My PS3 was freezing constantly on me last night. Even after reboots the system would just freeze again. I’ve never had any stability problems until now which is impressive since I put my system through very heavy use; it’s almost always on and it’s usually running folding@home while I’m not actively using it.
Based on other online reports and Sony’s v2.01 heads up, my suspicion is that this is a firmware problem.
If I have to send in my system, I will be upset. One of the best things about the PS3 is it’s generally rock solid reliability. If this is just a bum firmware update that gets addressed by a patch, that will still be annoying, but ultimately not that big a deal.
Anyone else have similar issues?
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Written by: Darrin
- Contributing Editor
#1 by jwspiker on November 19th, 2007
yes, skate demo always freezes after 2nd olie completion, anyone else get this. Seems to be in certain areas of games. skate’s been the only problem with me. can some else try this and see if it happens for them? I tried deleting demo and re-downloading, and started after the 2.00 release. must be something with the news ticker or something.
#2 by Pc on November 19th, 2007 [ 1935 Points ]
I haven’t had any issues with mine thus far. Maybe it’s just a random thing….??
#3 by Dave on November 19th, 2007
What game are you playing? It keeps freezing randomly while I’m playing AC. Anybody else getting this because its really pissing me off
#4 by Tosh on November 19th, 2007 [ 87441 Points ]
I’ve had zero issues here.
#5 by Darrin on November 19th, 2007 [ 15187 Points ]
My girlfriend was using the PS3 to watch DVDs when it started freezing. Afterwards it was freezing in XMB seconds after boot or even before XMB screen came up. I definitely never had anything like this happen until yesterday.
#6 by jwspiker on November 19th, 2007
60 Gig, fully BC, USA ps3, 2.00 firmware, playing the SKATE demo, seems to die consistently when logged into the PSN, with the news ticker displaying, will test out toggleing these on/off tonight to see if that resolves the issue. But the system freezes right after completion of 2nd olie task in SKATE demo. I deleted and re-downloaded installed, and the same freeze.
not a huge issue, but was going to so my 360 own’n friend the skate demo on the ps3, trying to get him to get a ps3, so the 360 can continue to collect dust, and he can cancel his xbox live service.
Anyway, was just trying to see if others got the same freeze. Pretty hard freeze up.
#7 by Nathaniel on November 19th, 2007
I think that has to do with firmware 2.0.
I have noticed that games are freezing when accessing the HDD and i think FW2.0 may have changed something. I have noticed it on R&C, i now don’t get a title screen, just a black screen with the options along the bottom, the load screen flickers very badly, once loaded the game runs fine, although when purchasing weapons, armour, gadgets etc from the vendors the system is very slow and doesn’t always display the info…… i think all this info is stored on the HDD chace, i am going to delete the game info and see if this makes a different, if not role on FW2.01!
#8 by Davey on November 19th, 2007
I have been having some issue connecting my controllers. It would not connect unless I plug it in and then unplug to play wirless. My PS remote would have issues connecting to. I have also trid to connect my second controller since it ha not be used much. I had the same problem with it to. But sometime is works. I have not had any other problem. I have a 60gig. Does anyone have simular problems too?
#9 by derrickgott007 on November 19th, 2007
I think it has to do with the info bar. That is causing disconnects from online games and such. I turned mine off and I havent had anything like these other people have had. Now that I said that it will probably happen to me tonight.
Also, I have not played CALL OF DUTY 4 nor have I played Assasins Creed. I think that COD4 has problems with whatever it does to the PS3. Seems that people that have played this are the ones having the problems. No COD4 for me and so far I have no problems.
#10 by Huschke on November 19th, 2007
watched a blu ray movie last night and nothing happend! so no, no issues here
#11 by Segitz on November 19th, 2007 [ 1450 Points ]
Same for me as Huschke…
I had however some “lockup” which resolved themselves in seconds (try multitasking with the internet browser and the RSS reader on… then it locks up frequently, yet it does not freeze completely).
I didn’t play much though the last few days
#12 by Gary on November 19th, 2007
Just 5 freezes while playing Assassin’s Creed. I’ve played Ratchet & Clank, CoD4 and PSN games during the same period and experienced no freezing issues since Firmware 2.0.
#13 by derrickgott007 on November 19th, 2007 [ 871 Points ]
There seems to be a few problems with Both Assains Creed AND Call of Duty 4 with 2.0
This is what I can come up with after reading tons of messages on the boards.
I bet 2.1 will fix that.
