PS3 2.40 bricking caused by 'certain' system admin data

by James Ransom-Wiley { Jul 8th 2008 at 11:53AM }

The good news is, well, you've seen the good news. The bad news is, if you can't see the good news ... there is no good news. Speaking through semi-official community site Three Speech, SCEE has released a statement reiterating that PlayStation 3 update 2.41 (the good news) has been released, fixing the bricking issue associated with update 2.40. The statement attributes affected 2.40 users' inability to load the console's XMB to "certain system administrative data ... contained on the HDD." Spooky.

Unfortunately, if you're the proud parent of one of a "limited number" of bricked PS3s, you're stuck with your brick, a fix, and no way to wed the two. SCEE recommends contacting Customer Service (presumably for a new or repaired unit) -- or you can wipe your PS3 hard drive on your own (losing all data in the process) and try reinstalling. This is, if you haven't guessed already, the bad news.

Tags: 2.40, 2.41, firmware-2.40, firmware-2.41, ps3-firmware-2.40, ps3-firmware-2.41, system-administrative-data, xmb

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

Zertoss @ Jul 8th 2008 11:57AM

I wouldn't doubt the resourcefulness of the community. Someone will come up with a solution that doesn't mean losing all your data.

Speaking of the data, is it possible to just copy it to your PC HDD before you format it? Seems like you could at least save your game data.

juju187 @ Jul 8th 2008 12:27PM

pandora HDD i would buy ps3...

Woz @ Jul 8th 2008 11:59AM

The real bad news is that if you use your PS3 to surf the web you have no idea about the good news you can't see

Deric Lee @ Jul 8th 2008 12:00PM

Wow, so you just lose every saved game? Suck.

Glad I didn't have time to do the update, hell I was upset when my 360 broke, but I never lost data because of it, this would have pissed me off to no end.

Brodie-san @ Jul 8th 2008 12:22PM

Backup much?

NATO_Duke @ Jul 8th 2008 12:26PM

The rrod didn't cause data to be lost. You don't even send them you HD when they repair it - so backing up wasn't needed by him.

Jtenma @ Jul 8th 2008 12:28PM

@ Brodie-san

????

...why?

Deaddy @ Jul 8th 2008 12:36PM

Brodie, I don't know if you could restore a full system backup to a new console. I know that Singstar DLC, for example, can't be copied/used on another console. You could be backing up your game saves to SD cards though, that may be what you meant. This is a good idea, I do it somewhat often.

deaftly @ Jul 8th 2008 12:44PM

"Backup much?"

Its a fucking video game console, not a pc.

Brodie-san @ Jul 8th 2008 12:47PM

Woah, such hostility. Take it easy guys. I was just joking. Jebus.

(Though I do take a copy of my files every so often, and why not?)

Brodie-san @ Jul 8th 2008 12:52PM

@Deaddy

Yep, that's exactly what I meant. Before I do any firmware update I take a snap of my game saves. Probably because I'm a pessimist.
:)

Fanboy @ Jul 8th 2008 12:57PM

@ Brodie

Just Shut up and Die

Brodie-san @ Jul 8th 2008 1:02PM

@Fanboy

For you?
No.

xFenixKnightx @ Jul 8th 2008 1:04PM

Hey now, leave Brodie-san alone. Can't you see that he PLAYS B3YOND?

:P

borland502 (SDF Macross) @ Jul 8th 2008 1:30PM

"Its a fucking video game console, not a pc."

No lad, it's a fucking video game console and a PC. The console is a personal device and it does computing with a microprocessor. Two out of the three even have hard drives.

You might pine for the days of a dedicated Pong console, but those days are gone. Consoles are adopting more and more general purpose tasks apart from "pure" gaming. Suck it up and don't knock the prudent people using an optional backup utility. You do know that one rating for hard drives is Mean Time Between Failures right?

Brodie-san @ Jul 8th 2008 1:42PM

Thanks Fenix!

I should say that I'm also an equal opportunity gamer. You'll find Nintendo and Microsoft (and even Sega) consoles in my house too.

And I've been critical of Sony when they mess up. Like now. And, you know, not having trophies etc. in the first place which was a massive oversight.

Competition and collecting stuff. Two human nature traits that were underrated by Sony. Ah well, at least it's there now and will continue to be. Speaking of which, time I headed home and started that (backup and) update.
:)

SimbaDogg @ Jul 9th 2008 5:06AM

i dont know why everyone is flipping out so much about backing up some of your saves (deaftly). i mean honestly, even when i had my old ps3 2 mb mem cards back in the day, i had a sony brand which i always used for saves, then some cheap ass no name on that i used for backups. with all the gran turismo endurance races, i always feared the worse.

Mr.ESC @ Jul 8th 2008 12:03PM

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=YGhU2h3pkuI&feature=related

As a PSP owner normally I avoided custom firmwares for fear of them sappin' mah system but since it can happen with official firmwares I rather go for the custom ones that allow you to run CW_Cheats.

In the case of the PS3 I think there aren't custom firmwares, suckage.

borland502 (SDF Macross) @ Jul 8th 2008 1:36PM

"In the case of the PS3 I think there aren't custom firmwares, suckage."

