Why are basic tasks so slow on the PS4?

[+wongojack]

I mostly have been an Xbox gamer in the recent console generations, but I'm a rich bastard and own all the consoles. I tolerated the PS3 interface to play exclusives and it mostly got the job done for me. However, I've noticed that on PS4 that basic tasks like navigating to the simple feed of activity from friends will sometimes take minutes to load or just never even load at all. Buying games in the store is often an experience of "I wonder if it will work this time?" I am constantly getting a screen with the x o triangle square that sometimes just never does anything.

 

Wanna buy that free copy of Worms from your plus subscription? Click add to library and just wait while the PS Store might be adding it to your library. Try pushing back and get no result and wonder if the game is now yours. Click on your library and wait again for minutes staring at a loading screen that might never change if you let it sit there all night! What excitement!

 

I even hit a "bug" where I couldn't buy something from the online store using my credit card. Support told me they weren't sure of the cause but some people have more luck buying things from the console. WTF, are you kidding? You haven't figured out how to complete online transactions from a web browser? How are you still in business?

 

Do you guys also deal with these problems when browsing on your PS4? If this is common, I can't believe that more people don't talk about stuff like this. My PS4 has a WIRED connection and while I sometimes complain about XONE being slow (also wired), it has super human speed compared to the PS4. This can't be normal, right?

[SignGuy81]

Is your PS4 in a well ventilated area?

[+wongojack]

It is a PS4 slim and yes, it is just as ventilated as every console I have owned for the past XXX years. No it is not sitting alone on a laptop chill pad or anything, but it has plenty of clearance for airflow above and below.

[Flojomojo]

I have the launch PS4 and don't perceive these issues. I mostly buy stuff from the website, not the console though. I also swapped out the hard drive for a 2TB device many years ago. Maybe your internal drive is slow or dying -- if so, that could fix it while providing more space too.

[zzip]

I mostly have been an Xbox gamer in the recent console generations, but I'm a rich bastard and own all the consoles. I tolerated the PS3 interface to play exclusives and it mostly got the job done for me. However, I've noticed that on PS4 that basic tasks like navigating to the simple feed of activity from friends will sometimes take minutes to load or just never even load at all. Buying games in the store is often an experience of "I wonder if it will work this time?" I am constantly getting a screen with the x o triangle square that sometimes just never does anything.

 

Wanna buy that free copy of Worms from your plus subscription? Click add to library and just wait while the PS Store might be adding it to your library. Try pushing back and get no result and wonder if the game is now yours. Click on your library and wait again for minutes staring at a loading screen that might never change if you let it sit there all night! What excitement!

 

I even hit a "bug" where I couldn't buy something from the online store using my credit card. Support told me they weren't sure of the cause but some people have more luck buying things from the console. WTF, are you kidding? You haven't figured out how to complete online transactions from a web browser? How are you still in business?

 

Do you guys also deal with these problems when browsing on your PS4? If this is common, I can't believe that more people don't talk about stuff like this. My PS4 has a WIRED connection and while I sometimes complain about XONE being slow (also wired), it has super human speed compared to the PS4. This can't be normal, right?

 

I don't browse activity feeds so I can't speak to that.

 

I haven't observed the store issue you mention, however I saw an item recently that the store was just revamped, I haven't been in there lately so don't know if that's true. If it is true, there might be bugs in the new design that are being worked through. You can also claim the free games from their website. Even request they download to your PS4 from there.

 

I have had credit card issues sometimes. Now I don't even keep credit card info online because there is a problem with accounts getting stolen and resold on gray market sites for the games in them. (Make sure you turn on two-factor authentication if you haven't already, it's the best defense against this). I now buy PlayStation cards and fund my account that way.

 

I have not had a problem browsing my library either.

 

There are frequent complaints that downloading is slow even on a wired connection. I typically just request downloads overnight or while I'm at work and they are always ready by the time I play them. They will still download while the console is in rest mode, some say downloads are faster in rest mode.

[+wongojack]

Yeah, my preference was to buy using my PayPal account on the website. That didn't work, so I tried a credit card. That didn't work either which is when I contacted support and they told me to make the purchase on the console itsef -- Mmmmk

 

 

It isn't just the store that is slow. I mentioned the feed, but sometimes just bringing up my user profile takes time and shows no progress for (guessing here) 30 seconds or more. Even opening my friends list is noticeably slow.

 

Another example - push the share button that is right on the controller staring you in the face and try to share a picture to the Sony feed - it takes minutes and sometimes just never completes.

[zzip]

Yeah, my preference was to buy using my PayPal account on the website. That didn't work, so I tried a credit card. That didn't work either which is when I contacted support and they told me to make the purchase on the console itsef -- Mmmmk

 

 

It isn't just the store that is slow. I mentioned the feed, but sometimes just bringing up my user profile takes time and shows no progress for (guessing here) 30 seconds or more. Even opening my friends list is noticeably slow.

 

Another example - push the share button that is right on the controller staring you in the face and try to share a picture to the Sony feed - it takes minutes and sometimes just never completes.