#14 by babylon5 on November 19th, 2007
No issues at all with 2.00 in an PAL launch PS3
I’ve been playing COD4, watching DVDs, downloading, etc…
The only issue for me is Linux, as 2.0 breaks Wi-Fi
[YDL are looking into it]
#15 by Burten on November 19th, 2007 [ 550 Points ]
Picked tthis up from the Playstation.blog :
“…Firmware v2.01 is a minor update that will improve the stability of PLAYSTATION 3.We’ll provide more specifics as the update is about to go live, but we thought we’d give loyal blog readers advance notice!…”
Looks like they’re aware of your trouble, guys!
#16 by jwspiker on November 19th, 2007
yeah, anyone else try the SKATE demo? i turned off status/news ticker and tried skate again, seemed to work for a bit longer, and would then get a system pause/crash where it’d simply kill over. i hope rock band or uncharted won’t cause this to happen. Played a ps2 game(viewtiful joe 2), friday night for 4-5 hrs without any troubles, so it’d appear to be a problem either with my HD or with the firmware. I’m glad i backed up my data.
#17 by derrickgott007 on November 19th, 2007
jwspiker……
I can play the Skate demo all the way to the end with no problem, and I too can play PS2 games no problem. I have been addicted to Splinter Cell Chaos Theory for the PS2 (Yes, I am late to the party lol).
#18 by John on November 19th, 2007
No issues at all.
Had a blast with HS lately, too bad the normal gameplay is fine with button mashing, because some combos really are awesome (2nd time through).
#19 by Andy on November 19th, 2007
The first thing I did after the v2.0 upgrade was to turn off the InforBar thing. I’ve not had any freezes yet (touch wood), but I have noticed that CoD4 does disconnect me from the PSN randomly. I have Skate (full game) and not seen any freezes with that either.
Andy.
#20 by Darrin on November 19th, 2007 [ 15187 Points ]
My one coworker with a PS3 just mentioned a nearly identical issue with his PS3 freezing over the past few days. He hasn’t had stability issues before the v2.00 update either.
The odds of this *not* being related to the firmware update are very slim. On the good side, I suspect this will be fixed in the v2.01 update.
#21 by Tosh on November 19th, 2007 [ 87441 Points ]
Actually there is something I noticed. The PS3 would turn itself back on after I turn it off sometimes (I have remote start enabled). I read somewhere it’s a bug in the firmware.
#22 by Surreal on November 19th, 2007 [ 695 Points ]
No issues here (60GB PS3)
#23 by Segitz on November 19th, 2007 [ 1450 Points ]
I fear, some people are to “impatient” and think their console froze in XMB when it was just stuck for several seconds (i.e. more than 10 or 15 seconds)… As I said earlier, I had this too when the RSS reader was enabled, but is gone without!
Problem with this thing is, every time you enter something in the XMB, the reader shuts down and then, when you exit it, it restarts and needs to reload itself completely, which locks up the XMB for some seconds. Pretty dumb actually!
#24 by Darrin on November 19th, 2007 [ 15187 Points ]
Segitz, my PS3 is freezing. Not just for 10-15 seconds, but I’ve left it for minutes and it doesn’t come back. I expect this will be fixed by 2.01 this week.
Davey, that is a strange controller issue. I’ve never heard of that before. I can’t imagine why that would be.
Has anyone experienced this before v2.00?
#25 by Segitz on November 19th, 2007 [ 1450 Points ]
2.01 is out now… dling now
#26 by jwspiker on November 19th, 2007
fixed my problem with SKATE DEMO!! sweet.. wonder what it did
#27 by jwspiker on November 19th, 2007
well, was working till the video replay tutorial.. oh well.
#28 by west coast ps3 on November 19th, 2007
…no problems with firmware 2 here. I wonder if 2.01 supports DivX…I’m looking forward to less transcoding.
#29 by Darrin on November 20th, 2007 [ 15187 Points ]
Ugh. 2.01 patch didn’t seem to help. My PS3 still crashes within seconds (usually 0-7 seconds) of powering on. It seems that the longer I wait while it is off, the longer it stays on. If I leave it off overnight, it comes up for several minutes.
While applying the 2.01 patch, the PS3 reset itself while the onscreen progress indicator was at ~40% progress. That can’t be good. Ideally, I would like to reapply the patch but I’m not sure how to do that.
#30 by John on November 20th, 2007
Andy might be up tro something: the first thing I did after 2.0 installed was turn off the info bar (ugly and annoying little bugger).
#31 by Emrah on November 20th, 2007
My ps3 has no problems, I might as well wait for 2.1 (not 2.01), they may just have broken something again with 2.01..
