Sony PS3 no disc read issue is the real deal
Filed under: Gaming, Sony Playstation 3 | By: Daniel
Posted on: August 5, 2008 | 225 Comments
The Sony PS3 no disc read issue is the real deal and lets quieten the gamers that claim its just coincidence that people are getting this problem after firmware 2.42 update.
We have had over 40 reports of the Blu-ray / Disc read issues and this is not just a few Playstation 3 owners getting this problem. 40 people are not many, but that’s just reports to us and we see many more on other sites and forums.
Have you had disc read issues with your PS3?
The comment below was one we heard from one of our readers and they raise some very good questions:
I’m 39 years old. I take very good care of my electronics. I don’t have kids (yet). Bought a pre-owned 20GB PS3 off someone back in Feb 08. It was in immaculate condition. Never had a single problem or issue with it at all. Until this weekend. I can’t recall if it was specifically after 2.42 that I got the “no disc read” issue, but it was definitely after 2.41 for sure. As of this weekend (updated to 2.42 a few days back with no problems in gameplay/Blu-ray playback etc) my PS3 no longer reads/recognizes any kind of disc whatsoever. I get the “working bubble” in the upper right hand corner of the screen, but the disc doesn’t appear in the XMB. This is NOT a phantom issue, and if it’s a “coincidence” that so many of us are experiencing this (and at an increasing rate) then maybe OJ really WAS 100% innocent after all and Dubya is truly the greatest president this country has ever seen.
I don’t have the warranty option, so it’s either send the unit in and shell out the money to get it fixed, or wait for a possible firmware update to correct the problem.
My question is this: what do they do at the Sony repair center to correct this problem? Is it firmware related, or is it simple mechanical failure? Can anyone with tech experience sound off on this? Why are so many of us all of a sudden having variations on the same problem in the span of a few months?
Yes, this is a real problem. As I stated before, I’m super careful with my stuff and know better than to shut the console off during an update, etc. I’m happy for those of you who aren’t suffering this frustration, and hope that you won’t have to. Or in the least, that if it happens to you Sony will already be on top of the issue instead of shrugging it off and happily collecting 150.00 a pop for the trouble.
C’mon Sony. We deserve better than this.
So why are so many people getting this disc read issue after firmware 2.42, is it software or a hardware at fault?
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My drive died right after the 2.6 update. It was working before and not after. The install was not interrupted. The playstation 3 is less then a year old but I have no receipt. I am hoping Sony will waive the $150 to fix it.
@ Sumo (kimo)
“Someone seems in 1/2 denial with the rest filling up a fine cup of jealousy honestly”
Please explain what you think I’m jealous of.
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“Get over it IHateYouAll and find a hobby”
Do you even know what you’re talking about? I’d enjoy to hear what ‘it’ is that you think I should explain.
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“I came here to find info on the very same PS3 issue spoken of here”
My point has been, and still is, that this article written by product reviews is pointless. It’s a comment from another article, and it’s shameful that they would even post such trash. But what would you know, right?!
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“all I [found], like so many forums, is the resident troll wanker”
Yes, people like yourself who spend night and day online seem to use the word troll a lot, and you also speak of the internet as if it’s a real world where people can actually reside. Get a life and meet some real people.
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“Zoidbort isn’t much better but I will agree with him saying you react with every reply in a name calling 8 year old time consuming whining tantrum”
Go back and read our discussions before you chirp in with your opinions. He’s a douche trying to prove his point, which he’s still failed to do, by posting annonomously on this thread, and his comments should be regarded in the same manner as the article itself. It’s not fact, there’s no way to actually prove what either VoidBolt said or that the comment in the article is true. This is the premise of what I’ve been saying, but VoidBolt and others seem to disagree…which means you disagree…which means your ‘tarded.
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“Notice how no one else is saying anything or agreeing with you?”
Except for every person who came to this site thinking they would find a solution to their problem, read the article, and then left the site without posting to seek a real solution rather than an article the is really just another comment from another person. This seem more logical that what you’ve said.
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“Being near graduation, you think you would not be taking so much time to construct such long pointless rants via replying to every sentence of a previous post with such lame poorly thought up insults”
That is unless I have a job that pays well and doesn’t demand a lot of my time or energy. Not everybody works infront of a cash register and has to say ‘Would you like fries with that’ 5000 times a day.
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“Perhaps your dad is the one you speak of with the degree and you are just 14, shadowing as daddy”
I guess anything’s possible, right. If thinking of me as a 14 year old child make your pants moist, go for it. If you try to lure me to a hotel with promises of candy, well…I guess I would come, because all kids like candy even if we need to reach in the front zipper to softly tug our candy out.