 

That makes me wonder if it has a faulty network adaptor or something. Does it do anything network-related quickly? Is performance any better on wifi?

[+wongojack]

I was thinking I would change the network cable. I'll test Wifi too and see if that changes anything.

 

I honestly can say that the actual downloads of games and stuff seem to take about the same amount of time as the Xbox, it is just these other tasks that have noticeable delay. I've never gotten any kind of networking error or anything like that. You'd think if I was dropping packets that I'd be getting connection failures consistently. Unless PS is just silently retrying so often that I can't see that, I don't really suspect the networking hardware. Will test and see what I find.

[spacecadet]

I have an Xbox One X and a PS4. To me, I feel like generally the PS4 is slightly faster to navigate, although there are some specific tasks that I don't do all that often that are pretty annoying. I have noticed that browsing the store, if I go into a category like demos or something and just want to look at all of them, it loads like one row at a time and doesn't let me move until that row's fully loaded. I'm someone that likes to blast through lists like that, just skimming as I go along, but I can't do that with the PS4, I constantly have to pause and wait, then load the next line, then pause and wait, etc.

 

But I think that's just bad design rather than something wrong. The other stuff you mention, I haven't had any slowness with. Navigating around to check system settings or look at my notifications or start up an app is very quick; basically instant. The system also responds instantly when I click a button. On the Xbox, there's always an annoying little half-second pause.

 

So I do agree that it sounds like something's wrong with your network or maybe your hard drive. How full is it?

[Video]

Once hooked up, it downloads as fast as Xbox, but mine does the x, square, triangle, o spinner thing too. Sometimes quickly, but its not uncommon for it to take a few minutes.

 

I will say mine is WiFi, and I actually turn my system off when I'm done with it. Wonder if actually powering it down has something to do with its menu lagging? Do you turn yours off too, or just sleep?

[zzip]

Once hooked up, it downloads as fast as Xbox, but mine does the x, square, triangle, o spinner thing too. Sometimes quickly, but its not uncommon for it to take a few minutes.

 

I will say mine is WiFi, and I actually turn my system off when I'm done with it. Wonder if actually powering it down has something to do with its menu lagging? Do you turn yours off too, or just sleep?

 

I would expect the opposite actually. Sometimes things running too long can develop memory leaks or runaway processes that slow the system, so I like to fully power-down my PS4 at least once a week to prevent that.. not that I've experienced those types of issues on PS4.. But I've experienced it enough on other tech that I make a point to do it.

[Video]

I was thinking more on the lines of, when it powers on, it loads the base os, but takes a while to load the accessory programs, where if you left it on it would already be ready. Kind of like loading a side program on computer after booting.

[Flojomojo]

I think so too ... "Rest Mode" takes power but perhaps the system performs some housekeeping tasks while sleeping? Stuff that has to run in the background at startup if you are coming up from being powered all the way down?

[zzip]

I think so too ... "Rest Mode" takes power but perhaps the system performs some housekeeping tasks while sleeping? Stuff that has to run in the background at startup if you are coming up from being powered all the way down?

 

yeah, rest mode will download updates, accepts "remote play" requests and charge the controllers if plugged in. I'm not sure what it does beyond that though.

[Mord]

It is a PS4 slim and yes, it is just as ventilated as every console I have owned for the past XXX years. No it is not sitting alone on a laptop chill pad or anything, but it has plenty of clearance for airflow above and below.

 

Mine has the same setup as yours then, but I can't say I've had those issues. However I'm not a plus member anymore, and it's been probably over half a year or more since the last time I bought anything from the shop. (To be honest I find that digital deals aren't what they use to be already - sadly for the industry I can't be bothered to buy a dlc burdened game that's "only" 60-70 dollars during a 50% off sale.) This being said, my tendency to buy anything from PSN dropped sharply after they had that DLC screwup with Project Diva F 2nd that took them several months to bother fixing - was more important to them to finish putting out the 100+ dollars of DLC. Really dropped my confidence in the company to make sure that everything I can buy on the store will Just Work.)

 

One thing I have noticed lately is that the PS4 will respond sluggishly for a while after exiting the store. I'm guessing because the store is stuffing up the ram, making it a bit sluggish. For instance if I leave the store then try to scroll across the games in the home bar, it'll take a couple seconds for each one to be scrolled over. Once they've been scrolled over once (loaded into ram) then you can move over them quickly again. If I just avoid going into the store I don't have that kind of initial sluggish response.

[SignGuy81]

Because it isn't an Xbox One

[+wongojack]

Just to track this a bit more accurately, here's some specifics that highlight what I am talking about.

 

I log into the PS4 today and go to the store to check out any specials and what the free PSPlus games are. I click on 3 free games and add them to my library. I go to add a 4th free game to my library and after I click, add to library, I get a blue screen with the 4 PS symbols changing. I cannot exit this screen by pushing back, and I must just simply wait. It took about 3 minutes to then tell me that Uncanny Valley had been added to my library.

 

After this, the store really only seemed to be partially working as browsing through the menu to the various store pages only seemed to load some of the thumbnails and stuff.