#32 by Emrah on November 20th, 2007
BTW, from some changelog: “Stability during playing some PLAYSTATION 3 format software has been improved.”
“improved”.. It has to be, erm, perfect?!
#33 by Bilzac on November 20th, 2007
Update 2.1 is out
#34 by Emrah on November 20th, 2007
You mean, 2.01?
#35 by Eddie on November 20th, 2007 [ 37586 Points ]
I had one freeze on uncharted. none on AC which is surprising
#36 by Larry on November 29th, 2007
Well.. Ever since I got the new firmware, My PS3 has been freezing ever since I tried to start it up. I cannot play my PS3 at all now!
I hear part of the start up tune, Then it stops and all I see is a black screen.
Someone please please help me! I’m desprate!
Regards,
Larry.
#37 by Simon on November 29th, 2007
Hold down the power button on your ps3 for a few seconds untill it beeps twice, this should reset it back to default settings and solve your black screen problem.
#38 by Darrin on November 30th, 2007 [ 15187 Points ]
Larry, that’s *exactly* what happened to me. Some times the PS3 would run for 1-2 minutes before freezing, but most of the type it freezes before I even get an image. I do get the startup chime though.
My PS3 was perfectly fine until v2.0 firmware.
I tried holding the power button, I tried patching with 2.01 (when I could get the PS3 to boot), I tried disabling the new news ticker, and I even did a complete system settings reset (also when I actually got the PS3 to boot).
Ultimately nothing worked. I called Sony support and I sent my system in for repair/replacement.
#39 by Larry on December 2nd, 2007
Well, Please tell me if you solve our problem, Because I *really* want my PS3 to work.
#40 by Darrin on December 2nd, 2007 [ 15187 Points ]
Larry, I solved my problem: I called Sony, they sent me an empty box to return my PS3 with prepaid postage, I sent my PS3 off and am awaiting a replacement to arrive.
The process is reasonably painless. Make sure you have a receipt of some kind. They will also make you go through a few basic troubleshooting steps before they agree to do a warranty exchange.
Call Sony Support: 1-800-345-SONY (7669)
http://www.us.playstation.com/Support/PS3/HowToObtainService
#41 by Larry on December 3rd, 2007
Okay, Thanks..
But I’m from the UK, So could you find me a UK number?
Regards.
#42 by Darkpen on December 3rd, 2007
I just got a ps3, installed the firmware update, and holy crap I’m having a crap load of freezes and whatnot
What’s up with this? I hope its not because I got a refurbished ps3, is it?
#43 by Larry on December 4th, 2007
No, It’s the shitty, Buggy version.
#44 by Darrin on December 4th, 2007 [ 15187 Points ]
Darkpen, sounds like you need to do an exchange. Call Sony Support.
Larry, sorry, I’m lazy. The UK number is on the support site somewhere. I feel your pain. I am waiting for a replacement system right now.
#45 by Maverick on December 8th, 2007
Just got a new PS3 yesterday and worked great up until about an hour ago. It boots up fine and everything but then when I go to play a Madden game, the game lets me play for a max of 3 minutes then freezes. I am pretty sure its the system because I had a buddy bring his Madden disc over and it froze in the same area for him. I also tried switching outlets, unplugging chords and rebooting. This is making me really angry. Any suggestions?
#46 by Darrin on December 8th, 2007 [ 15187 Points ]
Maverick, I’m no troubleshooting expert, but here’s what I would recommend:
- Make sure you are using latest 2.01 firmware.
- Go into settings and do a System Reset to reset all settings.
- If the freezing still persists, you are probably screwed: Get your receipt, call Sony support, and get a replacement.
#47 by luke on January 20th, 2008
mine has just started doin this aswell!!!! does reseting the system work??
its the same for me 4 mins into any game and it freezes!!
i was getting quite good at COD4 aswell!!!!
#48 by matthew on November 7th, 2008
my ps3 just goes on the title page do u no wiv that group of swirly lines and then doesent do any thing but ive done everything and have been scouring the internet for help on the thing ive got COD4 i play all the time with my mate i dnt no wat to do i also have got assasins creed but i completed it copule of months back any help or any awnsers please give me some or im takin it to sony!
#49 by matthew on November 7th, 2008
my ps3 just goes on the title page do u no wiv that group of swirly lines and then doesent do any thing but ive done everything and have been scouring the internet for help on the thing ive got COD4 i play all the time with my mate i dnt no wat to do i also have got assasins creed but i completed it copule of months back any help or any awnsers please give me some or im takin it to sony!!