PSN Back Online After Being Hit with Account, Social, and PlayStation Store Issues

Just as i buy a £50 card for the store. Hopefully its sorted soon.

I was wondering what was going on. I got anxious because Ghost of Tsushima told me it couldn't verify the license and stopped me playing. Hope it gets sorted soon.

What a coincidence, Sony spamed me today with "turn on two factor authentication". Someone, somewhere applied something and the whole house of cards went down.
Well, I wouldn't have noticed anyway... been playing on xbsx AC Odyssey since they released that sweet 4K@60fps patch.

No issues for me yet .......... Touch wood
Currently playing Marvel Avengers online (Obviously) 😝

Oh weird...I actually had issues accessing my ADOBE apps due to account verification (and I'm fully paid for the month). Maybe this isn't just a Sony issue happening at the moment.

Locked out of all digitally owned games 🤭

“License cannot be verified” 🙄

For once, I'm so proud that I'm a physical disc collector as this doesn't affect me much. Currently playing Gravity Rush Remastered and having a blast

Typical. Right when I had two hours spare to finish playing Iki Island I now can't launch the content. I also can't goto settings so I can activate the option to play offline as this does not work either obviously... This is why I hardly ever buy digital games...waste of ***** time...

Big issues across multiple companies. This is gonna be big.

No insider knowledge I'm just fuming I can't play Rocket League

@velio84 How is this Microsoft’s fault?

I was having problems redownloading some Vita games on my PSTV this morning, but everything else seems to be working just fine for me.

One of my games downloaded an update about 30 minutes ago and I was playing online so maybe I was lucky.

@Yomogi and it makes no difference to digital players either unless you needed to download all your games again right now. Anything a digital game needs a disc version needs.

Was about to pick up a few games from the current sale. Going to be pissed if the sale ends before the store comes back online.

@Spoonman-2 welcome to the future of gaming 🙄

@WallyWest I believe this affects even the digital games that are already downloaded on the console. I have a few digital games like Final Fantasy 9 that are already downloaded prior to this issue and for some reason, I cannot access them since my PS4 is requiring me to activate my account as a primary account, which is strange because I had my account primary on my own system. I tried re-activating it just in case but it's giving me the server maintenance error.

As I went all digital this year nothing is working for me. I am really regretting this decision

@Yomogi I'm currently playing AC Valhalla offline and i mean offline as my PS5 is currently not connected to the internet. Digital games are not bound to online and can be played offline fully like a disc version, considering i'm 100% now i know how it works especially my internet can have the off day each month where there's connections issues forcing me to play offline.

@Alan_Breen

It will all be OK, don’t worry 🤠

Also you don’t have to listen to discs spinning up all the time in the console, did my head in.. so bought a separate 4K player and now nice and quiet

Only down side is all my games are digital, strangely if I log into my friends account on my PS5 I can play their games, but not mine 🤔

3 people have confirmed this to work 🤭

@MidnightDragonDX Great heads up! A quick search of Twitter confirms this. Here's a page highlighting issues with AWS:

https://servicesdown.com/services/aws

@Yomogi It's Not Affecting Me As I'am Currently Playing Resident Evil Code Veronica.

@Areus @WallyWest Well I guess you guys are lucky then, I'm having that licensing issue with my digital games on my PS4 (tried online and offline). Still, doesn't affect me that much since I can still play some of my physical games. Maybe this affected those that are already connected to the internet the moment that they booted up their system.

Update: RE2's dlc still works fine but yeah, the digital games are still locked because of licensing issue

Oddly enough, I was able to download the latest patch for Maneater but I am unable to play the game as my console cannot connect to PSN. Does something happen to reset the "primary console" designation, like firmware updates? I made sure my console was set as such months ago, but now I am locked out of my digital games because PSN is down.

Strange as i just played a round of pga2k21 with my brother online and nfs heat is fine too..booted up a few other digital games and no apparant issues..wreckfest just updated itself too but oddley that said unknown title?

On xbox this problem never happens.
i have both consoles, so for me is indifferent but i dont have this issues playing my digital games on ps4. I recommend more and more xbox but im a fan of ps family.sony is more and more disappointing me.