 

Next, I go into my library from the PS menu and choose a game that I own but have not downloaded. I click the game and I get another screen with the PS symbols changing and nothing else happening. It took 4 full minutes (I timed this one) just to bring up a screen where I could click "download." Once we got through that, the PS4 seemed to "snap out of it." Screens were loading much faster. I think that using the store somehow gives the thing a headache and it has to take some time to get things going again pain free. I wish there was a quick way to tell the PS4 to quit everything it is doing and just kind of reset (without a reboot).

 

For those asking, System Storage is 314.6/860.5 GB; so more than half free.

[cimerians]

Just to track this a bit more accurately, here's some specifics that highlight what I am talking about.

 

I log into the PS4 today and go to the store to check out any specials and what the free PSPlus games are. I click on 3 free games and add them to my library. I go to add a 4th free game to my library and after I click, add to library, I get a blue screen with the 4 PS symbols changing. I cannot exist this screen by pushing back, and I must just simply wait. It took about 3 minutes to then tell me that Uncanny Valley had been added to my library.

 

After this, the store really only seemed to be partially working as browsing through the menu to the various store pages only seemed to load some of the thumbnails and stuff.

 

Next, I go into my library from the PS menu and choose a game that I own but have not downloaded. I click the game and I get another screen with the PS symbols changing and nothing else happening. It took 4 full minutes (I timed this one) just to bring up a screen where I could click "download." Once we got through that, the PS4 seemed to "snap out of it." Screens were loading much faster. I think that using the store somehow gives the thing a headache and it has to take some time to get things going again pain free. I wish there was a quick way to tell the PS4 to quit everything it is doing and just kind of resent (without a reboot).

 

For those asking, System Storage is 314.6/860.5 GB; so more than half free.

 

I have a feeling it's going to be like the PS3 getting sluggish over time just when the PS4 was going to get released and now with the PS4 Pro, looks like they don't care about the older model and we're getting the shaft. Basically their updates are geared towards their latest Hardware kind of like the iPhone getting slow after a few years, although those guys blame the battery, not so sure I believe that 100%.

 

Compared to a few years ago the Xbox One S and the original PS4 take forever to boot these days

[zzip]

 

I have a feeling it's going to be like the PS3 getting sluggish over time just when the PS4 was going to get released and now with the PS4 Pro, looks like they don't care about the older model and we're getting the shaft. Basically their updates are geared towards their latest Hardware kind of like the iPhone getting slow after a few years, although those guys blame the battery, not so sure I believe that 100%.

 

Compared to a few years ago the Xbox One S and the original PS4 take forever to boot these days

 

I have an Original PS4 and I don't see slow boot times. How full is your disk? Like many systems, I heard they get sluggish when the disk is mostly full

[cimerians]

 

I have an Original PS4 and I don't see slow boot times. How full is your disk? Like many systems, I heard they get sluggish when the disk is mostly full

 

That's probably what it is i'll have to check I can't remember if I put a 1 or 2 terabyte in there

[zzip]

 

That's probably what it is i'll have to check I can't remember if I put a 1 or 2 terabyte in there

 

you can now use an external drive. What I do is move the games I don't play very often to the external drive and try to keep the internal one between 20-30% free

[cimerians]

 

you can now use an external drive. What I do is move the games I don't play very often to the external drive and try to keep the internal one between 20-30% free

 

Thanks forgot about that good idea!

[HoshiChiri]

I have a 500GB PS4 (Uncharted bundle) set up via WiFi & I've never experienced these issues. I haven't done much downloading, mind you- but the games I nabbed during my 3 months PS Plus membership & the couple of indies I've downloaded gave me no grief. Neither have any updates. Once in awhile I get the face-button loading thing, but I know for a fact it's the wifi & not the system (all my machines do it. The Wii U is the worst.)

 

I will say though- my Xbox One did seem to be faster than the PS4 the few times I've downloaded games on it. I'm wondering if there's something in your network that's slowing both down & the PS4 is just getting the brunt of it.

[+wongojack]

Well, anything is possible, but I use my home network for lots of activity besides browsing the store on my PS4 and none of it draws really any suspicion. For example, I work from home very often and am constantly doing voice conference calls along with video sharing and recording, and my connection is very reliable when doing all that. My Xbox 1 has always been consistent in terms of switching between apps and browsing the store. It isn't always perfect, but there are definitely never 4 minute waits to click something in my library. I also watch lots of Netflix and other on-demand video on my XOne and directly through my cable box (yeah I still have cable). All of this seems to isolate the PS4 as the problem and not the network that all of my other devices are also using.

 

I still have never tried unplugging/replacing the cord from the PS4. I guess that is my next step.

[Video]

If/when you do, be sure to select more options in shut down and actually select "turn off ps4" regular shut down is just sleep mode, and while its unlikely to actually damage anything, it will take a minute or two to do its checks and come back on...and b!tch that you didn't shut it down right

 

That's one thing on Xbox I like, you can have the settings opt to actually turn the system off when you turn it off. Unless I missed something, the ps4 requires you to manually select turn off.