According to Sony Interactive Entertainment, the recent PSN message bug causing players’ PlayStation 4 consoles to crash has officially received a fix.
PS4 owners can relax now that Sony has announced that the console’s message bug has been reviewed, worked on, and fixed. Less than a week ago stories began circulating around the Internet of a message bug that would crash the owner’s PS4 and could only be fixed by factory resetting it.
Rumors of the bug were first seen on Reddit by a user who claimed his whole team received a message from an opposing player while playing Rainbow Six: Siege, and after him and his teammates opened it, their PS4s crashed and they were forced to factory reset. However, one player on his team did not receive the message, because his messages were set to private.
While many were experiencing a crash upon opening a PSN message, other Reddit users claimed that their PS4s were crashing immediately after having simply received the message. Apparently, the cryptic message included a specific character that was likely causing the crash, and did not need to be selected and opened by the owner. Two days after the initial report of the bug on Reddit, Sony responded to the community saying that it was “aware of the situation” and “planning a system software update to resolve the solution”.
Sony announced today that it had resolved the issue, but at the time of writing this article, no PS4 software update has been released, so speculation is that the bug has been fixed through PlayStation Network, rather than the system software. Sony elected not to fully explain why or how the message bug came to be, possibly because it does not even know, but an explanation is expected and will most likely come relatively soon.
While the community still does not know the origin of this bug, it is no secret that the PSN is lacking in some ways with proper cybersecurity from hackers. Sony has experienced numerous issues, bugs, and hacks throughout the years, including the famous SOE situation in 2011.
Sony has had a massive year with multiple exclusive “Game of the Year” candidates, the announcement of the PS5 campaign, and its first ever cross-play beta being tested on Fortnite. That said, though, PS4 fans should expect better protection from harmful bugs like this one.
