sceIoDevctl 0x01E18030 asks whether the disc's region matches the console's.
Unusually it answers through the return value rather than an output buffer -
1 matches, 0 doesn't - so leaving it unimplemented read as a mismatch, and the
VSH opened on "This disc cannot be started. The region code is not correct.",
asking 12 times. PPSSPP has no region-locked discs; anything it can load is
something it should run, so this always matches. The call now happens once.
Behind it is a second thing, not fixed here: the VSH believes a disc is inserted
at all because nothing in PPSSPP models an empty drive. sceUmd reports
PSP_UMD_PRESENT | PSP_UMD_READY unconditionally, and devctl 0x01F20001 always
answers "game disc". JPCSP answers "no disc" when no ISO is loaded, which is why
it never reaches the region question. Giving those two a notion of "no disc"
would be the real fix - low risk for games, which always have one, but it is on a
path every game uses, so it is written up in docs/VSHBootInvestigation.md rather
than done as a drive-by.
With this the shell reaches the interactive XMB: the error is dismissable with
circle and the menu behind it works. The per-frame display list stops settling
into one repeated frame and alternates between 45 and 48 stall points, which is
the headless-visible sign of a live menu rather than a static dialog.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01GZq8ZtJmFY7bkX5FVkr3P9
