PS5 has a serious new bug — what you need to know

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A downloading error has cropped up for UK PS5 owners as the console launches in that country

PS5
(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

Just like in the U.S., the PS5 has now launched in the U.K. But gamers are already running into problems with the new console.

One of the chief problems, U.K. PS5 owners have run into is a frustrating "queued for download" bug. And it appears that Sony has not yet addressed the issue, leaving players high and dry when attempting to play their first game on the new system.

The bug is the same one that's been affecting North American users since the system launched earlier this month in North America and Japan on November 12. When users attempt to download games, sometimes titles become trapped in a seemingly endless "queued for download" loop, which keeps players from ever being able to completing the downloads needed to enjoy their games. 

For instance, after Eurogamer's Wesley Yin-Poole tried redeeming his code for Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate Edition, the system attempted to download both PS5 and PS4 versions. Unfortunately, only the PS4 version downloaded, with the PS5 version becoming unplayable after that. The PS5 version showed up in Yin-Poole's library, but remained impossible to download. 

This is far from the first report from users experiencing the issue. There are several testimonies spread across the internet, from Twitter to Reddit, complaining of the same problem. Sony hasn’t commented on the matter as of this writing, but users have found one solution that typically does resolve the issue: a factory reset. 

Factory resetting a console you may have just spent hours setting up is far from optimal. When multiple games can require more than 100GB to install on the system, without a way to move PS5 games to external hard drives at the moment, this can become a fool's errand, and one that no one wants to willingly participate in. If people want a shot at getting the game to download, however, that's what is necessary. 

This is far from the first wave of PS5 problems. Ahead of the PS5's UK launch, some users reported that their consoles were serving up software corruption issues when trying to load games from PS4 hard drives. At times, this would result in a "Rebuild Database" bug that caused more than a few snafus. 

While completing the steps the PS5 suggested to resolve the corrupted data fixed the issue, others have not been as lucky. Some users even reported problems as seemingly frivolous as being unable to enter Rest Mode when playing Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be an official solution in sight just yet. 

Hopefully Sony will come through with some sort of fix in the interim to make this launch less of a frustrating one for those lucky enough to be early adopters. 

Brittany Vincent
Brittany Vincent

Brittany Vincent has been covering video games and tech for over 13 years for publications including Tom's Guide, MTV, Rolling Stone, CNN, Popular Science, Playboy, IGN, GamesRadar, Polygon, Kotaku, Maxim, and more. She's also appeared as a panelist at video game conventions like PAX East and PAX West and has coordinated social media for companies like CNET. When she's not writing or gaming, she's looking for the next great visual novel in the vein of Saya no Uta. You can follow her on Twitter @MolotovCupcake.