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UPDATED: PlayStation 3 glitch hits gamers

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Dela @ Mar 01, 2010 14:56 | 22 comments

Some gamers who have tried to play popular PS3 titles today might have had a nasty shock. Thousands of users are being prompted with an error - "8001050F – Hardware failure. Cannot update Firmware or connect to Internet" - and report not being able to connect to the PlayStation Network (PSN), play certain titles offline, access or play downloaded PSN content and more.

The fault is being blamed on a bug with the consoles clock or calendar which oddly set the date back to Dec 31, 1999 for many users in the switchover from February to March. Sony is well aware of the issue and made a statement earlier. "We have found out that some users are experiencing a network connection failure when signing on to PlayStation Network," the PlayStation maker said.

"We are currently looking in to the issue to identify the cause of this network connection failure and will update further information as necessary on the PlayStation blog and official website. We appreciate your understanding and continued support."

The problem only seems to affect users of older "fat" PlayStation 3 (PS3) consoles, while owners of the Slim PS3 models reportedly have no problems so far.

At the time of writing, this was the latest from the PlayStation Blog:

Were aware that many of you are having difficulty connecting to the PlayStation Network this evening. Those of you with "slim" PS3s (the 120/250 GB models) appear to be unaffected.

Know that we have narrowed down the issue and have engineers working to restore service even as you read this. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you, and genuinely appreciate your patience while we work to resolve this.

In the meantime, you may want to follow our Twitter account for the latest updates.

PlayStation Twitter: http://twitter.com/sonyplaystation

Update: This is the latest post from Sony's PlayStation blog regarding the glitch.

As you may be aware, some customers have been unable to connect to the PlayStation Network today. This problem affects the models other than the new slim PS3.

We believe we have identified that this problem is being caused by a bug in the clock functionality incorporated in the system.

Errors include:

* The date of the PS3 system may be re-set 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 play back certain rental video downloaded from the

PlayStation Store before the expiration date.

We hope to resolve this problem within the next 24 hours. In the meantime, if you have a model other than the new slim PS3, we advise that you do not use your PS3 system, as doing so may result in errors in some functionality, such as recording obtained trophies, and not being able to restore certain data.

As mentioned above, please be advised that the new slim PS3 is not affected with this error. We are doing our best to resolve the issue and do apologize for any inconvenience caused.

For the latest status on this situation please continue to check either the PlayStation.Blog or PlayStation.com.

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Comments

Comment by: janega (Mar 01, 2010 15:06)

egh that's great going to have to check this out tonight! Is a PS3 Y2K!

Comment by: RiaaScum (Mar 01, 2010 15:22)

so you have to be signed in to the psn network to play downloaded game content, are ppl really so gullible to purchase this worthless content or do they not realise the implications?

do sony accept liability for hardware failure via forced firmware updates in the EULA does anyone know?

Comment by: Oner (Mar 01, 2010 16:05)

Originally posted by RiaaScum:
so you have to be signed in to the psn network to play downloaded game content, are ppl really so gullible to purchase this worthless content or do they not realise the implications?

do sony accept liability for hardware failure via forced firmware updates in the EULA does anyone know?

I have played ALL my DLC content offline (not connected to net at all) and have full access to them without a problem. This is a specific issue that has surfaced because of something separate. There is some preliminary info that says it may have been an attack by a hacker who wants .flv support or something to that matter.

It seems to be random at best as to who is affected as Slim owners are fine while most are saying it is limited to Phaty's yet I have a 20gb w/BC an 80gb w/BC & a 120gb Slim which work perfect as well as others who have no issues at all with their Phats too.

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Comment by: elbald90 (Mar 01, 2010 16:15)

just checked and my 60gb phat isnt connecting guess ill just have to wait for a fix

Comment by: xyqo (Mar 01, 2010 16:49)

HAHAHA my 360 is working fine!!!!
Just messing around but really this suck come on sony

Comment by: lissenup2 (Mar 01, 2010 16:56)

Originally posted by janega:
egh that's great going to have to check this out tonight! Is a PS3 Y2K!

Funniest thing I've ever heard. :)

Comment by: DVDBack23 (Mar 01, 2010 17:09)

Just turned on my PS3 to check this...and no connection to the Internet..interesting.

Comment by: Dela (Mar 01, 2010 17:36)

Quote:
Originally posted by janega:
egh that's great going to have to check this out tonight! Is a PS3 Y2K!
Funniest thing I've ever heard. :)

Actually Y2K is the first thing I thought of too. The only "Y2K" cases that actually happened were machines that mistakenly reported the date as January 1, 100. ;-) (or was it 19100?)

But ye, it's an interesting one. I was wondering if it had anything to do with a screw up related to leap years, since it happened apparently in the changeover from February 28th to March 1st on a lot of Fat PS3s. Or of course that could be just a side effect of something else.

Comment by: Dela (Mar 01, 2010 17:39)

From PlayStation Blog
---------------------------

As you may be aware, some customers have been unable to connect to the PlayStation Network today. This problem affects the models other than the new slim PS3.

