I learned something new about the vita. I deleted my id.dat, since I thought something was wrong with my aid, despite qcma working and detecting my games on my pc. the account id was correct/the same as the old id.dat. I looked in the system.dreg (downloaded fixreg_vita again, then made a backup of it on 3 hdds). I decrypted the file, then looked for the cma alphanumeric. I found it, but the account id was not present in the file, so I don't know where it gets that number from.
anyway, it rebuilt the database (didn't remove folders or anything), and the firmware listed was 3.70. it was 3.68 before, so firmware, spoofed or not, must determine this. I'm on 3.65 spoofed to 3.70. the software version of the id.dat must be ignored. anyway, I injected my old id.dat again. I had thought it was derived from signing into psn, since I was spoofed at the time (apparently to 3.68 when I abandoned my banned account and made a new one). I think the cma id is derived from the account id. I originally thought that they were one in the same.
upon closer examination, after deleting the id.dat and having it be recreated, it rebuilt the database. all apps/games/folders were sorted like I had it, but customization was undone. I had customized icons on the pstv with a customized theme. the theme was left intact, but the customized icons were undone. the app.db has theme locations for each icon. it also has the location of all game/app icons. the icon0.dds, which is what each app uses for its icon, were rescanned as it rebuilt the database. my customized icons are icon0.png, so fI had to add them to the appmeta of ur0 and change .dds and .png for each icon I changed in the app.db. instead of redoing it, I injected a backup of my appmeta, overwriting everything, and the app.db on ur0. now, everything is back to the way it was.
speaking of the system.dreg, on my old account, I changed the cma id to all 0s and reencrypted and injected it. qcma created a folder of all 0s correctly, but the system forced a format upon reboot. I wonder if that has to do with the account id of the id.dat? does anyone know where the account id is located? it must get it from somewhere, 'cause the id.dat is recreated with the correct id. maybe the system derives the id from the cma id? the account id is only added once you sign in to psn. since it.s related to the cma id, that could be the reason why qcma doesn't work without one. I'm assuming an account that's never signed into psn will be blank in the id.dat, so it may not be able to create a cma id without it. I couldn't find a whole lot of information about the account or cma id on vitadevwiki or how they relate to each other.
edit: unless I'm misunderstanding, vitadevwiki says that the cma id and the np aid are the same, but this doesn't appear to be the case for my account. I tried looking in the calendar.db, and the np account id is blank. on another page, it says that the id used by content manager and the account id are related (i.e. one is derived from the other) and not the same. the information on this is limited, vague, and confusing.