A number of PS4 owners have taken to Reddit to warn others to set their PS4 messages to friends only or disable them entirely after it was discovered that a private message containing special characters could crash PS4 consoles. It seems that the issue is so severe that it forces users to factory reset their consoles in order to have them working properly. What's more is, you don't even have to open the message to be impacted. Just receiving the notification on your PS4 is enough to trigger a crash in some instances. Sony is yet to respond to this issue. Though it's quite likely that we'll see a PS4 system software update meant to rectify this before its next officially slated update that would bring PSN name changes along with it.
Deleting the offending message from the PlayStation Messages app on Android and iOS may help as long as you're not logged in to PSN on your PS4 at the time. The best way to prevent your PS4 from crashing is to set your messages to private. Here's how you can do that.
From your PS4
From a web browser on your laptop or PC
While issues like this have plagued smartphones in the past, this could very well be the first time we see a console's messaging system exploited. Considering the PS4's popularity, this should come as no surprise. With a ton of big games out this year such as Red Dead Redemption 2, Fallout 76, and the recently released Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, you're best served taking these precautions until Sony fixes it.
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