Some PS5 Owners Are Experiencing Rebuild Database, External HDD Woes

Will see what happens. Still waiting for my PS5 to be delivered. Kind of irritated seeing as people who ordered today are getting theirs tomorrow or Saturday. Let's just say that Covid has made this launch a real pain in the butt

Ooh, I hate it when that rebuild database thing happens on my Vita. I think it’s my own fault though, it’s usually if I bump the game card slot and it messes up everything. This is obviously worrying but hey, 99% of launches have teething issues.

So a recap: No external HDD and No rest mode to keep my PS5 functional.

Weird, I got the console a couple days early and I've been having that issue with my PS4 Pro but not my PS5.

@nessisonett it was the worst! I’m wondering if it killed my 64GB card. Plus the fact that it would unfolder stuff and if you had more than 100 apps, it would hide them until you foldered enough to make them reappear.

I had the database issue come up at least every 30 minutes. I managed to fix this by holding down the power button (while off) for about 5-10 or so seconds till you hear a beep then release.
It then takes you to like menu screen where you can rebuild the database which can take a few minutes.
It hasn't happened since

I hope all issue will be sorted out when ps5 launch in my country next year.

Had this happen to me with no mans sky. Also a message informing me that the external hdd had been improperly removed and needed to be repaired although I hadn't touched it. Fingers crossed a firmware update fixes this.

So why can’t I find a app for sky go ? Is it not available yet?

@Paulw Sadly not.

@PcTV my vita did it yesterday too for the first time ever..

I'll try to be optimistic: there are only 47 days left until the end of 2020.

Ok I'll say it ; stability update ftw.

Hmmm so I will not plug in my external SSD until it is fixed... I can live with that. Enough new games to play.

No external HDD or Rest Mode right now?... the two things I'll be doing the most next week to download my PS4 library.

@nessisonett

This happened to me a lot with the Vita too. I have a 64GB memory card and I used to worry that it would die on me, due to the frequency of the issue. I heard that it’s best to ensure there is a good amount of free space on the card (I would always have the card close to full) and since then I’ve had no further issues.

There's bound to be a few niggles with millions of console;s being made.

BUT

To play it safe i am not plugging in an external HDD until Sony release a patch as i don't want a bricked console over christmas.

Ah geez now Xbox hardware seems better lol

Oh, now I'm kinda glad I haven't been able to preorder.
Seems like 1st batch of nextgen is always a mess..

Is there anyone who can confirm this isn't happening to them? Because I'm hoping it's not a widespread issue as I've already moved my games to a 3.0 HDD and backed them up on the cloud in preparation of next week.

I just wanna have some hope that it'll be okay to put my HDD into the console and not run into issues on my first day

I kinda laugh when everyone shrugs and says - "well, that's what you expect from early releases". No, that's not true. People now believe this is normal...no... it is not on a product that has been tested thoroughly. IMO it reflects the last-minute build process these days. Leave everything to the last minute and cross your fingers. On PC you can understand it - because everyone has different configurations. How many different hardware configurations are there on PS5?

Both new consoles will unfortunately have their release day issues. There is many console being made and released all at once there are bound to some with faults. Just like when I had a faulty blu ray player once. The really bad thing is I just took the blu ray player back to shop and they replaced it straight away.
It’s more the fact that there is no shop stock to replace the faulty consoles that hurts more.

Well then hopefully they will have a patch for it for launch! Since it ain't out yet!

Frankly, though, the console's storage capacity can sound kinda worrisome if NOT using an external hard drive with it is considered "a bit extreme" on its launch week. Then again, it may be just a PS4 game stash - less hassle than to redownload them all to a new machine, I suppose.

@God_of_Nowt
Maybe they have, but I don’t think it is easy as walking into the shop and saying this is faulty give me a replacement please, especially with COVID as well.

Meanwhile my ps5 is still in transit... kinda sad. If it get this bug im returning it.

@God_of_Nowt Is it not concerning that it has been known about for a long time and still not been fixed yet? I guess now it's a much higher priority however since it's getting bad press.

I have no external hard drive, never needed one, but for people who do I imagine this being a pain. Still, I’m sure a stability update will be incoming in due course.

Friend of mine got 2 PS5s and 1 of his HDMI ports is faulty. Visual artifacts and won't output sound over HDMI.

There is a day 1 patch which apparently fixes this issue.

I'll not be using external storage anyway so hopefully I'll not have this issue. Does seem a concern that there's alot of issues, although perhaps its just that the people who have issues are much more vocal about it.

