As we reported last week, the PlayStation 5 had its share of issues at launch, some of which necessitated factory resets or could outright brick the system. It seems the biggest culprits are rest mode and trying to play PS4 games off an external hard drive, both of which could trigger “the database has corrupted, it will now rebuild” error messages. These can lead to further issues or even the dreaded bricked system.
Ah, but the first PS5 firmware update was released yesterday! In typical Sony fashion, very few details were provided, with the company only confirming the patch “improves system performance.” Many held out hope the patch also quietly fixed some of the serious issues afflicting the PS5, but unfortunately, evidence points to that not being the case.
Following the PS5 patch, Insomniac Games community director James Stevenson promised fixes were coming for Spider-Man Remastered’s rest mode issues, but recommended not to use the feature while in-game for the time being…
I’ve been using it fine on my PS5, but we will fix the bug causing our games to occasionally crash when in rest mode. Until then you may want to fully close Spider-Man or Miles before entering rest.
— James Stevenson (@JamesStevenson) November 17, 2020
This seemingly confirms the PS5 patch did not apply any sort of system-wide solution for the rest mode issues and that fixes may need to happen on a game-by-game basis. Whether any of the PS5’s other outstanding issues, including problems related to external HDDs and transferring files from PS4s, have been addressed is unclear, but for now, I’d say it’s best to play it safe. All these issues leading to “rebuild database” error messages would seem to be somewhat related, so if the rest mode bug hasn’t been fixed, assume the rest haven’t been addressed either. So, continue to avoid using rest mode and playing games off external drives for now.
Meanwhile, another vexing bug that’s been causing games to get stuck in the PS5’s download queue also hasn’t been fixed. IGN, who first reported the issue, claims they’ve had the same download issues happen after downloading the PS5 patch.
The PS5 is available now in North America and Australia and launches tomorrow (November 19) in Europe. For those who already have their hands on one, have you experienced any problems? Personally, I’ve been lucky, but I learned about the issues early and have been avoiding rest mode and HDDs.