We believe we have identified that this problem is being caused by a bug in the clock functionality incorporated in the system.

Errors include:

* The date of the PS3 system may be re-set 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 play back certain rental video downloaded from the
PlayStation Store before the expiration date.

We hope to resolve this problem within the next 24 hours. In the meantime, if you have a model other than the new slim PS3, we advise that you do not use your PS3 system, as doing so may result in errors in some functionality, such as recording obtained trophies, and not being able to restore certain data.

As mentioned above, please be advised that the new slim PS3 is not affected with this error. We are doing our best to resolve the issue and do apologize for any inconvenience caused.

For the latest status on this situation please continue to check either the PlayStation.Blog or PlayStation.com.

---------------------

Comment by: Oner (Mar 01, 2010 17:58)

It does look to be like a February 28th -> March 1st issue but 2010 isn't a leap year, 2012 is, and I keep stumbling on stuff about this relating to GeoHotz in some way or another...dunno, I guess we'll see.

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Comment by: Pop_Smith (Mar 01, 2010 18:02)

Originally posted by Dela:

Quote:
Originally posted by janega:
egh that's great going to have to check this out tonight! Is a PS3 Y2K!
Funniest thing I've ever heard. :)

Actually Y2K is the first thing I thought of too. The only "Y2K" cases that actually happened were machines that mistakenly reported the date as January 1, 100. ;-) (or was it 19100?)

But ye, it's an interesting one. I was wondering if it had anything to do with a screw up related to leap years, since it happened apparently in the changeover from February 28th to March 1st on a lot of Fat PS3s. Or of course that could be just a side effect of something else.

I thought I read it was 1900 that a very small amount of computers changed to instead of changing to the year 2000. Anyway, it's strange that it's only affecting "Fat" consoles.

Comment by: WierdName (Mar 01, 2010 18:41)

Well, I think I might check my December '08 non-BC model before booting it up. That would be quite a pain in the butt if it loses data.

Comment by: stuntman_ (Mar 01, 2010 18:55)

This is very confusing. Lets say I just unplug my network cable wouldn't I be fine for now? I wanted to play heavy rain and could care less about trophies can I do that or should I wait?

Comment by: Dela (Mar 01, 2010 19:11)

Originally posted by Oner:
It does look to be like a February 28th -> March 1st issue but 2010 isn't a leap year, 2012 is, and I keep stumbling on stuff about this relating to GeoHotz in some way or another...dunno, I guess we'll see.

Ye I know 2012 is but that's possibly part of the glitch? Some kind of strange bug in the code that determines leap years or something, I dunno, it's only guess work for all of us until we know.

I don't see how it would related to Geohot really though. I guess whenever stuff like this happens and there's a lack of confirmed information, there's always plenty of people to fill the void with rumors :-)

Comment by: TBandit (Mar 01, 2010 21:54)

Originally posted by xyqo:
HAHAHA my 360 is working fine!!!!
Just messing around but really this suck come on sony

LMfao

Comment by: xnonsuchx (Mar 01, 2010 21:58)

Originally posted by stuntman_:
This is very confusing. Lets say I just unplug my network cable wouldn't I be fine for now? I wanted to play heavy rain and could care less about trophies can I do that or should I wait?

Maybe if you disconnect and manually set the date to before Feb 28...or maybe March 2 or later.

Comment by: Run4two (Mar 02, 2010 00:36)

Call me paranoid. Is this problem occuring with original 60G machines that never have been connected to internet and have not updated firmware? If not, which firmware releases are flawed?

There have been discussions of the older fat PS3s beginning to be successfully hacked. Could Sony be trying something new in relation to this?

Comment by: WierdName (Mar 02, 2010 00:48)

According to some posts on the PS blog, some consoles are starting to work again. There was some speculation that the problem was with the hardware clock. Of course, this speculation is pushed by people that are assuming they know what the hardware/programmatic problem could be better than the manufacturer of the hardware. I wonder how many of them could actually define what an algorithm is without going to Wikipedia. I think I'm going to power my PS3 on and hope for the best.

Comment by: Run4two (Mar 02, 2010 01:06)

I've seen too how the problem seems to have passed. I still want to know what it was. How does something like this occur?

Comment by: Oner (Mar 02, 2010 01:30)

Originally posted by Run4two:
I've seen too how the problem seems to have passed. I still want to know what it was. How does something like this occur?

Seems to have been that the internal clock on the Phat PS3's look at every even year to be a leap year when it should obviously be every 4 years and the reason this wasn't an issue in 2008 is because it was a leap year. So when GMT hit to March 2 a few hours ago the PS3's fixed themselves. All you may have to do is adjust your date from 3/1/2010 to 3/2/2010.

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Comment by: bilen (Mar 06, 2010 00:04)

Thought they advertise it to do everything? Just not a calender i guess.

Comment by: Pop_Smith (Mar 06, 2010 00:14)

Originally posted by bilen:
Thought they advertise it to do everything? Just not a calender i guess.

Only the Slims do everything; it was the "Fat" PS3's that had a calender problem.