A newly-discovered PlayStation 4 exploit has left peoples’ consoles in serious trouble.
A worrying amount of PlayStation users have reported receiving a message containing random characters, which forces users to factory reset their consoles after viewing. Without the factory reset, the message reportedly leaves your console unusable.
Taking to Reddit to post on the issue, one user wrote: “There is a new glitch that basically bricks your console and forces you to factory reset it. Even deleting the message from the mobile app doesn’t work.
“It happened to me during Rainbow Six: Siege. A player from the other team used a dummy account to send the message and crashed my entire team. We all have had to factory reset. Only one of our guys wasn’t affected and he has his messages private.
“Do this ASAP to prevent this from happening to you.”
[PlayStation users] to let you guys know
My account is ok. Theres and exploit in which it forces your console to do a factory reset. Be careful.— Storm – Fortnite Leaks🎃 (@StormLeaks) October 14, 2018
Another added: “Multiple reports of a system breaking glitch. This is coming from multiple reputable outlets. Instructions on how to set your messages to private can be seen below. This post has been stickied.
”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.”
It seems the issue has been affecting a lot of people, with reports flooding in.
Unless you wanna be forced to factory reset your #PS4, set your message settings to “Friends Only.” My brother got a message last night that repeatedly crashed his system, causing him to lose his data. All because someone couldn’t stand losing a match of #RainbowSix. @PlayStation
— 🎃 PumpKent 🎃 (@pugglepudge) October 13, 2018
“This just happened to me during Rocket League. Got a message then after a minute my controller stopped working and everything went silent. Now I can’t access the home menu. It just goes to the ‘Report Problem’ screen every time,” said one person.
Sony has yet to comment on the issue.
Have you encountered any weird messages through your PlayStation? Or maybe you’ve experienced this issue for yourself. Let us know in the comments!