Pathlog Monitor

pathlog-payload is a set of utilities for:

• recording a file access log on PS5
• analyzing the resulting log and validating game files

The folder contains:

• pathlog_all.elf
  continuous monitoring of all events
• pathlog_apps.elf
  monitoring only while CUSA* and PPSA* games are running
• pathlog_stop.elf
  clean shutdown of the active monitor process
• analyze_pathlog.py
  a script for analyzing the log and renaming files to the correct case

What It Is For

This project is useful when you need to:

• understand which files a game actually reads
• build a list of files that are really used
• find case mistakes in file and directory names
• compare a launch log against a local game folder or an FTP copy
• automatically rename files and folders to the case the game expects

Requirements

Before using these tools, you need a special kstuff-lite build with logging support loaded.

To build the ELF files, you need the SDK installed at:

/opt/ps5-payload-sdk

Quick Start

Build

make -C pathlog-payload clean all

Option 1: Log Everything

Run:

pathlog_all.elf

What happens:

• the monitor enables logging immediately
• new events are printed to the console
• the log is written to:

/data/pathlog/all.log

Option 2: Log Only Running Games

Run:

pathlog_apps.elf

What happens:

• the monitor waits for an application to start
• when a game with a CUSA* or PPSA* title ID starts, logging is enabled automatically
• a separate log is created for each game:

/data/pathlog/<TITLE_ID>.log

Example:

/data/pathlog/PPSA12345.log

This mode is useful when you want a clean log for a single game without background system noise.

Stop Monitoring

Always use:

pathlog_stop.elf

The utility finds the active monitor process by name and terminates it cleanly.
If no monitor is running, it simply reports that.

Where Logs Are Stored

All logs are stored in:

/data/pathlog/

Main variants:

• all.log for full monitoring
• <TITLE_ID>.log for game-only monitoring

Log line format:

timestamp<TAB>kind<TAB>path

Example:

2026-03-18T01:23:45.678	open	/app0/eboot.bin
2026-03-18T01:23:45.700	stat	/app0/sce_sys/param.sfo

Analyzing Logs with the Python Script

analyze_pathlog.py works in two modes:

• build a Markdown report
• rename files and folders

The script:

• reads the pathlog file and analyzes open entries
• collects the game file list and compares paths case-insensitively
• works with both a local folder and FTP

Report Mode

Example for a local folder:

python3 pathlog-payload/analyze_pathlog.py \
  --report \
  pathlog-payload/PPSA12345.log \
  /games/PPSA12345

Example for FTP:

python3 pathlog-payload/analyze_pathlog.py \
  --report \
  pathlog-payload/PPSA12345.log \
  ftp://user:pass@192.168.0.10:1337/user/app/PPSA12345

If no output path is specified, the report is created next to the log:

<log>.report.md

The report includes:

• files whose file name case differs
• directories whose name case differs
• full file path case conflicts found inside the log
• directory case conflicts found inside the log
• files that exist in the game folder but never appeared in the log
• matching files

You can also specify a custom report path:

python3 pathlog-payload/analyze_pathlog.py \
  --report \
  -o result.md \
  pathlog-payload/PPSA12345.log \
  /games/PPSA12345

Rename Mode

This mode is used when you want to rename real files and folders to the case the game expects.

A dry run is recommended first:

python3 pathlog-payload/analyze_pathlog.py \
  --rename-case \
  --dry-run \
  pathlog-payload/PPSA12345.log \
  /games/PPSA12345

The script shows the planned renames without modifying anything.

After verifying the plan, you can run the real rename:

python3 pathlog-payload/analyze_pathlog.py \
  --rename-case \
  pathlog-payload/PPSA12345.log \
  /games/PPSA12345

The same also works over FTP:

python3 pathlog-payload/analyze_pathlog.py \
  --rename-case \
  --dry-run \
  pathlog-payload/PPSA12345.log \
  ftp://user:pass@192.168.0.10:1337/user/app/PPSA12345

Additional Rename Parameters

You can also set the case for files and folders that never appeared in the log.

Example:

python3 pathlog-payload/analyze_pathlog.py \
  --rename-case \
  --dry-run \
  --unlogged-files-case lower \
  --unlogged-dirs-case lower \
  pathlog-payload/PPSA12345.log \
  /games/PPSA12345

Available values:

• lower
• upper

This is useful if you want not only to fix the case according to the log, but also normalize unused files and folders to a consistent style.

Limitation:

• paths inside sce_module and sce_sys are intentionally ignored by --unlogged-files-case and --unlogged-dirs-case

FTP Parameters

If the log is analyzed over FTP, you can pass connection parameters directly in the URL:

ftp://user:pass@host:port/path/to/game

Or override them with separate arguments:

• --ftp-user
• --ftp-pass
• --ftp-port

Example:

python3 pathlog-payload/analyze_pathlog.py \
  --report \
  --ftp-user user \
  --ftp-pass pass \
  --ftp-port 1337 \
  pathlog-payload/PPSA12345.log \
  ftp://192.168.0.10/user/app/PPSA12345