C2-12828-1) and an error report dialog appears.
Press “OK” and try again. If the browser crashes more than three times in a row, you can quit the browser (Press the PS button and swipe the LiveArea page from the top right corner or hold the “O” or “X” button depending on your region). Then you can re-attempt installation.

If you quit the browser and this still happens more than three times in a row, you should reboot the system and try again.

If the web browser keeps crashing, and you’ve already rebooted your Vita at least five times in a row, try the following:
Delete your cookies. To do that, open the web browser, open the menu and click on “Delete Cookies”. Close all your web browser tabs, reboot PS Vita and try going to https://henkaku.xyz/go/ directly, without visiting https://henkaku.xyz.

Try switching to another internet connection: a firewall or your ISP could be interfering with the proper operation of the exploit.

The device freezes or reboots after trying to install
If the device froze, hold the power button for 15 seconds to manually power off the device and then press the power button again to restart the device. You can then attempt to install again.

The web browser automatically closed after installation
That is the expected behavior. HENkaku should now be installed. You can launch homebrew applications including molecularShell (see usage directions below).

The screen becomes black after the installation
Press the home/PS button and close the browser manually. Installation should be successful.

A bad plugin crashes device upon installation
You can force all configuration to be reset by pressing R at the prompt when the bootstrap installer is launched. This is reset your taiHEN config.txt file as well as HENkaku settings.

Changelog

Release 11 (February 20, 2018)

• Stability update: success rate should dramatically increase
• taiHEN config.txt can be refreshed from kernel module_start, fixed use-after-free bug

Release 10 (May 26, 2017)

• Moved files to ur0:tai, taiHEN can run without memory card on original Vitas now
• If molecularShell is removed manually, will not attempt to reinstall by default
• Support loading plugins from ur0:tai/config.txt if ux0:tai/config.txt cannot be found
• If you are using Ensō, you must redownload the installer and reinstall configuration in order to use the new path
• (06/06/2017) Added setting options to refresh config.txt and reboot (thanks The_FloW)
• (06/06/2017) Added setting options to unlink memory card and download DRM-free packages
• (06/06/2017) Fixed bug where HENkaku Settings and spoofed version string do not show up
• (24/06/2017) Various translation fixes (thanks to all who contributed)
• (24/06/2017) Skip kernel plugin loading by holding L1 during installation (or boot if using Ensō)
• (30/07/2017) Skip user plugin loading by holding L1 during application startup (skip SceShell plugins by holding L at boot using Ensō)

Release 9 (May 11, 2017)

• Fixed a bug in one of the patch that may crash SceShell
• Disabled triggering of (nonworking) force reinstall in offline mode
• Fixed slow file reading in molecularShell
• Fixed crash in installing VPK (thanks d3m3vilurr)
• Moved HENkaku settings to the official Settings application (thanks The_FloW)
• Fixed problem of molecularShell corrupting VitaShell theme and settings (thanks The_FloW)
• (12/05/2017) Added helper menu for users confused with the settings move
• (13/05/2017) Added translations for HENkaku settings (thanks everyone who helped)
• (13/05/2017) Fixed problem of menu item not showing up in Settings widget
• (13/05/2017) Bypassed SCE bug preventing > 2 plugins from loading for a game
• (14/05/2017) Minor settings language tweak

Release 8 (March 26, 2017)

• PSN spoofing works again (it will be fixed by Sony in the future so use it while you can. You can also disable PSN spoofing in molecularShell settings menu.
• First boot of molecularShell will alert the user to unsafe homebrew and how to enable it.
• (29/03/2017) Improved stability of the payload.

Release 7 (December 26, 2016)

• taiHENkaku brings plugin support
• Tons of stability improvements and refactored codebase to be more streamlined
• VitaShell 1.43 fixed problem with built in updater

Release 6 (September 12, 2016)

• Whitelisted scePowerSetGpuClockFrequency, scePowerRequestColdReset, scePowerRequestStandby, and scePowerRegisterCallback
• Fixed rare bug which crashes modded SceShell. There is still no PSN spoofing for modded SceShell
• Removed “welcome” message when triggering exploit (was used for debugging and is no longer needed)

Release 5 (September 6, 2016)

• This update improves the quality of the system performance.
  • Changed how PSN spoofing is done. This should fix problems a minority of users experience regarding game saves.
  • Modded vs0:shell/shell.self is not supported.
  • Removed update blocking features as a side effect of above.
  • Update to VitaShell 0.91. This is the last VitaShell update bundled into HENkaku. Please use VitaShell’s built in network update feature to update VitaShell as a standalone component.

Release 4 (August 30, 2016)

• Fixed issue where YouTube website did not work
• Added support for PSTV and Vita Slim internal storage
• Updated to VitaShell 0.86

Release 3 (August 27, 2016)

• PSN spoofing: You can access PSN without updating to 3.61!
• Safe homebrew support: Developers can optionally mark their homebrews as “safe” and it will not gain restricted API access. We highly recommend developers who are not using such features to update their packages as safe.
• VitaShell 0.8: Read the release notes from The_FloW for the list of changes to VitaShell.
• Version string: A callback to the PSP days where every hack would change the system version string. We do that too now (see the screenshot) so we can provide better support to our users.
• Update blocking: In HENkaku mode, firmware updates using the official servers are blocked. That way you won’t accidentally install 3.61 and it won’t download in the background regardless of your settings.

Release 2 (August 4, 2016)

• Dynarec support: Developers can generate ARM code and execute it directly. This aids in JIT engines for emulators.
• Offline installer: HENkaku can now run without a network connection thanks to work by xyz. He also made a nice writeup that you should check out if you’re interested in the technical details.
• VitaShell 0.7: When we originally released HENkaku, we forked VitaShell to molecularShell because we didn’t want to spend too much time writing our own file manager. Thanks to The_FloW, our changes have been merged to the official VitaShell codebase and we no longer need molecularShell. This release had added many new features and bug fixes to the shell.

Release 1 (July 29, 2016)

• First release

External links

• Official Website - https://henkaku.xyz/
• Github - https://github.com/henkaku/henkaku