PS4 System Error CE-34878-0 (this is NOT a TPA error)

Anyone fall victim to this issue? The error is quite common and is related to game save file corruption.

The issue seems to escalate with most users. My escalation went like this:
Got the error from time to time. Game would error out to a blue "report this error to Sony" screen.
After a few weeks of this I started getting the error multiple times per day.
After a week of that the game wouldn't restart until I deleted my game profile save file.
Two days of that and then the game wouldn't start even after deleting all game save files.

Although I've gotten the error on several games the only one that has refused to play is Madden.

After some investigation I found that Sony was recommending a full system initialization. That wipes out everything and takes over an hour so I think it does a full HD format. The initialization completed and I loaded Madden in the drive. Did the install and the update. The game still wouldn't boot with my game save that I rescued from the cloud. Deleted that file and tried again. This time it booted. The game downloaded the latest NFL roster. As soon as the game built and saved a new user profile file I got the error and the game crashed to the blue screen.

It's so weird that it would have the problem again with the same game right away. Makes me think that something survives the initialization process. Or maybe my downloading the one save file did it? Tomorrow I think I'll need to do the initialization again and then not load any old save files and see what happens.

I've been hearing about this lately. Is it possible to just delete the game save on the HD and restore with the cloud save or are both affected?

Only if you set it to NOT sync automatically. Otherwise it's likely when it corrupts the save, that corrupted save gets synced to the cloud and destroys the working one.

You need to manually sync it often and hope to not accidentally sync over a bad save.

Yes I have read on the forums that Sony has acknowledged there is a problem with some game saves corrupting. It seems to affect 3rd party AAA titles. Supposedly Sony is working on a fix. All the Battlefield 4 folks are up in arms and the same with ACIV. I will check the playstation forums to see if there's any update to this issue. That exact error code says "The game has crashed. Restart in the content area." The only thing that is being recommended is to save your files to a thumb drive. I am sorry that is all the info I can find.

I read about this issue just two days ago, and then it happened to me yesterday evening while playing Need For Speed Rivals.
I didn't have cloud syncing activated, so I have no previous backups to speak of.

Thankfully, I was able to get straight back into the game and no apparent loss of progress... I'm now somewhat cautious, and a little concerned that it will now continue to deteriorate (as seems to have occurred to the OP).


So at this point... I've now experienced:
- The phantom disk eject issue (a week after receiving the launch console, thankfully hasn't occurred since).
- Sticking L1/R1 triggers (still occurs, at this stage I'm still resisting the apparent solution of popping the buttons off to inspect for gunk)
- Corrupt save as per error code CE-34878-0 (so far to no perceived ill effect)

I wonder what's in store next week.

Tim, if you're just starting to get the error but the game still plays then you are at the early stage. Hopefully Sony figures this out before it gets worse for you. It seems to me that it is likely just some bad code in the OS that *should* be able to be fixed in a patch. Probably won't fix my already corrupt files though.

Oh, and a little "dry" teflon lubricant took care of my R1/L1 issues. That's an easy fix.

Yet again, glad that I decided to sit on the sidelines of this launch. I will gladly wait until the price drops $100 and they work out these launch bugs by this fall.

Good luck guys, I've been on the end of Sony's shaft for quite a few launches. I hope this gets worked out soon!!

MonkeyGrass said:

Yet again, glad that I decided to sit on the sidelines of this launch. I will gladly wait until the price drops $100 and they work out these launch bugs by this fall.

Good luck guys, I've been on the end of Sony's shaft for quite a few launches. I hope this gets worked out soon!!

Click to expand...

You won't see a price drop in the first three years and bugs are a way of life with electronics with firmware updates. Has nothing to do with what part of the cycle you buy it. My PS3 got bricked in 2013 after a firmware update. Took Sony over a week to come out with the fix.

It's a new world in which to own consumer electronics.

Not a bad idea to wait - both the PS4 and Xbone are running really immature software that's missing a lot of stuff. Heck, Sony's delayed the 3D Blu-Ray playback to an unspecified time in the future now (it was supposed to be a launch feature - something the PS4 had while the Xbone was "a future update". Now they're both "a future update").

