PSA: PS4 Messages Soft Bricking Consoles

Apparently someone has found a way to send a playstation message on PS4 that results in the system locking up. It seems that deleting the message via mobile/web based PS messaging and then rebuilding the database in safe mode should fix it, though other users have also factory reset their consoles

From Reddit:

How do I prevent this? Be preemptive and set your message setting to either friends only or no one. You may also want to disable friend request since those may include personal messages in the request.

• Go to Settings > Account Management > Privacy Settings > Enter your password > Personal Info | Messaging, and set Messages to either Friends (if you trust them) or No One.

My console is broke, how do I fix this? A lot of people are probably going to do a factory reset, and lose all their games and saves. However it sounds like deleting the message via PS app or website, and then doing a database rebuild is sufficient and you won't lose anything important.

• 1: Delete the message - Use PS Messages app or my.playstation.com to remove the message which messed up your PS4 ("Leave group").

• 2: Boot in safe mode - With the PS4 turned off, hold the power button for 7 seconds until you hear another beep. The safe mode menu should appear.

• 3: Rebuild database - Choose the "Rebuild Database" option, so that the PS4 can clear the message from its data stores. If all goes well you should have a working PS4 with all games and saves intact.

Kotaku Source

Ouch...

Good ol' PSN.

Still outselling Xbone by 40 million units.

Good thing they jacked up the price last year

@blackballs: The more consoles that might get bricked...

Seriously, Sony should just re-do PSN from scratch. It seems so vulnerable and hard to work with. I mean it took them how many years to figure out how to change usernames, and it's still only a half-arsed measure.

Anyway, hopefully Sony atleast warns people about this.

Still won't stop ps4 from selling twice as much as the Xbone.

Magic words: "No One".

Other magic words: "Friends Only".

Seriously people, why would you let strangers send you anything they want? You have security options for a reason.

@blackballs: Lol, get a life Quack. Seriously.

@reduc_ab_: I had an experience with a wannabe camgirl sending me messages to make money.

Okay, I_P_Daily.

Yeah, caught wind of this last night from people posting on Twitter. In general amazed about the amount of spam that goes on PSN. I went 3-4 years after giving my PS3 away after security breach. When i picked up a PS4 this past March and went online, had 100's of cam girl spam and dating crap in my inbox(luckily then i set my messages to friends only).

Interested to see what Sony says/does about this, going on about 1 day1/2 with no word. Some people are reporting that even the message notification popping up without opening the message was bricking the console.

@hrt_rulz01:

While this isn't good news for the psn (even if it's not a big of a deal that you're making it out to be), there are things that I find that the playstation infrastructure does better than the xb1 infrastructure from experience.

@blackballs: You know I've been a member alot longer than him right? How can I be his alt? Lol, keep trying.

@ermacness: Hmm, ok. Not sure what that would be but ok :)

Had a couple of them myself. Did you make her do some really obscene and freaky shit?...I know I did ;)

Always getting PMs from random people. I should really turn it to friends only.

Question, is bricking resulting in losing all data on your storage or just a temporary system freeze that needs resetting? Either way that's a serious security risk but considering its PSN I'm not surprised. PSN users should expect this kinda stuff honestly.

Not surprised, from a company that stores user PW data in plain text.

I would wager that more than a few people at Sony probably knew about whatever bug this message exploits, but basically said "meh, we might patch it some day."

I almost feel this is a hoax, then I remember its PSN.

Sucks, cause I use to get updates that PSN was down like every other week, not that I'd know I don't do much of anything online on PS4/PS3/Vita, but its been a good 2 months since heard anything bad about PSN.

Wait... I thought consoles were suppose to just work and you don't have to worry about shit like this? This is hilarious. I have never received a message on PC that has fucked up my PC. LOL

Yeah but you never open messages as they only come in at 30fps :P

You know what else bricks the PS4? great racing games, that's why Sony has been very careful not to release one this gen LOL.