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“Why lie on the internet or accuse others of the same?”
Because he admitted it, and another poster blantantly lie without knowing it. This only goes to back up my claim that this article, which, like I’ve said before, revolves around an anonymous person’s comment, shouldn’t be considered fact.
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“Perhaps you should print out all your witty comebacks from this site and try out for comedy central or even better, show it off to your two or three friends of yours so they think you are so cool and extreme”
My friends aren’t retarded and don’t require me to facilitate logical thinking, so why would I show them. Maybe when you say something that you think is funny you feel the need to share those little pieces of gold with your friends, assuming you do in fact have friends, but I’m not one of you.
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“Give it up already, you try waaaaaay too hard”
Way too hard…what is it you think I’m trying to do?
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“it just shows how transparent your real age is”
Well, that makes sense. lol By you failing to understand what I was saying would actually go towards showing your real age or education; I’ll assume education.
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“Christ”
So you too believe in fictional characters? Hmmm! I guess when fairy tales get only, one finds religion.
**Stop fanboyism; hang yourself***
Wow, original again! The McDonald’s reference AND changing a person’s name to once again digress to a grade 4 level of humor (Sumo is all you could think of? Voidbolt…watching too much Harry Potter or..ahaha FAIL)? Same comedic act with Kimo as with me, sorry but I just have to shake my head at you in disappointment. You need a ladder to climb out of that hole you’re digging there? No one is going to listen to you…notice I am the only one to reply and fuel your dribble? If you cannot argue with some form of cognitive intelligence, your argument just fails every time. You have failed, sorry. You will always fail until you learn humility and stop hating. I am done replying so have fun looking cool to everyone who does not care while you fragment my sentences into little satirical whims, you will not be getting another response from me.
Have fun and keep failing.
@ VoidBolt
“Wow, original again! The McDonald’s reference”
It was a fast food referrence, but considering you do work at McDonalds it’s understandable why you would assume I’m talking about your employer.
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“AND changing a person’s name to once again digress to a grade 4 level of humor”
Give me something that’s simaliar to Kimo, and, if it’s a better name, I’ll use that. Until then, quit feeling like you finally have a friend, you lonely sonofabitch. Lol
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“watching too much Harry Potter”
Nobody watches Harry Twatter, except you I guess. I don’t understand the referrence, and I don’t intend on finding out.
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“Same comedic act with Kimo as with me”
That’s because you’re both ‘tards. Neither of you really has a point, which would actually make you two trolls, as per Wikipedia
Wiki:
An Internet troll, or simply troll in Internet slang, is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room
My point is to show that comments are not facts, nor should they be regarded as such. You, Void, post irrelevant & off-topic messages, to which I then reply with off-topic messages. Yes, when you talk rubbish I respond accordingly. Am I the only who is spitting conspiracy theories (off-topic)? Was I the one to start talking about how MS & Sony are the same (off-topic)? I’ve had a point since August, while you’ve yet to state your point; thus, you are in fact a troll.
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“sorry but I just have to shake my head at you in disappointment”
That same head shake your parents gave you each morning, afternoon and evening?!
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“You need a ladder to climb out of that hole you’re digging there?”
Maybe you’ll borrow me the ladder you use to climb out of the hole you live in.
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“No one is going to listen to you…notice I am the only one to reply and fuel your dribble?”
This thread started in August, I doubt it gets many hits these days as firmware 2.42 is ancient news. As for replying to my “dribble”, I think you need to go back and see who it was to first start post “Dribble” about being bi-partisan toward consoles, or Sony lying & ripping you off intentionally, or your other wild and crazy conspiracy theories that, by Wikipedia’s definition, are comments a troll would leave.
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“If you cannot argue with some form of cognitive intelligence, your argument just fails every time”
Then you’ve failed with your every post.
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“You will always fail until you learn humility and stop hating”
I hate this article that Product Reviews posted. I hate you for failing to understand this point, even to this day you this seems to escape the grasps of your welfare-life mind. Over the last month you’ve continuously comments that have no point, then I reply to what you’ve said (guess I’m easily baitable by retards).
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“I am done…”
Heard that one before
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“…replying so have fun looking cool to everyone who does not care while you fragment my sentences into little satirical whims”
Your life is like real life satire.
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“you will not be getting another response from me”
I didn’t want one from the beginning. I was actually hoping you would understand that comments are facts, they shouldn’t be taken as facts, and they should be regarded for what they are.
**Stop fanboyism; ahng yourself**
Okay gents I’ll bite.
