Update #2:
The official PlayStation Spain Twitter account tweeted that Sony has acknowledged the PS4 messaging issue, and are working on a fix.
Hola a todos. Estamos al tanto de los problemas que estáis teniendo y estamos revisándolo. Como medida de precaución, desactivad el recibir mensajes de desconocidos e intentad borrar los mensajes desde la app móvil con la PS4 apagada. Disculpad las molestias.
— PlayStation España (@PlayStationES) October 14, 2018
Update:
Updated the headline and took out “brick” since the console gets locked.
ResetEra user kennyamr has posted a workaround that should work.
If one of those messages are sent to you, just turn off the console.
Take the phone app and erase the message.
Then press down the power button for 7 seconds to make the PS4 go into Safe Mode.
Finally proceed to Rebuild the Database to fix the problem. (This is not factory reset, nothing will be erased).
Of course, after all that, report the dummy account to Sony.
Others say that removing the message from the phone app is enough to fix the problem, but there are some conflicting reports on this.
I guess you can try just removing the message with your phone and wait a few minutes first.
Original Story:
While it’s never OK to spread rumors and panic among people, this one is a special case. It seems there’s a new PSN message glitch spreading now that’s bricking PS4s! Nope, this isn’t a joke.
This was posted by Reddit user Huntstark who mentioned that this happened to him and his friends, with the only way to fix it was via a factory reset.
Just the other day, another user on Reddit also mentioned the same thing happening. User Pindabaas mentioned he received a PM (private message) from someone with two symbols on it, and the console froze, and gave a CE_36329-3 error.
Somebody send me 2 symbols through PM, and now I keep getting ce-36329-3 error from r/PS4
What’s more, Pindabaas used another account and sent those same symbols and yep, it froze again, confirming that the PM was the cause of the console malfunction.
On Sony’s official website, the CE-36329-3 PS4 error code means “An error has occurred with the system software.” The fix suggested is the following:
An error has occurred with system software
- Follow the on-screen instructions and select [Report Problem].
- Make sure that you have the latest version of the System Software installed by selecting [Settings] > [System Software Update]. The system should then be restarted.
- If you have upgraded the Hard Disk Drive (HDD) in your system, please re-install the original HDD.
- If the error occurs again, back up your saved data, and then go to [Settings] > [Initialization] and choose [Initialize PS4].
- If the error continues and occurs with every application, or as soon as the application starts, please contact PlayStation Support.
The only main way to stop this now is to set your messages to “private” so not anyone can mesasge you randomly.
We’ve contacted Sony about this and will update the story if and when we get a response.
Oh wao, if thats a new glitch , Sony should really work on it, not to let its users getting factory reseted.