PSA - Anthem Defect is Critically Crashing and Bricking Players' Consoles

Anthem Defect is Critically Crashing and Bricking Players' Consoles
See the following report by Yong Yea

Time Stamp ~4:30


[video=youtube;hi2yCL9n8QM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi2yCL9n8QM[/video]
 

verminstar

Banned
Duplicate thread? This has already been mentioned on the anthem thread. Also my console is working fine and Im playing the game every day so I do have to wonder if these arent simply edge cases as Ive yet to hear of anyone not on ps4 experiencing this...so the generalization of consoles in general feels more like an overly dramatic headline from salty players who want their antique first generation consoles replaced on the cheap.

Ill keep playing till it happens to me basically...the risk is there but theres risk in just crossing the street on any given day...doesnt stop billions of people crossing streets every day though. If it happens, then it happens...not happened to me yet and the game is far too much fun to walk away from on the back of a rumour of a very small risk.

Maybe if I stick with them, Ill get a couple legenadry weapons to reward my loyalty...in fact I should insist upon it stating Ive been playing and sweating profusely fire extinguisher at the ready while doing so and need compensation to help in the recovery process.

Elite used to spit me out on average three times an hour last time I played...last night, I played anthem fer 4 hours straight, not one single issue and I think I would have remembered a crash if it happened. Time will tell but Id be expecting to see a fix in record time anyway...its not frontier behind this one so I very much doubt we will be waiting that long considering the damage ignoring it long term would do ^
 
Allegedly like 6 years in making. Slow clap clap clap. [haha]

Witcher 3 took only 3 years and change with a smaller team and not a multi billion dollar publisher. Anthem should cure cancer by this point. But pretty sure EA would screw that up as well.
 
This is not a dust issue. This is not a hardware issue. This only happens on Anthem on all models of PS4 and XBox One.

Just because everything else works fine doesn't mean it's not a hardware issue. Anthem could well be more and differently demanding than games that came before it, thus could be much more likely to reveal weaknesses with the underlying system. Chances are it was validated on pristine test systems, then released to real world hardware samples of a broader range of silicon quality, wear levels, and maintenance.

This is why stress testing with 'real world' loads is insufficient. You stress test with combinations of worst case loads, in worst case environments, so that when, five years down the line, someone runs software that takes full advantage of your hardware in a system that was run in a chain smoker's woodshop and never cleaned, everything still works fine...because you built in sufficient margins and built your stuff to last.

Amazing how many hardware makers cut corners to look good in the short term, only to see their reputations ruined later on.

Now, don't get me wrong, it could well be a software/OS issue, either in the absence of, or in conjunction with, a hardware issue, but I consider a hardware issue likely because a software one of this sort would more likely have been revealed in internal testing.

Of course, to isolate the problem, you'd need to see if anyone doesn't ever have issues, then look at their software environment, then checking if anyone that does have issues with a similar firmware/software environment benefits from, say, reducing ambient temps by 20C.
 
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Allegedly like 6 years in making. Slow clap clap clap. [haha]

Well, everyone knows developing a AAAAAA game with such fidelity takes at least 10 years. They obviously didn't take the time to get it right, something something evil publishers.

Seriously, i can't beleive its actually possible for a game to brick a computer. The OS simply should not allow it. So while there is a right here to rage against the devs for this, my ultimate ire would be reserved for the console producers. I mean, if this can happen through accident, it could also be made to happen through design.

EDIT: Actually, listening to it, it sounds like the system is shutting down to prevent damage, possibly overheating? But in which case, why not just terminate the offending app? Presumably the OS is failing to do this and its being passed down to the hardware/BIOS level to deal with it.
 
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Have you played it?

I did (the PC version) and its in my opinion very bland, uninspiring and shows slow fall of Bioware team as I sadly expected. Game runs on pure hype with little to nothing apart from pretty graphics to show for. Its a empty shell. Personal taste - I dont find noting cool and original about the suit designs even (no, I cant design better ones but just look at Warframe suits to see what could be done). As far s tech issues goes I experienced only abysmally long loading screens. Not playing it much for mentioned reasons and due to possibility of my PC blowing up ;)
Sad thing about Bioware team, I saw warning signs with DA Inquisition that played more like "offline MMO", then Andromenda bomb happened and now we have competently done assets with little actual innovation and fun behind game play.
As I like to put it - this game lack soul. Its a tech piece with out magic that made so many Bioware titles unforgettable and pretty much timeless.
 
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Witcher 3 took only 3 years and change with a smaller team and not a multi billion dollar publisher. Anthem should cure cancer by this point. But pretty sure EA would screw that up as well.

Not quite. While the timetable is correct it was not exactly a small team.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Witcher_3:_Wild_Hunt

The project began with 150 employees, eventually growing to over 250 in-house staff. Fifteen hundred people were involved in the production globally.

So 250 inhouse and about 1500 people globally.
 
The term "bricking" is inaccurate. The worst thing that can happen is filesystem corruption, which on PS4 means downloading the OS and reinstalling both the OS and all the games. Granted, it's a real pain in the butt, however, it's not the same as true bricking, which happens when firmware is corrupted.

As for what's happening with this game, it's the same thing happening with ED on PS4 - the console is "hard-freezing", requiring it to be either unplugged or the power button to be held in place for multiple seconds to fully power down.

ps - I regularly back up my save data!

disclaimer - I'm a PS4 guy, so I only speak authoritatively for this specific console.
 
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The term "bricking" is inaccurate. The worst thing that can happen is filesystem corruption, which on PS4 means downloading the OS and reinstalling both the OS and all the games. Granted, it's a real pain in the butt, however, it's not the same as true bricking, which happens when firmware is corrupted.

As for what's happening with this game, it's the same thing happening with ED on PS4 - the console is "hard-freezing", requiring it to be either unplugged or the power button to be held in place for multiple seconds to fully power down.

ps - I regularly back up my save data!

disclaimer - I'm a PS4 guy, so I only speak authoritatively for this specific console.

So far I saw no proof of true bricking. The crashing itself is bad enough anyway.
 
So far I saw no proof of true bricking. The crashing itself is bad enough anyway.

I totally agree about the crashing - like I said, Elite Dangerous is doing the very same thing to PS4s, and I don't like it one bit! Considering how big some of my games are, it would take me days to recover from a filesystem corruption.
 
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This crash behavior is most due to a driver bug. Drivers on a console you ask? Yeah, consoles have drivers, too. You obviously do not install them yourself. They are either part of the OS or part of the game files and talk to the console hardware. And if something goes very wrong in the process, you might get a brick.

A brick of course doesn't mean that your hardware has been fatally damaged ("hard brick"). In the current day and age with all those non-volatile memories everywhere, the question is how hard it is to recover from a "soft-brick". And the thing with consoles is, that the manufacturer doesn't want you the consumer to access any internals for troubleshooting, because that would mean, that at some point you could copy games and run stuff on your console, that you shouldn't.

So what is happening is a result of deliberate design choices to remove control over the platform from the consumer. The same thing can happen on PC, when malicious software attacks your Intel SGX enclave, which is employed in all kinds of DRM.
 
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