I’m a 30 y/o tech with enough know how to load ubuntu linux, virtualized windows 2k3 sbs, ON the PS3 and have it connect to itself as a “Media server” so sit down and shut up with the proper care crap you spew. most of you just work a compressed aircan and wetwipes anyways. I doubt many of you even know the proper method to test resistance on a multilayer micro board.
I am a WAN/LAN admin that maintains a network for a fortune 500 firm. I build liquid encased computers for diving and harsh envorments…. For fun.
I hold multipule H/W S/W certs from microsoft to encase. MCP,MCSA,MCSE(security/sk3),A+,Security+,CCENT,CCNA,CCNP,EnCase,CCE,Linux+ (level1 and 2). I have build voice activated embedded PCs for SEMA show cars for the past 8 years. So let’s just say I know how to maintain devices with buttons and wires and move on.
I loaded the update and it stopped only the drive from functioning… and in the case of the linux and server install on the box… you guessed it…. the drive is no longer visible. So on the HW or firmware ISO layer, something stopped working. But why?
A) F/W damage? Maybe it is a low layer of the ISO model… this layer is highly sensitive the the most insagnifigant changes in HW specs. This could explain the low number of effected devices.
B) bad patch loader ? possible but unlikely as this would have been more wide spread for sure
C) corrupted update bin….. that is common issue with software dev. They may have cut down on install size by doing away with a MD5 hash check on data integrity after download and decompression. Again unlikely Sony is not new to development.
D) missing invalid component registration for some systems (typo in the code) in the update that effects only a small range of devices with components procured from a 3rd party vendor that had advers effects of update. Not likely as another update would repair the device in stead of cost of using repair centers. I know Samsung is the worlds largest electronic component (diodes to onboard devices) manufacturer and Sony deals heavily with them. they are a large lightly regulated S. Korean Firm with a great track record but they have had explosive growth at their plants which must result in some decrease to QA.
Now lets get some bs statistics corrected.
With Sony, they are a global firm and yes large firms like this have “business intelligence” groups that do various work with marketing and PR (read plant on inets to spin bad press or settle uproar with customers.)
As a global product components are shared and shipped all over. So, one cannot take a single language search to say only x% of Z total users report and issue so it cannot mean anything. By that logic, if 1/2 of 0.1% of the earths population died suddenly that would be over 3.5 million deaths. So even small number can represent a larger issue.
If only 1 out of 10 people complain (yea right, do you know that many motivated folks)
and we only see 500 complaints in english worldwide. that represents 5,000 effected english speaking users.
as english speakers makes up 20% of the global populace (harrisoninteractive) but lets say that in the PS3 world it represents double that at 40%
we must take that and multiply that by 2.5 (as 40% goes into 100% 2.5 times) so now your tiny complaint effecting 5,000 really represent a larger group of 12,500 systems
at only the cheap price of $400/per unit that represents a minimum net consumer cost of $5,000,000.00 If repairs cost Sony $100/per unit (s/h, overhead, equipment, manhours) that is a additional cost of 1.25mil to fix the issue. In a economic swing like this with Sony posting a loss for the first time in 14years… trust me the idea of dissuading or information control is paramount to keeping their shareholders from jumping ship regardless of which business unit they are.
But if you have held your toung long enough to get this far. in Sonys defence in my case I had a bad habit of leaving the system on witht eh disk/game paused for great periods of time. resulting in extra wear and tear on the drive servo and the lots more heat to the components. But I bought mine new used it heavily and almost 1 year to teh day (356 days) the device crapped out… almost made the 1 year out of warantee mark… lucky me and my lack of a social life!
@ All readers
Please take notice that this article, that Product Reviews some how beleives is news, is simply 2 questions, asked by the article’s writter, and a comment, left on another one of P.R. articles comment sections.
1. Have you had disc read issues with your PS3?
2. So why are so many people getting this disc read issue after firmware 2.42, is it software or a hardware at fault?
The first question is pretty straight forward and could be answered with a simple yes or no, the second question is, in my eyes, just flamebait, while the comment in the article seem to be pointlessly inserted in lieu of any jounalistic integrity.
This is my issue with the article, which is what I’ve been debating with people who feel the need to see me as a ‘brand loyalist’, ‘Xbot Mole’, ‘PS3/Sony Fanboy’, et cetera. My issue is very straightforward, easy to understand and hopefully easy to see. If anybody still has issues with why I regard this article as complete $hit it’s your problem now, not mine.
**Stop fanboyism; hang yourself**
@ IHateYouAll.
Summary: I love the PS3, I would never switch to another system, this problem happened to me, it is legitimate and real.
