1 Mar, 2010
“All around the world, PlayStation 3 consoles simply aren’t working like they’re supposed to, with an error preventing people from not just going online, but from playing some PS3 games offline as well.
From Europe to the Americas to, well, my house in Australia, users (mostly of older “Fat” consoles, those released before 2009′s “PS3 Slim”) are complaining that upon booting their consoles up, they’re unable to sign into their accounts, check their trophies, use dynamic themes or access the PlayStation Network. That’s fine, Sony say there are PSN connection problems, and that they are “looking into it”.
Problem is, the error does more than just prevent you from going online. It prevents you from playing certain games offline as well. Even for some consoles that aren’t connected to the PSN, like debug units. The screen above is what I was greeted with on a retail console when attempting to play Heavy Rain, and pressing out of it simply reboots the PS3, returning you to the main menu screen. It’s the same story for other games that feature dynamic trophy support.
PSN games are no different; I tried to boot up “Flower”, only to be greeted with a similar message about failed copyright protection, and it was right back to the XMB.
Sony say “stay tuned” for updates on the problem. In turn, we’ve emailed Sony for comment and will update if we hear anything more.
While theories abound that this has something to do with the calendar on older PS3s (some users are reporting their date/time settings have been reset), bear in mind Sony has redesigned its PlayStation website over the weekend, so it could be the result of some tinkering under the hood for the PlayStation Network. Then again, if consoles not connected to the PSN are also affected, it could be something else. Who knows!
Whatever it is, though, you have to wonder at the design process that turns a network outage into something stopping you from playing an offline, singleplayer title.
UPDATE – Sony has updated on an update, saying “We’re narrowing down the issue and continue to work to restore service to all. Updates as soon as we have them.”
UPDATE 2 – A mass story-telling session on internet gaming forum NeoGAF points towards the issue potentially being related to a calendar bug in older PlayStation 3 consoles, not the PlayStation Network as was first suspected. Bear in mind this is mob science, however, and is by no means official confirmation on the cause of the problem.”
Update:
“Following up on the issue this morning, Sony issued a statement saying that it believes the problem is related to a bug in the PS3′s internal clock and hopes to have the situation resolved within 24 hours. Also, as initially surmised, the bug afflicts all PS3 models other than the PS3 Slim, which was released in late August 2009.
Sony urged those who own models other than the Slim to keep their consoles powered off until the fix can be applied. According to the publisher, turning the console on while the problem persists “may result in errors in some functionality, such as recording obtained trophies, and not being able to restore certain data.”
Considering that the bug prevents gamers from connecting to the PSN, it is unclear how Sony intends to fix the firmware issue on the malfunctioning consoles. The publisher said that it expects to have more details later today.
For those wondering if their consoles have succumbed to the bug, Sony also released a list of reported errors, found below.
8001050F error messages:
–The date of the PS3 system may be reset to Jan 1, 2000.
–When the user tries to sign-in to the PlayStation Network, the following message appears on the screen; “An error has occurred. You have been signed out of PlayStation Network (8001050F).”
–When the user tries to launch a game, the following error message appears on the screen and the trophy data may disappear; “Failed to install trophies. Please exit your game.”
–When the user tries to set the time and date of the system via the Internet, the following message appears on the screen; “The current date and time could not be obtained. (8001050F)”
–Users are not able to playback certain rental video downloaded from the PlayStation Store before the expiration date.”
Has your PS3 been affected? Leave a comment and let us know.
Source: kotaku.com
Update Source: gamespot.com
Omg yes its happened to me I wana play playstation because I just got out of the hospital and now thiss wth
My gt is x_s_t_ie_a_ik_y
I can’t sign in, not sure about disc games but then again my man had no problems playing PES2010 after midnight last night. Whenever I try to play a downloaded PSN game I get “An error occurred during the start operation” and on my mans account he gets “The copyright protection information is invalid” which is bizarre as we’ve bought our games ourselves! Mind you most of them are downloaded via my account, although we do share the same PS3. But yeah annoying. I was hoping for some Bioshock 2 later! >_< Oh and another weird thing: my time and date has completely reset and a couple of my themes have corrupted! I hope they sort this soon, otherwise I'll be shaking in the corner from withdrawal!
Ha! Well, beings as I’ve been without internet at home since last Friday, I missed this entirely!
Do you think it’s the impact of Heavy Rain on the network? Heh. ;)
I’ve been getting weird network errors intermittently over the last couple of days. I just put that down to my crappy internet connection though. :P
Other than that (if it’s even related) mine seems to be unaffected but then, it is a slim.
Yep it’s happened to mine… Typical, when I finally have time to sit down and play Heavy Rain, this happens… I’m ill i have no other salvation! Oh wait, yes I do, thank god for my trusty 360 *kisses*
Wow, that’s too bad. I don’t have a PS3 personally, but i understand what it’s like not being able to play your console (RROD, I’m looking at you.)
Oh, wow, I was actually gonna post this before work but I was running outta time. I’m glad that this hasn’t affected me, though, but if it DOES, at least I can figure out what to do lol.
i too am having problems at first i thought it was poor connection but then the playstation network went down for maintance on the 9th of june and i call today on the 11th and its down agin.I cant siging in and playing cod mw2. I just bought my system 5 days ago. i got the 250gb slim and i played for almost 2 in a half hours and havent been able to get back into a match yet. im starting to get kinda dissapointed in my choice to go with the ps3 but i like the system. anyone know anything?