@JohnnyShoulder is the Day One update scheduled for our release date (19th)?

Got any links regarding this info mate?

@DonJorginho I assume so cos it was already available in the USA.

@JohnnyShoulder Yeah the US one hasn't seemed to have solved any of these issues yet so you would hope it is done for the 19th.

@God_of_Nowt Patch for this particular issue? Or just a patch in general followed by a specific fix down the line

@JohnnyShoulder Nice. Where did you read that info from?

I've had 1 crash and a fair few issues with the external drive trying to move from a Pro to the PS5. Ended up reformatting the 4TB Samsung and will keep on the PS5. Since then it seems to be stable. Also had the reboot database once but no issues since then.

Loving the console otherwise. Days Gone runs very well with no noise from the console!

@God_of_Nowt So Sony are working on a patch to fix this? I wonder if the patch will be ready by the time the 19th comes.

I am glad now i am getting the PS5 a week later Well saying that my PS4 has done that a few times in the past. And got stuck and I lost everything to on my PS4 :-/ So now I just have a few games on there because what is the point of putting all my games on my PS4 and then it gets stuck or whatever. And if i didn't save all my PS4 saves to USB to then I would of lost every save to :-/ I NEED TO SAVE MY PS5 GAMES SAVES TO USB SONY. Oh well.

@DonJorginho That is not what I've heard mate, but it could be for a different issue.

That's the reason I don't like to preorder games/consoles.

@God_of_Nowt Personally I'm not too worried, as there nothing I've seen really that in theory could not be fixed with a update patch. Like I've not heard of anything mechanical like the disk drive not working.

And this does happen with almost every piece of new hardware to consoles, phones, laptops etc. Sure they are tested, but you can't test for every thing that might happen, otherwise they would never be released. People saying otherwise are either misinformed or trying to wind people up.

I don't mind redownloading games with 1gig internet but I think some people on slower packages will be extremely disappointed by this.

@God_of_Nowt So when I get PS5 on the 19th, there's no need for me to avoid rest mode etc.

@DonJorginho @ORO_ERICIUS Here you go. https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/ps5-playstation-5-update-launch/

Ok so I won't use my HDD or rest mode for a while now. x) sorry but I can't risk it!

@God_of_Nowt Well I have the PS4 headset that plugs into USB that I was going to use. Do you think that would be okay, or not because it's counted as something using USB.

@JohnnyShoulder thanks but -> they fixed accessing PS4 saved games on external storage. No wordings about a fix for the corrupted savedate problem there

@God_of_Nowt thanks you've been really helpful. Anymore information when and if you get it would be most helpful too.

Superstition fixes incoming haha.If it crashes or shutdowns once i am returning it right away.But seriously ive heard that if you make a farewell party for old PS4 then good words will spread among PS5s and there will be no curse.And dont forget to stand on your head while its booting up!

@Oz_Momotaro I would suggest that it probably is normal, but in years past there was no social media so there could have been a lot of consoles failing but nobody would know. Also, magazines probably wouldn't report on it as it would be a month later by the time it happened, and magazines didn't really discuss this type of thing back then unless it was a really major issue. It's very hard to realise the impact that social media has had on this sort of thing.

I got my ps5 yesterday only issue ive had so far was coming out of rest mode my tv would say no signal with the ps5 so i switched hdmi ports and got the picture back. Was getting concerned when there was no picture......

@God_of_Nowt Reckon I would be safe to run my BC PS4 Games off an External HDD from the front ports if I don't use rest mode and close all applications and do a full power off when I am not on the PS5 DE?

Thanks very much @God_of_Nowt for answering questions in the comments about this, it has really helped keep everyone informed about the ongoing situation and hopefully calmed some nerves.

I'll be sticking with PS5 games when the console arrives on the 19th and then hook up the external SSD I have with the PS4 games to transfer a couple of titles over I need to finish.

I generally avoid having games running in rest mode and will power down until I know a fix has been put through an update.

My new console that arrived this week hasn’t had this issue.

Then again it’s the Nintendo game & watch!

@God_of_Nowt Thank you for the help man, one time you will have to tell us or give us a hint of what you're working on as judging by your comments you seem to be very up to snuff with all the details on the system! Would love to pay back your helpfulness by supporting your studio when they next release a title!

@Mad001 theyre having drive problems

@Paulw lack of Sky Go at launch is the main reason, along with possible backwards compatibility issues, that I will be keeping my Pro under the tv for a bit longer. Hopefully it won’t be as long as the PS4 app

For me no external HDD. I downloaded five games, booted up two of them. And put it in rest mode several times throughout the day. So far so good!