@Yomogi You have tried restoring the licences right? That usually clears up that issue.

@WallyWest yep, already tried that but still nothing. It's still giving me that system server maintenance error.

mines not working, absolutely garbage, first time I've played a game in weeks and this, sods law, thanks sony

Most of collection is digital. I can't play the physical games I have because the Blu-Ray drive died sometime in the last year. I have a PS4 Pro, and repair shops won't replace that because the official replacement drives for the Pro generally have manufacturing issues.

Its weird how some people can't play digital games right now, i just put on Ghost of Tsushima on PS5 to play to test and it works fine, i even tried a more online heavy game like Avengers and that's letting me play it as well.

@velio84 least Azure works, unlike AWS.

Yep. Locked out of all my games. Can't even set my PS4 to primary as an error message comes up about their servers being down.
Now I just gotta cross my fingers that when it gets fixed it hasn't effected the Dreams servers and I've no lost all the progress on a game I've been working on for nearly a year. Hate relying on the cloud.

Guess it's another peek at the future when we try and play back our digital libraries and theres no server. Remember why Xbox one got loads of stick for 'always online'....

Thought it was just me. It’s weird cause I can play online, watch tv, and download games, but joining a party or looking at my friends list, or even opening an invite will take minutes and most of the time just not work

i was watching hulu and it kicked me off because of the issues.

So 2 hours now and nothing from Sony not good.

Just an idea what i very much doubt is happening or will happen again but i wonder what would happen if PSN went down like in 2011? We are so connected now more then we were 10 years back, even right now many gamers can't access their library because of this. Many big updates are happening this month with NMS, Genshin Impact and Valhalla all receiving key updates and those are just games i play. It would be pure chaos and i wonder if PS could actually survive something like that again. Again i don't think this will happen i'm just having "fun" thinking about what could happen if it did and the chaos it could unleash.

@Spoonman-2 that sucks. After reading that, I went to check mine, and phew, they work offline.
My xbox had a similar situation. I had to make my series s the "home" console and the backwards compatible games I had to start up, online once, so it could "connect to verify". After that no problems online or off. Is there a similar situation on the ps4/5?

@velio84 - Nothing good from MS? What about dedicated game and chat lobbies, messaging or the achievement system? Basically the entire XBL service that Sony copied wholesale from them. Yeah, nothing good.

@get2sammyb "Can’t believe people still won’t buy a game if it’s not on a disc"... sorry, couldn't resist.

@InvaderJim Yeah, Azure works, if by "works" you mean "leaks all your data to anyone curious enough to utilize the ChaosDB exploit for the last 4 years"

Could be coming back online now. I was able to buy a game from the web store.

@Shigurui yeah and you can thank them for having to pay for that. If it wasn't for Sony that's all you'd get too. Steam does all that and more and is completely free.

@Yomogi Once the servers come back up you might want to check that your console is set as primary. You shouldn't be having those issues unless you're playing on a secondary system.

@mucc - I'm quite happy paying for XBL and PSN thanks. Always have been. What Steam does for free means absolutely nothing in the console landscape.

And not once did Sony let us know what was happening? This Actually started for me around 8pm...that's when I first got a message on dreams saying I was kicked off the server because of a licencing issue.
Sony definitely have a communication problem. They can be defended for not talking about release schedules and upcoming games if you like...but when there's technical issues effecting everybody for hours you'd think some acknowledgement would be given.

@Gatatog
That's the scariest thing I have heard. So all games I have purchased digitally with my own hard cash could be gone if Sony PSN servers went down. This sounds like I never paid for the games and now own but instead I am leasing them.

Had no idea! Me and my mate were just playing VR Playroom until about half hour ago and that has no online interactions. Good that it's all sorted as I've just booted up PvZ for an hour or so before bed.

@Digit2021 Well the PS5 does have something called 'console sharing and offline play' in the settings. The verification error mentioned it and apparently when enabled you can play games while the console is offline. For some reason it was disabled so hopefully next time PSN craps itself I'll be sorted. I never had this issue when it went down on my PS3/4.

