My PS5 is Crashing: A Tale of Troubleshooting and RMA

My PS5 has been giving me a lot of trouble lately. Despite all my troubleshooting efforts and support from Sony, I’m forced to send it in for repair or possibly an RMA.

The Beginning: External Hard Drive Problems

It all started with issues playing PS4 games from an external USB hard drive. It would crash constantly. After unplugging the drive and updating the firmware, the crashes continued.

The Crashing Nightmare: Games and Menu System

The PS5 was crashing regardless of what I tried: playing games like Miles Morales, Astro’s Playroom, PS4 games, and even in the menu system itself. The crashes were frequent, looping sometimes, and even went as far as preventing me from logging in.

My PS5 would crash, turn blue and white, crash again, and then eventually power down completely.

Error Message CE108262-9

This whole ordeal led to the dreaded error message: CE108262-9. Sony support was helpful, but they couldn’t pinpoint the exact cause of the error.

Desperate Measures: YouTube Fixes and Factory Reset

I tried everything I found on YouTube: changing cables, doing a backup, and even a full system reset.

The backup process was a disaster too. It would crash, sometimes after just 30 minutes, other times after 3 hours, with no error message to explain why it failed!

A full factory reset still resulted in the same crashes. The problem was persistent.

The Ultimate Attempt: Safe Mode Reinstall

I attempted the ultimate fix: reinstalling the operating system from safe mode. This provided temporary relief, but eventually, the crashes returned.

Reaching Out to Sony Support

I was out of options. I called Sony support. It took almost two hours and six calls to finally connect with someone!

The representative was helpful, listened to everything I’d tried, and set up an RMA process for repair or replacement.

The Likely Culprit: Internal SSD Issues

My gut feeling is that the internal SSD is the problem. Similar crashes are often attributed to failing hard drives. However, I can’t be sure until Sony gets a hold of it.

My PS5 Downtime and Future Plans

To my disappointment, I’ll be without my PS5 for a while while it’s being repaired or replaced. My content might be slower for a bit, but I do have a new video coming out about Wi-Fi vs. wired connections for PS5 download speeds. I also have a lot of PS5 videos up on my playlist.

I’ll keep you updated on the RMA process and share everything I learn.

I’m hoping for a speedy resolution. Until then, I’ll be keeping busy with other gaming tech, including Xbox and more.