@PcTV
I had the same exact problem with my PS4 Pro a couple of days ago of it rebuilding the data base of the external hard drive. My Pro is 3 years old, so this is not a new console problem.
Think this is all on Sony software side.
Hmmmmm....

@Axyuji I have 3.2 4Tb with only about 1Tb of ps4 games on it. I haven't seen this error yet but haven't play any long sessions off the hard drive yet. Launched a few games to get them on the main menu and my kids played Minecraft for about an hour.

@wiiware Dude, I'm curious which country you live in?

@PeterN80 Do we really need to avoid LAN/wifi transfers? I thought the suggestions were that this is relating to external drives.

If this is just out of an over-abundance of caution, then fine, I can go with that

@PossibLeigh I live in sea region, Indonesia. Although it's annoying that ps5 release really late in my country, at least now I have a lot of times clearing my backlog lol.

@vapidwolf teething problems then lol

@God_of_Nowt I contacted PlayStation support and they have no knowledge of any issue.?

@wiiware seems odd, back when I was in the industry we did our beta testing in Indonesia, Philippines, that general region of the world because of how representative these areas were of the world's general population.

I remember a beta test being completely ruined by a tsunami, and deciding I didn't like my project manager based on how she was more bothered about the project slippage than the human cost…

@God_of_Nowt Great advice, thanks

I'm looking forward to PS5, and I'm sure I'm going to have a great time with it. I just want to avoid doing anything dumb if there are teething problems, and the advice and info you've shared here is really helpful (and reassuring) on that front.

@wiiware silver lining, man. Another bonus; all these issues should be well sorted by the time it comes to you!

@PossibLeigh I hope so, and I hope there's good discount for ps5 launch games 😃. Usually I wait for about 6 month before buying new console if there isn't a lot of new games, but this generation console is different because of BC.

@theheadofabroom Maybe ps4 didn't sold as much as other region so they didn't prioritize my region (except singapore that's already got 2 preorder). Ps4 is the start of sony officially selling playstation console in here, usually we got the console from gray market (from psone era).

Had to rebuild database for first time on ps4 today. Needed to redo all my folders which was a massive pain. Are we sure its an issue unique to ps5?

When you first plug in your ext hard drive is it supposed to keep al your stored PS4 games on to or will it force you to format and erase the drive?

@Blacksmith1985 It’s not as though they are going to do a hardware revision for new batches. If there’s going to be a fix it will be software based for all batches.

I would get that “rebuilding database” issue on my PS4 Pro every single time I turned it on. Didn’t matter if it was in rest mode or not. I was using an external drive.

Seems like it’s a systemic issue with Sony software. I haven’t yet connected an external drive to my PS5, but I have a 1TB SSD arriving next week for my PS4 exclusives to save space. Now I’m worried about using it.

@jcvandan totally agree with you on that - these things definitely get a lot more visibility these days, especially with the focus on pre-release 'influencer' reviews. Still, there are a lot of things that sound pretty half-arsed when it comes to the release build of the console. Which is never a good look.

@Oz_Momotaro true, mine is coming on thursday, I really hope I have no issues with mine or I will sit down and cry hard.

@God_of_Nowt just had to rebuild my ps5 for the second time. Said my external HDD was removed improperly, and after external HDD was repaired my tv was on a black screen. When I powered off the console the image signal returned. This also happened the first time. Also, the first time it happened I was booting up Fallout 4, now it happened after cold boot of my console. It was completely off, and upon start up my menu appeared, and just one press of the right d-pad and it went off.

The first time it happened was on launch day. Didn't happen since til today. I know it's stupid, but I refuse to unplug my HDD only because I'm finishing my backlog after MM, and Demon's Souls. Hopefully they patch it soon, but I feel like my console is going to end up like ACG's at some point.

@God_of_Nowt when you say "do a reset" do you mean of the console? Also, my ps4 pro did turn off a lot in rest mode, like once every 2 weeks, and I'm wondering if the external HDD has any fragmentation problems if that affected my ps4 pro to the point I had to keep rebuilding it's database. If so, that might be what's affecting my PS5.

@God_of_Nowt guess I'll disconnect it for right now. Was in the middle transferring a few games from external anyway so hopefully that removes some risk. Don't really want to do a full reboot though.

Had the shutdown rebuild error 3 times then just unplugged the external no issues since.

Awaiting a fireware upgrade - the 2 USB ports on back do get incredibly warm though.

I have played my ps5 for hours without any of these issues.

Are Sony looking to address this. Seem silent on the subject.