Yeah, but considering how burned they were by PSP piracy I can't hold it against them to be super-careful about firmware vulnerabilities.

Of course, I suspect that BD would shield them for a time against any large scale piracy. I doubt they give a shit about homebrew (unofficially).

koehler83 @ Jul 8th 2008 12:06PM

My PC's HDD has its own firmware. I have to wonder if such kinds of HDDs have been to blame here.

NATO_Duke @ Jul 8th 2008 12:12PM

How very ominous sounding.

Russ @ Jul 8th 2008 12:23PM

I thought the bricking was just another 360-copycat feature like the trophies.

xFenixKnightx @ Jul 8th 2008 12:35PM

clever

Deaddy @ Jul 8th 2008 12:37PM

Nice one.

Antonio @ Jul 8th 2008 12:33PM

So once again a portion of Playstation owners lose all their data, just like with the Viewtiful Joe demo. Poor form Sony.

Brodie-san @ Jul 8th 2008 12:34PM

Why do I back-up? It takes second to throw your saved games on a pen drive. Just in case.

NATO_Duke @ Jul 8th 2008 12:49PM

No, I think he was asking why someone with a 360 would need to back-up. You have a PS3 and not a 360 right? So, refer to what we said above - you don't need to back-up the 360 HD if the unit goes down from rrod. The HD is a seperate and detachable item.

Brodie-san @ Jul 8th 2008 12:53PM

Apologies, I was referring to his first statement.

"Wow, so you just lose every saved game? Suck."

I wasn't referring to the 360 at all.
:(

Geoffrey Sperl @ Jul 8th 2008 3:54PM

Hmmmmm... that's a good idea. I personally have a couple of thumbdrives doing absolutely nothing right now (and I would hate to lose my Oblivion and GTA IV saves).

Jomolungma @ Jul 8th 2008 12:44PM

Not sure it's been tried yet, but I'd love to see a legal test case come out of this. Companies shouldn't be able to release "official" updates to your system and have it render your system completely unusable. If you have to erase your HDD, this might constitute some form of damages. It would be hard to quantify, but basically you would be using the time value put into the game and probably some other things. Not gonna explore all the legal possibilities, but eventually somebody is going to have to figure out a way to hold these stupid companies accountable for breaking your hardware.

Vidikron (FU) @ Jul 8th 2008 12:55PM

Unfortunately, any sort of firmware update for pretty much any device carries with it a risk of bricking. So either you accept the risk or you never get an update ever. I'll take the updates myself. But they, Sony in this case, should be responsible for fixing (for free) bricked devices that are a result of the upgrade itself. If the brick happened due to a power outage or something similar then the consumer should pay to have it fixed (IMO).

Jomolungma @ Jul 8th 2008 1:00PM

I certainly agree that if the bricking wasn't caused by Sony, the owner should be responsible for the repair/replacement.

My big thing is, why do users have to agree to these risk assumption clauses? The idea of bricking is a relatively new phenomenon in the history of technology. It's pretty absurd, if you step back and think about it, that you can buy a piece of technology that is fully functional, then the manufacturer "improves" it by breaking it. What are we gonna do when more critical pieces of technology, like cars or hospital equipment, suddenly seize up because some automatic over-the-air update bricked it? It can get pretty complicated legally I suppose, and this ain't the place for that kind of discussion, but I just find the whole idea pretty ridiculous.

Noshino @ Jul 8th 2008 1:16PM

"My big thing is, why do users have to agree to these risk assumption clauses? The idea of bricking is a relatively new phenomenon in the history of technology."

False, bricking by update is actually something that, although at a low rate, does happen quite often.

Thing is, like someone mentioned earlier, let's say you have 10'000 people that spend about 3 months testing, they won't be able to find/encounter every single problem, but the millions of customers will...

Hell, and like I said, this isnt something new, its just that because it has just started happening with this generation of videogame consoles that we are paying that much attention. There are even times in which the problems aren't even found til months afterwards

Yes, this isn't acceptable, but it is something that does happen to anything that is made by human hands...

Jomolungma @ Jul 8th 2008 1:29PM

"False, bricking by update is actually something that, although at a low rate, does happen quite often."

Maybe I should have clarified what I meant by "history of technology." Not too many bricked chariots back in the day from firmware updates, were there? Didn't think so. That's what I meant by "recent." In terms of the history of technology law, its a relatively recent phenomenon.

I'm not saying it ain't gonna happen, or indeed that it shouldn't happen. It might be a trade-off that we just have to accept in order to achieve certain advances in certain technologies. This idea wouldn't be new. However, at some point the legal system will have to create certain boundaries for these companies to work within, or else it could get out of control. In the absence of certain market motivators, the law has often stepped in to fill the gap and "convince" manufacturers to put a little more time and effort into their products.