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Hi, I will give you my entire history with Sony, take from it what you wish.
I lived in another country most of my life, from age 1-13, I moved to the U.S and have been here since.
When I was in second grade, I saw my uncle play this new toy he had called a Playstation. I was so amazed, I have never played a video game before, nor have I seen one. I remember the game was Mortal Combat.
I woke up my father one day early in the morning and told him I wanted a “Sony”. He was not sure what I meant till later - he got one from another town just so he could get it cheaper, I lived in a small small town and I am not sure if it had it then or not.
When my dad came back, the first few games I played were the ones that it came with (Demo disc). I later bought Final Fantasy Tactics and Fifa 98 (I still play FF Tactics on my PSP today!, more than 10 years after!)
The PS1 lasted for so so long, I loved it so much - the controllers on the other hand lasted one week each because they were non-official.
in 2003-2005 I did not play any video game system, the PS1 is in the garage till this day! I never want to through it away :P. Anyway, my two younger brothers decided to buy a PS2, I did not give them any money so they had it all to themselves - but I didn’t care.
Anyway, the PS2 still works, till now, and we had no trouble, we even modded it so it can play “cheap games” that were bought from my country (PS2 games at $2 each)
When the PS3 came, this was a “no no!” because it was not able to play pirated (yea yea,can’t be pirated) games. So I was not going to buy it in a million years.
At the end of last October (08), I bought a used PS3 from GameFunk for $300, it worked fine for two weeks - till it could no longer read games.
Please, I am not faking this, I would never write this whole thing to lie or to support the GayBox180 - The only reason I bought the PS3 was because my brothers really wanted me to chip in, they had $200 and I ..have money. I don’t even play with it that often.
I am a dear loyal customer to Sony, a few weeks trying to fix the PS3, I gave up, and I don’t know why, but I bought a PSP - hacked it, custom firmware, 8gb flash drive and many many downloaded games.
Anyway, I contacted Gamefunk, I was not expecting them to take the PS3 back but they did! and I just received a new (used) one a few days ago (Finally, after a month or two trying to fix it , and a month or so trying to convince sony to fix it - they told me “There is nothing you can do to prevent this problem, or to solve it” I was so upset)
Point is, its not a fake story, its a real problem. I am still loyal to Sony though, how can I not be? I have every console they made!
(I wont be getting their HDTV though, too expensive)
Hope you got my point of view.
Thanks.
Wijaa3
PS: The PS1 only stopped working because I broke the disc holder on it, and it probably will not work now since it was dusty for a long long time - but I still have emulators on my PC/ + PSP.
PSS: because you can’t pirate PS3 games, I only have one game: Call of Duty 4. (FTW!)
i’m pretty sure you’re right Fredirick.
because it seemed a little bit strange to me though that the internet settings showed it was connected and all in the system settings but there’s no connection avalaible, so i geuss this is your best bet’ try different games n shit, first of all disable that shit, and secondly it means some games have firmware updates installed in them to install on to your drive so, i think but now, try all the games untill it does what fredirick says’ sounds logical to me, i’m going to leave it over night if i have to
I have a 60GB Sony PS3. Within 11 months of owning the unit that was hardly used, the Disc Drive developed the same fail. I.e., does not recognize a disc (CD/DVD/BD). Problem started when we played the first BD disc ever on this unit that I purchased new. The disc was Lego StarWars. Since the games on the HDD worked as well as the unit played my MP3s, I did not think there was an issue and thought we just needed a firmware upgrade or something. We left on a month long overseas vacation. When I got back I found that no discs were being recognized, so I called Sony. Told them that the issue developed while the Unit was under warranty. I was told that since they were informed only now (after a month and a half past the warranty expiring) Sony had no liability and I needed to pay ~$160 for the fix. I have owned so many DVD players over the years, Toshiba, Philips, Panasonic, hell, even cheap stuff like terrapin/cyberhome. Never saw a DVD disc drive fail within a year. Crappy HW in the Sony playstation 3. I am an electrical engineer that takes care of my electronics. Nothing we did could have caused such early life failure. Sony needs to do a better job on reliability with their BOM. I am shocked that the supervisor would not give me the benefit of doubt and fix my unit, or at least, subsidize the repair.
I just got the disc read error. For those of you that say I don’t know how to take care of electronics - two words - bite me. The unit stays in a safe dry environment, never has been moved, always updated, and played maybe twice a week for 2 hours over the last year. What a piece of junk. Sony wants $150 to fix the error. Are you kidding me. I think I will sell all of my games on eBay and go back to the Xbox.