This is a bit of an odd one, but it appears as though many PS3 users are being hit by a bug causing all of their PSN friends to disappear from their friends list, meaning that no other players will show up in that section of the XMB.
If you do a quick search on twitter, you’ll see a lot of people saying that their friends list has disappeared, and everyone seems a bit confused with the situation.
In fact, I’ve just checked myself, and between three PS3s, the full friends list is only appearing on one of them, with the other two showing zero friends. After a restart, another is showing the full friends list but the third system remains lonely on PSN.
This will obviously cause issues with people wishing to play online, particularly with popular games such as Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto which use the XMB’s friends list as an invite system.
Our suggestion is to restart your PS3, but if the problem persists as it does with one of mine, then you’ll just have to wait for a solution. It’s very strange that these issues are appearing almost seven years after the launch of the PS3.
cam the man
Seems a strange thing to happen?
Mine friends list was there when I turned my PS3 off about 7pm. Will see if it’s still there when I’m able to check tomorrow.
woodall
its happened 4 times to me in the last 3 days.
all 70+ friends hvin same issue.
ive managed to get mine back on by switching off at wall (not off on console)
system thn resets it self.
HOPE THIS HELPS
now ps4 on its way its seems as though theyve put us to the side.
dee
Happened to mine a few days ago.i almost thought my friends deleted all at the same time
PriceofWar
I believe I had a similar issue on my Vita earlier, when I checked my friends list, everyone was there but they all had a grey circle next to their names and I had a red X. This sort of thing has never happened to me before so I’m assuming they’re conncted.
mrfodder
And so close to PS4 launch. Hmmm!
Charmed_Fanatic
Happened to me a few hours ago, signed out, then back in, worked for me. Thought it was my internet or something!
cartman_101
This just happened to me! Also caused me to lose 50k in GTA online and get reset by a couple of ranks…
SLUMMO316
More bad publicity for Sony
boeboe
Let them worry about that.
Airiaen
Its normal ;P
TSBonyman
This happened me about a week ago, reverted to normal the next day but has happened again tonight so i signed out and in again just now and my list is back to normal.
KayOTheRapper
Its been like this for a few hours and everytime i try to sign in it doesnt refresh…. Bo2 servers arent even working because of it
aceedoessniping
Just happened to me. My night has been kinda bad, haha. First, BO2 servers go down, then, I get logged out at random, and finally, this. I’ve restarted, deleted messages, deleted comment, etc.
Bad timing much? 28 days before PS4 launch, and this stuff’s still happening.
28 days later; PS4 kicks ass.
blarty
It seemed to resolve itself for me, but I think this is more to do with Store maintenance, rather than necessarily PSN maintenance – I could sign in and play on PEN whilst showing an empty friends list, but if I tried to, say, get my trophy list to show up on my phone, it failed complaining about not being able to contact the store.
In one way this seems a good move, updating one thing doesn’t bring down the whole network.
Also I can see this kind of off the cuff updating happening a little more often while the PS4 is moving up to launch