Now, it may be a court would decide that a specific manufacturer, and we'll just use Sony as an example here, did everything they could and should have to do, and that ultimately the risk falls on the consumer. Courts have certainly held this in certain areas. However, they've also held in favor of the consumer. My whole point with my OP was that it would be interesting to see a legal test case come up where a court examined this issue and decided who actually bears the risk and the burden for firmware or other "updates" that turn your functioning product into a useless brick.

borland502 (SDF Macross) @ Jul 8th 2008 1:58PM

"However, at some point the legal system will have to create certain boundaries for these companies to work within...the law has often stepped in to fill the gap and "convince" manufacturers to put a little more time and effort into their products."

The legal system is reactive, not proactive. And unless you're a lawsuit happy malcontent, then Sony, Microsoft, or whomever has to first have a chance to redress the problem. So question #1 is have there been any bricked consoles without any solution to fix them?

Now if the solution involves a long and dangerous trek to a remote lab in the Himalayas then that might also be a legal matter.

But if I understand it right, the solution in this case is to send in the hard drive or format it yourself. So is Sony liable for the loss of data that didn't come with the purchased system? They might be, but the reason the economy still functions is that not everyone thinks it is worth their time to pursue small issues.

If you don't feel that way, then you can follow the path of the squeeky wheel. That often generates results, or you can join the Consumer Reports Foundation and other causes dedicated to civil policing.

Not everything needs to be enforced by a court order. That's a bitchy road to go down, and should be a last resort for anyone.

Jomolungma @ Jul 8th 2008 2:20PM

"Not everything needs to be enforced by a court order. That's a bitchy road to go down, and should be a last resort for anyone."

For sure. I was thinking of the legal aspects of the problem in more abstract and theoretical terms. My ultimate point of view, that "eventually somebody is going to have to figure out a way to hold these stupid companies accountable for breaking your hardware" still stands. That accountability might come from courts, and I think that would be an interesting thing to follow. Indeed, to your point, that would be the legal system working at its reactive best.

However, there are many more ways in which the solution can be achieved, not the least of which is natural market forces. I'm not about to sue anyone - I don't even own a PS3 (though I own other pieces of technology that are susceptible to "bricking"). The problem has many sides, I was just trying to address the academic legal side. There are many more economic and social sides to the puzzle, and perhaps the best solutions will, and need, to come from those disciplines.

Jomolungma @ Jul 8th 2008 2:23PM

Jomolungma @ Jul 8th 2008 2:26PM

meh - sorry about the double post

severian00 @ Jul 9th 2008 1:54AM

just to pop in my 2 cents, I would say that the reason "bricking" is sort of new in the technology field is that firmware updates are relatively new in the technology field. While it's true that computer parts makers have been releasing firmware updates and driver updates for decades, very few "common" people bothered to update their equipment. Gamers have been updating their video card drivers forever but what about 15 yr old Betty or 40 yr old grocery clerk, not so much. Now with the advent of gaming consoles always connected to the internet and the companies behind those consoles using that as an opportunity to make their products better, you're going to see a significantly larger amount of bricking incidents in the future.

animeman_59 @ Jul 8th 2008 12:44PM

So does this mean that consoles have finally caught up to PCs?

What with all the system updates, game updates, hardware crashes, firmware crashes, and bugs.

*sigh* Makes me remember the days when a system just "worked".

WRE (PSN: WorstReviewEver; Gamertag: HaloKissesBoys; Wii Friend Code: 4204-4590-6106-3583) @ Jul 8th 2008 1:19PM

I don't know man, even with the NES you had to blow something just to get it to work half the time.

xFenixKnightx @ Jul 8th 2008 1:24PM

Nintendo64 was a beast. It ALWAYS worked. Dont remember any probs with mah Dreamcast either.

Thr3e2wenty8 @ Jul 8th 2008 12:47PM

sadly/luckily I pay alot of attention to firmware dates here on joystiq and other sites as well so I was there for the very second the 2.4 went live. I updated both of my PS3s and even snagged a trophy that night as well. I even let a friend of mine know that the FW had just gone live and to snag it while traffic was low.
He had no problem either.

But all this talk of losing game saves and HDD bricking has me wondering if it will be possible for me to keep my game saves and settings on a shared network drive in case something similar hits everyone.

Nate @ Jul 8th 2008 1:56PM

Game saves have to be on the PS3 hard drive and you can't script any kind of automated backup, unfortunately.

However, it's really 100% trivial to backup your game saves to any old USB thumb drive or memory card before doing an update, and it's probably a good practice for everyone to get in the habit of doing.

Mark @ Jul 8th 2008 12:49PM

System Administrative Data....Isn't that stored in the Flux Capacitor? I also believe that the Tooth Fairy wrote that code.

samfish @ Jul 8th 2008 12:59PM

I heard she delegated it off to the Moth Man.

*sigh*
...never trust a winged disaster-monster to do a sprite's job.

chad @ Jul 8th 2008 1:00PM

Doesn't "bricked" mean dead, unfixable? I know it sucks, but the actual PS3 is not broken. Replace the HD, reformat the HD and reload up your game saves that you have backed up...yes there is a back up function you all should be using! What Sony should do is have you mail in your reciept for a new 2.5" laptop HD and reimburse your cost. Not the whole freaking PS3.