Plus, the software immaturity is probably the cause of these hard drive errors.

And other than TPA, I really have nothing on the PS4 to play. It's better to wait for another reason - someone did thermal images of the PS4 and it gets *hot* (the Xbone runs cooler for many reasons - it's bigger, its power supply is outside). So which console may have overheating problems? We don't know. May end up with the Sony equivalent of the RROD.

Unless there's a game you want to play NOW that's not on any other console, your best bet is to just save your money, wait it out, and see how each system evolves. Both are doing fairly well - the Xbone is somewhat behind (probably because it's only launched in 13 countries vs. the PS4's 31). More issues will arise on both.

Yesterday I did another full initialization. Then I loaded Madden and it's update ran. I never loaded any old save files. When Madden started it got about 30 seconds into the menu and I got the error again.

How is this being replicated after a full initialization? I just don't understand what could be going on.

I'm not sure how the PS4 interacts with cloud saves, but maybe it's seeing there's no local saves and automatically pulls the cloud save?

Dumahim said:

I'm not sure how the PS4 interacts with cloud saves, but maybe it's seeing there's no local saves and automatically pulls the cloud save?

Click to expand...

It doesn't do this anyway but I turned off automatic updates before I installed Madden. The PS4 will automatically save files to the cloud but it doesn't automatically pull files down. As far as the Madden game was concerned, this was the first time I had ever played the game. I also went into my local saved files after the crash and the user profile had a save time of one minute before.

There's something else going on. The corrupt files are not making the game crash. Whatever is making the game crash is also creating the corrupt files.

I think it's only a matter of time before someone on this forum has this error with TPA.

Dumahim said:

I'm not sure how the PS4 interacts with cloud saves, but maybe it's seeing there's no local saves and automatically pulls the cloud save?

Click to expand...

The PS4 doesn't download cloud saves automatically. It only uploads automatically, and only when the system is in stand-by. If you disable internet connectivity during stand-by in the power settings menu, it will disable automatic uploads altogether. If enabled, you can adjust the upload settings per game in the cloud save menu.

Queue said:

The PS4 doesn't download cloud saves automatically. It only uploads automatically, and only when the system is in stand-by. If you disable internet connectivity during stand-by in the power settings menu, it will disable automatic uploads altogether. If enabled, you can adjust the upload settings per game in the cloud save menu.

Click to expand...

In the settings menu you can turn it off altogether. That's what I did. Until Sony fixes this issue I'm just going to keep it off.

Still a mystery to me how this problem carries over to the same game after a full initialization.

Well, perhaps Madden creates a private save file it uses and it uploaded a corrupted one to your cloud save.

Or maybe it's a full software problem. Or even worse, a hardware problem that will force you to return your PS4. Here's just hoping it's corrupted data being uploaded. I'm fairly certain when you reinitialized it and loaded Madden, it went and looked at the cloud save and found old save files there which it restored for you. Of course, if those were corrupt...

Worf said:

Well, perhaps Madden creates a private save file it uses and it uploaded a corrupted one to your cloud save.

Or maybe it's a full software problem. Or even worse, a hardware problem that will force you to return your PS4. Here's just hoping it's corrupted data being uploaded. I'm fairly certain when you reinitialized it and loaded Madden, it went and looked at the cloud save and found old save files there which it restored for you. Of course, if those were corrupt...

Click to expand...

No it didn't load the files from the cloud. I wouldn't really care if it were a hardware problem. Sony can send me a new unit and I'll return the old. As far as I can tell Sony is still trying to figure out what is causing the problem. I will probably open an incident with them soon and see what they want to do. I was going to wait until they figured out the cause in case it only needed an update patch but I think I'll go ahead and have them deal with it now.

I finally got around to tracking down this error. Need for Speed Rivals became unplayable as well. Contacted Sony and they said it's the console hardware. They're sending me a prepaid box to send the console in for repair or replacement.

Sweet, good response don't you agree. Hope it gets sorted sooon dude

I got my PS4 back today or rather a PS4. Has a different serial number so I'm assuming it's a different console. Looks like I'm back in business on the PS4 side. Any idea how I get my Sony extended warranty transferred to this console?