My messages are displayed in 120hz. I can even move them around smoothly. :P

With drops into the 20's, you need to speed up your PC, here's the best tip I found...

You're welcome :P

@i_p_daily said:

@BassMan said:

@i_p_daily said:

@BassMan said:

Wait... I thought consoles were suppose to just work and you don't have to worry about shit like this? This is hilarious. I have never received a message on PC that has fucked up my PC. LOL

Yeah but you never open messages as they only come in at 30fps :P

My messages are displayed in 120hz. I can even move them around smoothly. :P

With drops into the 20's, you need to speed up your PC, here's the best tip I found...

You're welcome :P

Drops in the 20's?! Unacceptable! Sonic isn't going to do shit anyway. I prefer the i9 9900K that I ordered. hehe :P

@BassMan said:

@i_p_daily said:

@BassMan said:

@i_p_daily said:

@BassMan said:

Wait... I thought consoles were suppose to just work and you don't have to worry about shit like this? This is hilarious. I have never received a message on PC that has fucked up my PC. LOL

Yeah but you never open messages as they only come in at 30fps :P

My messages are displayed in 120hz. I can even move them around smoothly. :P

With drops into the 20's, you need to speed up your PC, here's the best tip I found...

You're welcome :P

Drops in the 20's?! Unacceptable! Sonic isn't going to do shit anyway. I prefer the i9 9900K that I ordered. hehe :P

The best part is I know absolutely not what that is and i'm fine with that, enjoy your i9 9999999999999999999999999999999k :P

@i_p_daily said:

@BassMan said:

@i_p_daily said:

@BassMan said:

My messages are displayed in 120hz. I can even move them around smoothly. :P

With drops into the 20's, you need to speed up your PC, here's the best tip I found...

You're welcome :P

Drops in the 20's?! Unacceptable! Sonic isn't going to do shit anyway. I prefer the i9 9900K that I ordered. hehe :P

The best part is I know absolutely not what that is and i'm fine with that, enjoy your i9 9999999999999999999999999999999k :P

It is the best gaming CPU you can buy and it costs slightly more than your entire X1X which has a pitiful CPU that limits games to 30fps. LOL

The Sonic pic is good. So, I will give you props for that.

@BassMan said:

@i_p_daily said:

@BassMan said:

@i_p_daily said:

@BassMan said:

My messages are displayed in 120hz. I can even move them around smoothly. :P

With drops into the 20's, you need to speed up your PC, here's the best tip I found...

You're welcome :P

Drops in the 20's?! Unacceptable! Sonic isn't going to do shit anyway. I prefer the i9 9900K that I ordered. hehe :P

The best part is I know absolutely not what that is and i'm fine with that, enjoy your i9 9999999999999999999999999999999k :P

It is the best gaming CPU you can buy and it costs slightly more than your entire X1X which has a pitiful CPU that limits games to 30fps. LOL

The Sonic pic is good. So, I will give you props for that.

So it cost more than an X (an X has all the components needed to game) and without other components its useless, good to know lol.

@i_p_daily said:

@BassMan said:

@i_p_daily said:

@BassMan said:

Drops in the 20's?! Unacceptable! Sonic isn't going to do shit anyway. I prefer the i9 9900K that I ordered. hehe :P

The best part is I know absolutely not what that is and i'm fine with that, enjoy your i9 9999999999999999999999999999999k :P

It is the best gaming CPU you can buy and it costs slightly more than your entire X1X which has a pitiful CPU that limits games to 30fps. LOL

The Sonic pic is good. So, I will give you props for that.

So it cost more than an X (an X has all the components needed to game) and without other components its useless, good to know lol.

Well, it runs laps around the X1X CPU and I am paying for quality, which there is none to be found in the X1X and that is why it is so cheap.

