PS3 PSN connection issue resolved, leap year to blame
Sony recently reported that there is a bug preventing some PS3 owners from signing onto their units. It seems like the bug was some minor date issue on the older phat PS3s.
Earlier today, we reported that the PSN suddenly became unavailable for some PS3 owners the other day. As it turns out the issue was caused by an internal leap year glitch.
According to the official Playstation Blog, changing the date from February 29 to March 1 resolved the issue verifying that it’s a leap year issue. There won’t be a February 29 for another two years. Incidentally Microsoft faced a similar issue early last year with every Zune on the planet stopped working for one day.
It all comes down to shoddy programming in the date algorithm. It’s odd that so many companies make mistakes with this calculation. Although, I have to admit that even I let this type of bug slip at my previous company before. It’s one of those situations where unless you’re programming the OS during a leap year, it won’t occur to you to account for the additional day.
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74 Responses to “PS3 PSN connection issue resolved, leap year to blame”
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March 2nd, 2010
CAD must feel like a real idiot now.
March 2nd, 2010
“CAD must feel like a real idiot now.” Why now. I thought it was all the time.
Though Mike is right, it is shoddy programming.
March 2nd, 2010
It was fixed rather quick considering the big deal some people here were making of it.
Makes me look forward to the next time there’s a 360 issue…
March 2nd, 2010
I read on some other website that this idiot formatted his harddrive losing all of his trophy accomplishments just to sign on to PSN. What a fool
The only thing I could think of saying to him was “You dumbass…” lol
March 2nd, 2010
trophies are also stored online so that should only effect him since his last sync. He lost all his game saves which is pretty bad then though.
March 2nd, 2010
you can’t loss your trophies, those are store in a database under the PS network
PS3 issues usual get fixed, patched, resolved really quick!
March 2nd, 2010
Roca, nothing actually got patched, and based on the fact the system has a clock which thinks every second year is a leap year, and the OS clock knows when it’s a leap year, this issue is more than likely to happen again in 2 years. Therefore nothing has actually been fixed.
March 2nd, 2010
@Rhino
thats why I also said “resolved”
March 2nd, 2010
Reminds me of Y2K. Sort of funny that everyone thought the world was going to end, and were like storing water and building bunkers… and what happens? A fire alarm goes off in Japan or something?
March 2nd, 2010
It’s good that the Ps3 issue has been resolved quickly.
March 2nd, 2010
I don’t know if the word ‘resolved’ is the right one, as they basically sat there and waited for the day to move on. But at least all of my long and phat brothers are back on.
March 2nd, 2010
I was never off \o/
Either I don’t have a model affected, or it was indeed because I was behind 1 day in my date (my ps3 read as feb 28th)… Oh well, I never played it today anywhoos.
March 2nd, 2010
Sorry Roca…I gotta agree with Harry on this one.
March 2nd, 2010
Hopefully they “resolve” it, to not happen again
March 2nd, 2010
mines a day behind now…that phat bitch
March 2nd, 2010
Well I’m phat but hardly long
Mine was fixed prior to midnight today so I’m not too sure they simply waited. Mine was up and running at about 7PM.
March 2nd, 2010
Well thank goodness I suddenly didn’t decide to set up my PS3 and start playing it the other day.
March 2nd, 2010
I haven’t heard of any permanent damage so far. Mines fine and my trophies are exactly the way they were when I left them the other day.
March 2nd, 2010
@SW.
DO you never sign on or did you change your ID? The last time I have you signed on was over 6 months ago.
March 2nd, 2010
I had a weird glitch. I tried to log on and play White Knight during the glitch. The trophy set disappeared from my collection. My rank stayed the same, and the set was there when comparing trophies with friends.
I just had to put the disk back in. After it booted, it when through a trophy loading process. The set is back in my collection. No worries.
March 2nd, 2010
can anyone say storm in a teacup?
March 2nd, 2010
“DO you never sign on or did you change your ID? The last time I have you signed on was over 6 months ago.”
he is been playing MGS4 nonstop lately
March 2nd, 2010
Then I must have an old ID for him. The one that I have hasn’t been logged on in forever.
March 2nd, 2010
Diff. ID.
And yep, MG-O ftw
March 2nd, 2010
Well mine hasn’t changed if you want to hit me up.
March 2nd, 2010
CAD must feel like a real idiot now.
No not really. I could care less about your outage and the fact that Sony did nothing to fix it except let a day go by. But now I can say that all old PS3 are plagued with a 8001050F Error. LOL
March 2nd, 2010
And CAD you’re plagued by being a total douche all the time. So what’s your point.
March 2nd, 2010
@ Rhino – ROFLMAO. I’ll pay that one.
