When playing the PlayStation 5 or PlayStation 5 Digital Edition, you may experience the console bricking, crashing, freezing and/or randomly turning off.
If you are constantly running into these problems, then you can follow this guide at Seeking Tech to find some potential fixes.
How to shut down the PS5
The first step we recommend taking is to shut down the console. You can do so by taking the following steps:
1. Press the PS button on your DualSense to bring up the quick menu.
2. In the quick menu, navigate down to the bottom options.
3. Here, you need to select the “Power” option, which is located all the way to the right.
4. In the “Power” menu, select the “Turn Off PS5” option.
5. If your PlayStation 5 is not responding to your controller, you can press and hold the power button on the system until you see the “Preparing to turn off your PS5” screen. Your system should then shut down a few seconds later.
6. If none of the aforementioned methods work, you can simply unplug the system from the power outlet. With that said, you may cause additional damage to your PS5 by pulling the plug. Therefore, we recommend only doing this if you have no other ways to turn off the system.
Fix #1: Checking the AC power cord on PS5
The first solution you can try is to unplug your PS5 from the power cord, wait a few minutes, and then plug it back in again.
To do so, you need to take the following steps:
1. Once the PlayStation 5 has been completely turned off, remove the AC power cord from the back of the system. You should also remove the other end from the power outlet if you haven’t done so already.
2. Inspect the AC power cable carefully to see if there is any damage to it.
3. If there is some visible damage, you can try using another AC cord. The PS5 and PS5 Digital Edition use the standard C7 power cord. This is the same cord that also comes with the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 4 Slim.
If you need to purchase a replacement, then we recommend picking up the Amazon Basics Replacement Power Cable with this link. (#CommissionsEarned).
4. If the original AC power cord looked fine and/or you have a new cable, use it to plug your PlayStation 5 into the power outlet to see if this method fixes the bricking, crashing and freezing problems.
5. If you are still experiencing issues, try to use a different power outlet.
How to rebuild the database on PS5
If the aforementioned solution does not work, then we recommend rebuilding the database on the PlayStation 5.
To do so, you need to do the following:
1. With the system turned off, press and hold the power button on your PlayStation 5. You should hear one beeping sound initially. Keep holding until you near a second beep. This will enable the Safe Mode on the PS5.
2. In Safe Mode, connect your DualSense to your PlayStation 5 system via the USB port by using an USB cable and then press PS button on the controller.
3. In the Safe Mode menu, select the “5. Rebuild Database” option.
4. In the next screen, select the “OK” option to start the database rebuilding. Keep in mind that this process may take several hours to complete.
How to reinstall PS5 firmware
If you are still experiencing problems, then you can try re-installing the firmware of your PlayStation 5.
To do so, you can take the following steps:
1. First off, you will need an USB drive that has been formatted as FAT32.
2. Connect the USB drive to the USB port of your computer.
3. Download the PS5 update file with the following link:
4. Open the USB drive from your computer.
5. On the root directory of your USB drive, you need to create a folder and name it PS5.
6. Open the PS5 folder on your USB drive and create another folder. You need to name the new folder UPDATE.
7. Copy the PS5 update file you downloaded into the aforementioned UPDATE folder on your USB drive.
8. Disconnect the USB drive from your computer and then plug the same storage drive into your PS5.
9. Power on your PlayStation 5 in Safe Mode by pressing and holding the power button on the system until you hear the second beeping sound.
10. Connect your DualSense controller to the system using one of the other USB ports aside from the port where you plugged in the USB drive.
11. In the Safe Mode menu, select the “7. Reset PS5 (Reinstall System Software).”
12. In the next screen, select the “OK” option to being the installation process.
If none of our suggested fixes work, then the next best option is to contact PlayStation. The bricking, crashing, freezing and random shut off issues could be hardware related. Thus, you may need to send your system in to PlayStation for repair.