It appears that PlayStation 4 users might need to quickly go tweak their system settings, due to a newly uncovered "hack" in the form of corrupted private messages. Hundreds of users have reported that upon receiving a weird message in their PS4's message inbox, their consoles would freeze up, and not do anything, requiring a full factory reset in order to function again. This glitch can happen to anyone that allows messages from "everybody", so it's highly recommended that for now, you should set messages to friends only. Those unlucky enough to experience the problem find that upon getting the message, their system won't connect to their controller, and if they try to force the system to go back to the menu, it'll still crash when signing into their account. Sony hasn't said anything in regards to the matter at this time.

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.

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

You can protect yourself from such problems if you go to settings, account management, privacy settings, and then personal info/messaging.

Source

 

[slaphappygamer]

remembering aol messenger

"a rose for you @}~~"
-anybot



wonder if now is a good time to snag a "bricked" ps4

 

[Rabbid4240]

Couldn't Neversoft fix the problem server sided, when the message has over a certain amount of characters it wouldn't send?

Idk the games servers were already dead when people spammed the message

 

[bluhacks]

The PS4s are not stable enough it seems.


Seriously though, that's kind of crazy that your PS4 can mess up from some message if you don't change the message settings.

 

[leonmagnus99]

i actually received a message from a stranger no picture on icon.
and i just pressed Option then selected "leave"

thankfully nothing happened to my ps4, as i did not even open the message.
i made sure to change from anyone to friends only for messages.

 

[dAVID_]

The joy of Unicode ﷽௵

 

[Joom]

Why a gaming console of all things?

Because gamers are the loneliest of people. Also, this reminds me of the DCC exploit from the old days of IRC and shitty routers. Unicode is indeed fun.

 

[YOUCANTSTOPME]

Because gamers are the loneliest of people.

Speak for yourself

Just playin'.

 

[nWo]

Well that sucks.

 

[Yepi69]

What's funny is that I kept reporting these spam bots as they messaged me and Playstation would just shit on my reports with the ''that's not really important'' excuse.

 

[Arras]

i actually received a message from a stranger no picture on icon.
and i just pressed Option then selected "leave"

thankfully nothing happened to my ps4, as i did not even open the message.
i made sure to change from anyone to friends only for messages.

The "bad" message breaks the ps4 without having to open it, so whatever you got, it was something else.

 

[Wrathcaster]

Now the real test, setting messaging to friends only and see how nice your friends really are. Lots of people have that one asshole friend who would send the message for amusement lol. For now mine is being set to no-one. Taking no chances.

 

[orangy57]

effective. Power

*arabic words*

 

[Captain_N]

id say its pretty bad when and message from another user can cause your system to crash and need a factory reset. How is there even code for that to happen? that's like pressing the home button during a online game and it makes your opponents brick. Seriously what code is in a ps4 messaging system that allows for code execution

 

[Deleted User]

To be fair, this isn't something you could try to record. It's random, so unless you want to set up a camera on a tripod running 24/7 for a very long time and have the PS4 running that same amount of time, you won't be able to catch it.

And if we could replicate some one doing it, we could be fixing it properly and we wouldn't be worrying about it any more anyways.

Thats the point,its not somthing that can be done on the first try.Its not somthing thats worth fear mongering over either.

 

[Jonna]

Thats the point,its not somthing that can be done on the first try.

How do you know?

 

[HEADBOY]

I just wanted to clarify, does the system crash as soon as we receive the message or when we open it? I want to make sure before I try to attempt setting to private on my brothers PS4.

 

[NumberXIIIEdwin]

I just wanted to clarify, does the system crash as soon as we receive the message or when we open it? I want to make sure before I try to attempt setting to private on my brothers PS4.

From the sounds of it, the symptoms start as soon as you receive the message with your PS4 turned on. You don’t even have to open the message. But it’s safe to look at your inbox from somewhere else that’s not your console, like the PS App.

 

[Xzi]

Good thing I use my PS4 exclusively for single-player stuff. Changed my settings anyway just to be safe, thanks for the heads up.

 

[IwearHelmet4Bed]

This is the message apparently

 

[wiiando]

The PS4s are not stable enough it seems.


Seriously though, that's kind of crazy that your PS4 can mess up from some message if you don't change the message settings.

It's not that crazy, someone found a memory bug no doubt and a way to exploit it, with HEN it's not much different just this is malicious