March 3rd, 2010
I love the fact that CAD has suddenly forgot about a little something called the rrod
March 3rd, 2010
leap year PS3 issue = less than 24hrs
RRoD on 360s = 4 years and counting
March 3rd, 2010
Well if you want to be technical, YLOD is also 4 years and counting…. and you have to pay to get that repaired if you have owned your PS3 for more than 3 years.
March 3rd, 2010
Roca,
The issue with the Xbox360 looks like it will never be fixed. I haven’t picked up a Xbox360 game yet. I still don’t feel comfortable yet with buying a lot of Xbox360 games because I always worry about the system failing. Cad suggested that I download the games to the hardrive. I wonder if this makes the system last longer.
March 3rd, 2010
@ twilight,
I think that’s a bit of a short sighted approach. So you picked up one of the Jaspers that was within the extremely small % of those systems that fail. That’s just bad luck. The odds of that happening again are pretty remote, but you have a 3 year warranty in case that does happen again. If you google “Jasper RRoD” you won’t find many instances of this.
I have had a LOT more issues with my PS3 than I have with my 360, yet I persevered. It’s still not perfect, but it’s working nonetheless.
My 360 on the other hand, if it weren’t for that lightning strike that fried my ethernet port (the rest of it still worked,) I would still be using it without any sort of repair needed, and I normally play games straight of the disc, not the hard drive.
I am not telling you what you should or should not play, I am not a salesman. But you really should stop worrying that it’s going to die on you.
Anyway…. other topic. I found a bug in Heavy Rain that freezes the game, on my machine anyway. It’s when Jaiden goes to Blue Lagoon and finishes investigating the scene where that Paco guy gets killed by the Origami Killer. When you walk out of the room and past the security guard you are given an option to hit X to chat to him. Doing that froze my machine up on 3 attempts. I gave up on it on my 4th and continued. But if anyone is not up to that stage yet, remember to not speak to him or you’ll have to restart your machine.
March 3rd, 2010
Harry,
I’ve always had more problems with the Xbox360 than the Ps3 system. I mentioned this on a previous post but I got burned more than once with the Xbox360. This is why I’m always so skeptical about the failure rate. Anyways, you are correct. Either I use the system or I don’t.
I borrowed my friend’s copy of Heavy Rain at the moment. It is an innovative game but it’s not a type of game I usually get into. There are a lot of good games coming out this year. Whenever you get a chance Harry, you should check out Dante’s Inferno and Darksiders. These games are really fun as well.
March 3rd, 2010
@ twilight,
I guess we’re just the unlucky ones.
I am enjoying Heavy Rain at the moment, it’s probably not something i’d usually play also, but I am interested to see where it goes.
I hear mixed things about Dante’s Inferno, but more Darksiders news I hear is pretty good. I’ll have to put it on my ‘To Do’ list, which seems to be getting longer daily.
March 3rd, 2010
Yeah, Harry it’s gaming overload. Final Fantasy is coming out next followed by GOW3. I started the year with Bayonetta and I haven’t had a slow period yet. It’s just been insane. Everyone seems to have a long gaming list these days. I guess that’s just a testament to the quality of the games that have come out.
March 3rd, 2010
@ Harry: Microsoft tried charging me £90 to fix the RROD because I bought it in Cyprus when I was based there, wankers. Never got it fixed, just got a 2nd hand one. I can only play it during the day because it’s too noisy at night lmao.
March 3rd, 2010
heavy rain is slow at 1st but its real life mixed with a movie feels like the sims kinda…i like it bc its something DIFFERENT even though i barley touched the thing…i also like a great storyline
March 3rd, 2010
After playing the Darksiders 1.5 hour long demo they just released I can honestly say the game is not another god of war rip off. If anything it reminds me of soul reaver and Zelda. It’s also very slow at first and it’s a game that makes you figure it out more than one that points you in the right direction. Some of it reminded me of how tombraider levels are set up. Where there’s a section that you need 4 keys to get through and you need to go through 4 level size boards to obtain those keys just to find out that in itself is just a small facet of the overall level.
March 3rd, 2010
@Kevo
Wait until your at the end of the game…there are alot of twist….and if you fuck up, you will never find out who the real killer is and someone will get blamed for it.
March 3rd, 2010
“After playing the Darksiders 1.5 hour long demo they just released I can honestly say the game is not another god of war rip off”
the story progression is more like a Zelda game where you have to obtain a certain weapon or skill in order for you to advance to the next area or beat the next boss…..but the combat and gameplay are more like a God of War game where you have crazy combos, chests for healths and magics, wings to extend your jumps, the dash to dodge stuff (rolling in GoW)…”fuel of rage” in gow is Chaos form in Darksiders
March 3rd, 2010
From what I played only the QTE felt GOWish. The game never seems to change perspective from the behind you third person view where GOW goes from every angle imaginable.
