How to avoid the PS5 storage glitch that's bricking brand-new consoles

Watch out for the glitch that can brick your PS5! Sony's next-generation game console is finally out on the market, and while reviews for the system and its games have been overwhelmingly positive, the launch itself has had some issues. Perhaps the worst issue experienced by some prominent gaming influencers can even brick your system, or render it totally unusable due to software failure. At the very least, it might prompt a full restart if you aren't careful.

Here's what is causing some PS5's to be bricked on day one — and how to avoid having this happen to you.

What's the issue? Reports of this issue first emerged on November 10 when YouTuber ACG published a tweet about it. "At this time my PS5 is 100% dead," he wrote. "I was having the storage rebuild issues others reported but mine escalated to full errors and network issues/boot. Sony and I were working through troubleshooting when it died completely."

This issue is seemingly caused when the PS5 tells players it needs to "rebuild" its storage. This same issue has gotten flagged by some other notable influencers like Giant Bomb editor Jeff Gerstmann, who explained in a November 10 tweet that his system also crashed and went through an "external drive repair sequence" that ended with a black screen that could only be fixed by restarting the console.

While Gerstmann's system didn't completely brick, it's clear that the PS5 is having issues when it comes to storage. We don't know how widespread this issue is, but if it happened to at least two people with units that were available before launch, it will clearly plague a number of owners on the November 12 launch day and beyond.

Inverse has contacted Sony for comment on this issue, but Sony has not yet responded. We will update this story if they do.

What's causing it? While we don't know the exact technical issue, one game does seem to be the main culprit: Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered. This remaster is a bonus for Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales Ultimate Edition owners that paid an extra $20 to experience an updated version of the PS4 classic.

"Seems like putting a PS5 into rest mode while Spider-Man Remastered is running crashes the whole system," Gerstmann wrote, "forcing that 'repair your external drive' process when you start back up."

This seems to have been ACG's issue too, as he quote-tweeted that and said "Crossing fingers for a quick patch on this."

How to prevent this issue? As of now, Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered appears to be the cause of this PS5 glitch. Because of that, it's probably a good idea to avoid playing Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered until it is either patched or we learn more about the specific nature of this issue. If you are deadset on playing the remaster, you'll just need to be careful in how you go about it.

When playing Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered, make sure that you've completely exited the game before you put your PS5 into sleep mode. As the PS5 doesn't feature quick resume, the best way to know this issue won't happen to you is to just boot up another game like Demon's Souls before you put your PS5 into rest mode.

If you do one of those things, you should be able to avoid the PS5 glitch altogether. Hopefully, we don't have to wait long until a Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered or PS5 system update resolves this issue.

PlayStation 5 is available now.