Over my holiday break, I turned on my PS5 to install my disc version of Ghost of Tsushima. I switched over to my Xbox Series X while it installed. The console then turned off by itself after the inactivity timeout was done. I do not have any other drives attached to my PS5.
Fast forward to yesterday, and I turned on my console and it said it was going to rebuild the database. Ok. But it only stayed on that screen for a second before going to a black screen with the blue light on the PS5 slowly flashing. So I looked up what this was. It's been coined "the blue light of death." My guess is that it is a filesystem issue. It's unbelievable that Sony released a product in 2020 with such an unreliable filesystem. "Rebuilding" the PS5 after you use rest mode is not an uncommon thing to happen. A modern filesystem should be able to handle anything you throw at it, including sudden power drops without even blinking. But I have a strong feeling that this filesystem dates back to the PS3 and even earlier. The PS3 OS was based on a fork of FreeBSD, and I honestly believe they've been using that same fork ever since. People have been rebuilding their Playstation databases in safe mode since 2006. And issues with rest mode along with this BLOD are NOT rare.
Think about it. What other modern systems do you use that have as many filesystem issues as the PS5 does?
The blue light of death is a blue light on the PS5 itself that slowly ramps from off to on and off again every couple seconds. You will get a PS logo on the screen at initial boot, but it will change to a black screen after ~30 seconds. And then it will stay there until the console shuts off around an hour later.
Anyway, last night, I delved into safe mode for the first time. To get into safe mode you hold down the power button until the console beeps twice.
I have tried the following so far to revive my dead PS5:
1. Update the system software from the internet. This produced the progress bar, and as far as I can tell, it did reinstall the OS.
2. Rebuild the database. Seems to reboot almost immediately after selecting this option and it goes back to the BLOD.
3. Change the video output. My console is now outputting 480p, and I can tell it is from the low res PS logo.
4. Clear system software cache. Didn't seem to do anything.
5. Restore system software settings. Goes back to BLOD, but seems to have reset the resolution to 4k/60.
6. Unplugged the PS5 and my TV for 20 minutes. Someone suggested this. Right back to the BLOD.
I fear that my only other option is to reset the PS5, which will delete everything, including my game saves. I do have Playstation Plus, which should have stored my game saves in the cloud (automatically, I hope!) but at this point, I really don't trust Sony with ANY data integrity. Thank goodness I do actually have PS+, because if I didn't, I'd be screwed since Sony paywalls their cloud saves and there's no way to manually back them up.
Does anyone have any other suggestions before I pull the trigger?
I would truly suggest that people do not use rest mode until Sony addresses these issues. You never know when you might turn it on and your PS5 is unrecoverable.
Fast forward to yesterday, and I turned on my console and it said it was going to rebuild the database. Ok. But it only stayed on that screen for a second before going to a black screen with the blue light on the PS5 slowly flashing. So I looked up what this was. It's been coined "the blue light of death." My guess is that it is a filesystem issue. It's unbelievable that Sony released a product in 2020 with such an unreliable filesystem. "Rebuilding" the PS5 after you use rest mode is not an uncommon thing to happen. A modern filesystem should be able to handle anything you throw at it, including sudden power drops without even blinking. But I have a strong feeling that this filesystem dates back to the PS3 and even earlier. The PS3 OS was based on a fork of FreeBSD, and I honestly believe they've been using that same fork ever since. People have been rebuilding their Playstation databases in safe mode since 2006. And issues with rest mode along with this BLOD are NOT rare.
Think about it. What other modern systems do you use that have as many filesystem issues as the PS5 does?
The blue light of death is a blue light on the PS5 itself that slowly ramps from off to on and off again every couple seconds. You will get a PS logo on the screen at initial boot, but it will change to a black screen after ~30 seconds. And then it will stay there until the console shuts off around an hour later.
Anyway, last night, I delved into safe mode for the first time. To get into safe mode you hold down the power button until the console beeps twice.
I have tried the following so far to revive my dead PS5:
1. Update the system software from the internet. This produced the progress bar, and as far as I can tell, it did reinstall the OS.
2. Rebuild the database. Seems to reboot almost immediately after selecting this option and it goes back to the BLOD.
3. Change the video output. My console is now outputting 480p, and I can tell it is from the low res PS logo.
4. Clear system software cache. Didn't seem to do anything.
5. Restore system software settings. Goes back to BLOD, but seems to have reset the resolution to 4k/60.
6. Unplugged the PS5 and my TV for 20 minutes. Someone suggested this. Right back to the BLOD.
I fear that my only other option is to reset the PS5, which will delete everything, including my game saves. I do have Playstation Plus, which should have stored my game saves in the cloud (automatically, I hope!) but at this point, I really don't trust Sony with ANY data integrity. Thank goodness I do actually have PS+, because if I didn't, I'd be screwed since Sony paywalls their cloud saves and there's no way to manually back them up.
Does anyone have any other suggestions before I pull the trigger?
I would truly suggest that people do not use rest mode until Sony addresses these issues. You never know when you might turn it on and your PS5 is unrecoverable.
