A number of PS4[1] owners have taken to Reddit to warn others to set their PS4 messages to friends only[2] 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[3].
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.
How to set PS4 messages to friends only
From your PS4
- Go to Settings, select Account Management, and then Privacy Settings
- Choose Personal Info | Messages, select Messages
- Choose Friends Only or No One and keep it that way until Sony issues a fix
From a web browser on your laptop or PC...
- Visit the PSN Privacy Settings Management page[4]
- Sign in with your PS4 account details
- Choose Personal Info |