Oh.. I read something in the last Game Informer and I’m really phyched for the next Prince of Persia..
March 3rd, 2010
Harry – “Well if you want to be technical, YLOD is also 4 years and counting….”
the PS3 is only been out 3 years and some change lol
but if you want to get technical, the YLOD is a “rare” issue that’s not even worth comparing it to the RRoD
March 3rd, 2010
You know what I find odd.
Everyone of the people I personally know with a 360 had it fail on them, yet hardly anyone I know online here with a 360 had it fail on them.
Makes me think that certain people are hiding the fact when it fails on them for certain reasons.
With my PS3, I had to replace the HDD because a stupid drunkin friend crashed into my setup (also caused the HDD in the DVR to fail as he hit it so hard).
Other than that I have a clean record with my PS3 other than an occasional freeze here and there (GOW collection)
We know Harry lost his 360 to lightning and PS3 is giving him network issues (you ever resolve that?)
Twilight….well, we heard her issues.
I know theres another 360 owner that admitted to the RROD (happy maybe), but that seems to be it.
So
CAD, Carlb, CON, Fahkin, Tosh, SW, Spidey, Rimmer, Rhino, and Saber….
How have your experiences been with your respective consoles?
March 3rd, 2010
we also know what happened to Barnabe Jones 360 (borrowed from his girl)
March 3rd, 2010
Cad suggested that I download the games to the hardrive. I wonder if this makes the system last longer.
Twilight
Of course it does. The problem before was that when a game was playing the system would heat up. With it installed the disk does not spin and therefore will not heat up. In all honesty Jaspers don’t heat up installed or not. I’ve left disk running in my 360 for many hours and I do that quite often. I’m talking left the house and came back with the game on pause for housrs. I just did it the othr day and when I touched the 360 it was only slightly warm. Compared to my first 360 which would be burning hot I can safely say don’t worry. Just install games that are used most often.
March 3rd, 2010
HDD do heat up. They also have a spinning disc in there.
I’d say you make the dvd drive last longer, and this feature would be cool for the PS3 considering many of the failures ive read about have to do with failing BRD lasers.
anyway CAD
“So
CAD, Carlb, CON, Fahkin, Tosh, SW, Spidey, Rimmer, Rhino, and Saber….
How have your experiences been with your respective consoles?”
March 3rd, 2010
“How have your experiences been with your respective consoles?”
360 runs fine, PS3 doesn’t turn on when I press the PS button, never has, didn’t want to phone support and deal with Sony over it, I’m not THAT lazy that I can’t get off my couch… Experienced about equal crashing in games on both machines (not very often tho).
In terms of audio levels, the PS3 is louder IF you install your games to your 360 (as I always do) as the PS3 has some kind of fan inside forged by ancient jet engine mechanics from a land far far away. If you happen to run games from the DVD on 360 you’ll find that those same mechanics made the DVD drive in your xbox.
That about sums it up.
March 3rd, 2010
My Experience was great until my 360 was stolen. Now I have a bunch of games that I’m not trying to go back and finish. All that saved data gone.
March 3rd, 2010
“How have your experiences been with your respective consoles?”
Ok, a little background info to help. 40 years old, wife and 2 kids (5 & 2) averaging 50hrs of work per week, and trying to study.
Wii…well it’s a fun little thing, but I play it more with my 5 year old when he wants to whip my ass at bowling, or archery. So it is more of a dust gatherer.
X360…it’s not a bad unit, I do quite like it. I’ve had the RRoD on it (and replaced) and I refuse to pay to play online, so it’s really not getting a lot of use lately. There are a lot of games that I’m interested in but with my…….
PS3…this is copping a hammering from me at the moment with so many fine games to play. It’s never skipped a beat and with it hooked to my 42″ Bravia Blu-Ray looks super fine. Living in Brisbane and with the summer we’ve had there have been times the fan started to sound like a 747 under full throttle, but I just turn up the TV LOL. I did get a nice ASUS monitor with HDMI for my birthday so when the wife is watching something she likes on TV I take the PS3, plug it into the monitor and away I go.
March 3rd, 2010
@ roca,
the PS3 is only been out 3 years and some change lol
but if you want to get technical, the YLOD is a “rare†issue that’s not even worth comparing it to the RRoD
That’s splitting hairs. At any rate, users have to pay to get their YLOD fixed, rare or not. At least RRoD repairs are free.
@ phranctoast,
I’m just using wireless at the moment. I’ve got the 360 to do all of my streaming, which I do a lot of. I received a new Dlink 2740B from Dlink a couple of weeks ago, but even after putting the PS3 on a DMZ the NAT fails. Dlink support are aware of it and have told me that they are developing a firmware fix. So in the meantime I am using my Linksys, which has a slow wireless connection with the PS3.