@BassMan said:

@i_p_daily said:

@BassMan said:

@i_p_daily said:

@BassMan said:

Drops in the 20's?! Unacceptable! Sonic isn't going to do shit anyway. I prefer the i9 9900K that I ordered. hehe :P

The best part is I know absolutely not what that is and i'm fine with that, enjoy your i9 9999999999999999999999999999999k :P

It is the best gaming CPU you can buy and it costs slightly more than your entire X1X which has a pitiful CPU that limits games to 30fps. LOL

The Sonic pic is good. So, I will give you props for that.

So it cost more than an X (an X has all the components needed to game) and without other components its useless, good to know lol.

Well, it runs laps around the X1X CPU and I am paying for quality, which there is none to be found in the X1X and that is why it is so cheap.

So you're saying Forza 7 and Forza Horizon 4 are not quality??? as I insert the disk and therefore in the X. And again you're paying for a component that alone is useless, thanks again for the info.

@i_p_daily said:

@BassMan said:

@i_p_daily said:

@BassMan said:

@i_p_daily said:

The best part is I know absolutely not what that is and i'm fine with that, enjoy your i9 9999999999999999999999999999999k :P

It is the best gaming CPU you can buy and it costs slightly more than your entire X1X which has a pitiful CPU that limits games to 30fps. LOL

The Sonic pic is good. So, I will give you props for that.

So it cost more than an X (an X has all the components needed to game) and without other components its useless, good to know lol.

Well, it runs laps around the X1X CPU and I am paying for quality, which there is none to be found in the X1X and that is why it is so cheap.

So you're saying Forza 7 and Forza Horizon 4 are not quality??? as I insert the disk and therefore in the X. And again you're paying for a component that alone is useless, thanks again for the info.

Those 2 games can run at 60fps on a potato.

@i_p_daily:

Sony better fix this shit,thankfully i only get message from friends only,and my list of friend is very small.

My goodness Mighty X1X MonsterBox has some Pee Salty Seas very turbulent and angry this time of year. It's good to be MasterRace. Good stuff. lol

OT, Phony, the one and only. :P

The thing that bricks Xbone? Exclusives.

That makes no sense at all!

True. And also good games. It makes sense then why only non-gamers prefer that console.

Indeed, why buy a console with no exclusives right?

And this ^^ somehow does?

FH4 requires a 1060GTX to run 60FPS in 4k,that is the GPU with higher penetration on steam,still the majority of PC gamers by a landslide don't own one.

So a potato no i don't think so,he is not talking about Dota 2 or counter strike which are HUGELY popular on PC and look like dirt compare to the best PC has to offer.

This thread is about the PS4 been bricked by private messages,PC gamers should not be on this thread as we all know PC is the most insecure place to game EVER since the damn internet was introduced PSN hack is a joke compare to the amount of PC destroyed by viruses,trollans,spamware and adware,is not even close and that been happening way before the PSN fiasco as well.

PSN <3

Yikes, haven't fired up my PS4 in ages, better get this fixed pronto.

True that. I had a few spam messages on PSN myself. Actually, I've had more spam on there than I ever have using Steam or any of the other online gaming services on PC.

This is why I still disliked when console gaming merged with the internet. The days of discs and memory cards were so much more reliable.

This is fine nothing is wrong ps4 id fucking great

who cares about a few people who fell for this crap ps4 still rocks

Just put your messages to friends only...

It seems the PS4 software devs are taking a page from the iPhone iOS dev team.

Oh well. As computer software gets more complicated, bugs like this are almost inevitable. I'm sure they will fix it if they haven't already.

I'm curious who even uses the text message feature on consoles.

@reduc_ab_: Because people like to get hatemails from noobs.

I would blame some salty Xbot, but I forget they don't actually play video games.

Anyone not surprised something like this happens after Crossplay gets the green light? If the unsupported character crashes a PS4, it seems obvious the message isn't originating from a PS4.

@drlostrib: I used my LOL Vita to change all settings and delete messages and friends requests. Then I reset my PS4 and all that stuff was gone. I seem to be safe for now at least :)