PS4: Manipulated message forces to factory settings – so protect yourself

A manipulated message can paralyze a PS4, requiring a reset to factory settings. You can do something about it!

PS4 users pay attention: Currently there is a message circulating that users can make a console unusable by sending a manipulated message. The console crashes and shows the error code CE-336329-3. The message therefore requires a special character that the PS4 cannot display.

Only booting into Safe mode, followed by resetting to factory settings, will help. Unsynchronized game progress, game installations and private data such as stored media libraries are then lost.

Before Sony plays out an update that fixes the current error, you should limit your PSN message receipt to “Friends Only” or “No One”. You set this in the privacy settings directly on the PS4 or in the Playstation app.

Then avoid situations like this. When playing online with their own team, each member suddenly received an appropriately prepared message. The online match was therefore over and the players concerned were first out of action. The damage with the stored data is of course not to be forgotten.

PS4 messages: “Friends Only” or “Nobody”

On the PS4, scroll all the way to the right to the settings in the upper menu of the main screen. Then go to “Account Management” and “Privacy Settings”. Log in with your personal access data. Select “Messages” as the function. In the dropdown menu that appears, select either “Friends” or “Nobody”, the first option not necessarily protecting you from “experiments” by your own contacts.

If you do not currently have access to the console, you can also make the privacy settings for the PSN in the Playstation app. Open the app, log in and tap the profile icon in the lower right corner. Then select “Edit Profile” and “Privacy Settings”. A new interface opens, where you can edit the desired option under “Personal Info | Messaging” under Messages.