@Gatatog
Cheers, I will look at the settings tonight, very handy to know thanks.

@Digit2021 That exactly how it is. This is Microsoft's legal stance on it and I'd guarantee Sony's is the same:

"Digital Goods are licensed solely for your personal, non-commercial use (which excludes use for promotional purposes), at a level customary for such use. Microsoft may stop distributing any Digital Good, or add to or reduce the capabilities for any Digital Good, at any time. You may lose access to or capabilities of Digital Goods, or have the nature of your access changed."

You're licensing the "goods" from them until a time that may come that they withdraw the license or change the nature of it. You mentioned leasing; well a legal distinction, at least with property in terms of real estate, between a license and a lease is that a lease guarantees a certain period of time whereas a license does not. They're similar but a license is actually worse:

"A licence is simply a personal, contractual permission for the licensee to do something – in this context to occupy land. A licence does not confer any proprietorial rights, it cannot be assigned and it does not survive any change in the ownership of the freehold/superior interest. Crucially, a licence does not confer any security of tenure, and so a licensee’s position is precarious."

So yeah, you're effectively renting your games for an unknown amount of time.

It’s funny that so many people believe always online and heavy DRM is ok nowadays.
Yes outage can and does happen for everything.

@Vladspartan

Hmm that's just your country then. On Xbox this also happens. Maybe you should try Google and look ik up. Anyway, we live in a digital age and the things can happen when conneted to the internet. Oh well drink a beer and enjoy the evening sky!

Didn't notice any problem with the PS4 (UK). I was online and downloading game patches last night without any problems?

Almost wasn't able to buy Erica and Yakuza Kiwami on the last day they were on offer, but luckily it went through, just before I would have burst into tears!

Had no issues what so ever. Non story.

But will Sony actually do any good for their community and allow people's who's accounts were banned to recover them. Especially if they're not hackers or modders

@Sakisa Azure look it up.

This explains why I was locked out of my best saber music yesterday. Everytime I went to restore my licenses it craped itself and died.

I'm surprised by the number of people that are surprised by this and what it's like when it happens. I guess a lot of you guys weren't around in the PS3 era when PSN was down more than it was up?

This happens to all 3 companies regularly. PSN has actually been more stable these days than it used to be. XBL is rock solid for a year, and then spends 2 months where it seems like every 3rd day there's some kind of outage. A week or two ago they had one similar to this one. Yesterday they had a partial outage just on cloud gaming.

Nintendo used to have this happen all the time on WiiU. It's been a lot better on Switch, but especially the first two years or so of Switch they were chronically down like this. Such is "cloud" anything.

But yeah, for digital games, on all 3 platforms, you should be able to play your digital games on your primary console. PS defaults your first PS4 and first PS5 you set up as your default. XB I think prompts you during setup. Nintendo you have to manually set it.

@Flaming_Kaiser I know what it is, yes. And we know that caused the outage? While XBLA was still up? Unlikely. Probably was Sony’s screw up.

@velio84 nothing to do with them and they are good and you forget that PlayStation services were down was 23 days

@Sakisa it's not as it goes down and the longest is 23 days

Not everyone had issues or not everyone stays on their playstation 24/7 quit crying and go get laid. 3 hour game delay is not news to report. Jesus some of you act like it was a life or death situation. Smh

physical versions are the problemsolver...not an option for some lazy-ass people, they're just gonna cry like babies

@Vladspartan
Actually that's not true, it happened three times with Xbox last year that I know of because people were complaining on Twitter that they couldn't access their digital games or GamePass. They just get it sorted quite quickly.

Honestly. I've seen complaints more with Xbox going down over the last couple of years than PSN. And my guess is because of the strain that GamePass is probably causing on their servers when there is high traffic.

Just makes me glad I don't buy digitally, atleast if it's available on disc. Just makes me think how bad this is going to be when Microsoft get their way and everyone switches to 'services'. When an outage happens, which might be more often with stress on servers due to high traffic, then we get to play no games at all.

And my problem is, I haven't even embraced digital distribution which has been commonplace for nearly a decade. Embracing services? that could take years. I'll probably game backwards for a while, after all, that backlog keeps getting bigger.