March 3rd, 2010
“RRoD repairs are free”
RRoD are not free for out of warranty owner
same goes for the “rare” YLOD, the difference is 3 years for a common issue vs 1 year for a rare issue but at the end repairs are free for both (while under their respective warranty period)
March 3rd, 2010
Again, you are splitting hairs and taking what I am typing out of context. Did I really have to explain to you the details of repair warranties? How about I re-do my sentence to make things clearer for you?
“At least RRoD repairs are free within 3 years, as opposed for 1 year for YLOD”
That better?
I am sure everyone on this website knows all about warranty repairs and failure rates. Why we go around in circles on a regular basis is baffling.
March 3rd, 2010
“At least RRoD repairs are free within 3 years, as opposed for 1 year for YLODâ€
just like I said….im glad we can agree on that they are both free under their respective warranty period
March 3rd, 2010
It’s weird agreeing with you…. i feel dirty. This is the second time in a week
March 3rd, 2010
My experience with the consoles have been pretty 50/50 really.
The wii has a major problem of dust coverage.
The 360 pro has been pretty good. It even got dropped from about 50cm high, (Let me just say, Kids, dog and a plugged in “charge n play” cord don’t mix) after some teething problems, she came good and has not missed a beat except for one incident of “ring of death” scratched disk.
PS3 phat – clockwork except the recent leap year issue, PS3 slim – HDMI sound issue, except I later found that it was a Samsung TV problem and not the ps3. No problems since using on a good quality TV.
Overall, I am very happy with the running of all of them. (Touch wood)
March 4th, 2010
LOL @ Harry
looking forward to agreeing with you more often
March 4th, 2010
Should I get a room?
March 4th, 2010
Ah, but can yas agree on who is the “giver” and who is the “taker” ……
March 4th, 2010
we would have to flip a coin.
March 4th, 2010
Get a room already…geeeeez
March 4th, 2010
As far as feedback from Phranctoast’s post, it’s interesting to see that there have only been a few people with complete system failures.
Cad,
I’ve given my Ps3 system quite a work out as well. I use my Ps3 system all the time. I use the system for hours on end. It hardly gets a rest. I’m always gaming or watching blu ray movies.
March 4th, 2010
I am pretty sure Carl said his died.
March 4th, 2010
And Toshi, but that was because he tried using his vacuum cleaner on it! haha
March 4th, 2010
It looks like 360 Republicans are had a National Holiday on March 3, 2010. A date that will never be forgotten in history.
Anyway the party is over. They had fun while it lasted.
Here’s to fixing the RROD in 24 hours!
Cheers!
March 4th, 2010
@ gunstar: LMAO!
March 4th, 2010
“And Toshi, but that was because he tried using his vacuum cleaner on it! haha”
Is Toshi calling his junk the Xbox again?
March 4th, 2010
yea roca i heard there is like 25 endings on heavy rain…awesome…twilight what’s ur psn?
March 4th, 2010
@ phranctoast
Family Guy : Christmas Episide – ” It’s my Sexbox, and her name is Sony”
March 4th, 2010
I finished Heavy Rain. I wouldn’t mind hearing about how anyone else’s game finished, but wouldn’t want to spoil it here. I just sent Roca a message on blorge.net telling him how mine finished. I’d like to hear how everyone else’s finished.
March 4th, 2010
@harry
I haven’t had the time to play much games at all the past couple weeks, only about 2hours into my first play through of heavy rain, thanks for being considerate of spoilers, I am intending to get my first playthrough done this weekend.
@Who ever called for console history experience:
Ps3, second one owned, first was a launch 60gb that was sold at the beginning of the recession with it’s TV for some extra cash padding. Second and current is a software BC 80gb model with a 60gb SSD installed.
My 60gb launch model worked perfectly its whole life, with only fan noise as a complaint. It is still in use by a friend who bought it off me, but mostly as a BD and network streamed movie player. It still works perfectly.
My current 80gb model also won’t start up from the PS button. I also used to have a pretty severe disconnection issue with the controllers, but that problem was 99% solved by replacing my cordless phone with a 5.8ghz model, since the old model operated in the same frequency range as bluetooth. This model has a weak BT reciever, from what I gleaned over the interwebs.
I recently discovered that the BD drive refuses to operate when the PS3 is operating in SD mode. It doesn’t effect me, but it is a fault nonetheless.
My internet browser used to crash a lot, and was very slow. That was resolved with the SSD installation, and subsequent reinstallation of the OS. Which actually fixed it, I don’t know.
March 5th, 2010
Kevo,
I’m not on line yet. I will be soon and I’ll let you know.
March 5th, 2010
@Harry
I reply to you message, I hope I didnt spoil anything for your 2nd playthrough!
BJ’s story was kind of funny too, he beat the game yesterday night
March 5th, 2010
aight, good to know