Last week the PlayStation 4 received its latest system software update. First reported by Destruction Games on Twitter, the update has seemingly fixed the CMOS issue that was preventing PS4 console owners from playing disc and digital games if the internal clock battery had died. Several people have now been able to play disc and digital games on PS4 consoles with a dead battery since the update was installed.
The issue began when players discovered that if the console’s internal clock battery died, this prevented them from playing both digital and disc games offline because of the way the trophy system has been set up. As long as players could connect to the PlayStation Network then this wouldn’t be an issue, but if Sony was ever to shut the servers down for PS4, the console would eventually stop playing games altogether. This would also affect PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 5 consoles to a lesser extent. Sony had promised they were working on a solution for the problem and it seems like system software version 9.0 has solved the issue with some caveats.
Destruction Games reported that disc games could now be played without crashing at startup. He could also earn trophies, although these would not have a date or timestamp, instead having a blank space where these would be displayed. He also claimed other people had tested the system with digital games and these had worked too, although this was something he hadn’t tested himself. @DoesItPlay1, the people who first brought the issue to light, have also said they would be doing further testing to verify the problem has indeed been fixed.
My date when booting my PS4 was 1969 and 5:00PM which is the default date and time the PS4 falls back on with a dead battery, so my battery is definitely still dead.
Also here’s a pic of a trophy I just earned, with the date and time earned being blank pic.twitter.com/ENOANw5afn
— Destruction Games (@desgamesyt) September 21, 2021
The latest software update also introduced the ability for players to view their PS5 trophy lists on a PS4 console as well as those of their friends. An alteration to the Party function also lets owners disband the party without having to remove all of the players first. Sony has yet to comment on whether the update did indeed fix the CMOS bug but if we hear anything official, we’ll be sure to let you know.
[Source: Twitter]
