LittleBigPlanet 3 PS4 Connectivity Issues: Here’s What We Know

Since Friday, August 18th, the official LittleBigPlanet 3 servers on PlayStation 4 have suffered a number of connectivity issues that have plagued many players.

Users report that the connectivity issues began on the 18th after new team picks were chosen. However, the first community complaint on X, formerly known as Twitter, was from Phantomstrom on the 19th:

Shortly thereafter, LittleBigPlanet Community Manager Steven Isbell responded to community complaints, explaining that he would raise the issue to the team’s attention once everyone was back in the office on Monday.

However, Steven has remained somewhat silent since this message, echoing the standard of silence the community came to expect during the 2021 LittleBigPlanet server shutdown crisis. However, he did respond on August 23rd saying that the team was indeed working on the issue and had made progress.

He has also periodically made lengthier announcements in the LittleBigWorkshop Discord server, a curious move given the server’s small, more niche audience, forcing the community to repost screenshots of his announcements that may not be as accessible to those with visual disabilities.

The most recent of these Discord announcements was posted on September 1st:

We have a solid estimate now of how many levels are
currently being affected by these loading issues and we
can confirm that the vast majority of levels have been
unaffected.
It is for this reason that we have yet to take the servers
down for any form of extended maintenance, since we
would still like the working levels to be accessible to the
community.
We realise that this is far from ideal but we feel it’s the
better approach, since we would rather allow everyone
to continue to have access to the servers for online play
and to play the working levels, instead of forcing an
extended maintenance that cuts off community access
completely.
…
In the meantime, we are also actively investigating a
number of reports of players having problems publishing
levels.
These reports are much smaller in number that those
relating to non-loading levels.
However if anyone has had any recent issues with
publishing a level, please feel free to reach out to me via
Direct Messages and we will look into your issue as part
of our ongoing investigations.
Thank you once more for your continue patience whilst
we continue to investigate these issues.
We realise this issue has been going on for sometime
now, but please be rest assured that we are continuing
to make good progress and will keep you updated on any
further developments.

Steven also announced that team picks would once again be delayed in response to the server issues, and that LittleBigWorkshop’s recent #LBWSWT contest results would also be postponed.

The issues that players are experiencing include, but may not be limited to,

  • LittleBigPlanet error code 403.
  • Difficulty loading online elements like the community tab.
  • ‘Uploading score failed!’ errors.
  • Problems with publishing levels.

Later, on September 11th, Steven Isbell again created a message to a limited audience on Discord reporting maintenance was making great progress. He explained that creators with resource-intensive levels may still have loading issues. You can read a transcription of his full announcement below:

Happy Monday @everyone!
Hope you all had a wonderful weekend.
I bring good news today that work on resolving the
recent server issues continues to be progressing very
positively.


In the past week, we have rolled out a trio of server-side
updates that looked to resolve the recent loading issues
for the levels still being affected by this issue.


No server downtime was required for these updates, so
our server Sackbots were able deploy them without the
need to temporarily bring down the LittleBigPlanet
server for any maintenance.


With these updates rolled out, we have been monitoring
the number of levels and resources previously reporting
issues that have now been repaired.
And I can confirm that a significant majority of these
issues have now been repaired and are now functioning
normally.


Whilst the number of impacted levels and resources are
now a small fraction of what they were initially, we
understand that there may still be some loading issues
for the remaining levels and resources that have yet to
be addressed with the previous server updates and
fixes.


Levels and Creators that use a larger number of
resources are the most likely to still be impacted by the
current loading issues.


So if you are still encountering any loading issues
personally, please be rest assured this is not something
to be concerned about.


It is nothing that is adversely wrong with your personal
account or levels, it just means that you full into the
bracket of being a high-end player/creator that is using
more creative resources, which in turn means you’re
more likely to encounter issues.


We are continuing to investigate this smaller number of
remaining issues though, so if you are still encountering
any issues with loading levels, especially if it is one of
your own creations, then please do get in touch and we
will investigate your case further.


Throughout this whole issue, myself and our server team
have been incredibly appreciative of what a wonderful
community that we have always known you to be.
And so we just wanted to say a big THANK YOU to all of
you for making our work on resolving these issues so
much easier, by helping us our with your continued
feedback, bug reports and incredible patience whilst we
have been investigating this issue.


Thank you. ❤️

-Steven Isbell

Even popular LittleBigPlanet YouTuber, Ayee, shared a screenshot of their error code 403 when trying to connect to the servers.

Not all users in the community are experiencing these issues. Some users are able to connect to the server, while others aren’t. Many users only experience issues with loading online elements, but can connect just fine. The below video from GASzSIR- demonstrates some of the issues that they are experiencing.

Meanwhile, m88youngling reports an inability to publish levels, something that some other users have reported as well. However, other users, like AquaLBP, have reported that they have no issue with publishing levels.

A discord screenshot. m88youngling writes "for those of you who can conect, are you able to publish levels? AquaLBP responds, "I can lol" with a video of them publishing a level.

The server issues have caused some level developers a great deal of further grief. The Toggle Tower development team reported last week that the assets of their project were put at risk when a copyable level couldn’t be deleted.

LBP Union Research and Development team member Kokofloral reported on August 21st that on August 19th, LBP Union’s status monitor detected an unusually long period of latency from the LBP PS4 server, as seen below.

A screenshot of LBP Union's status monitor detecting an unusually high period of latency on August 19th. The period of latency lasted for 4,456 miliseconds. The average response time is typically between 500 and 1,000 miliseconds.

It is unknown if this period of latency is related to the server problems. R&D also reported that the self-signed SSL security certificate used for the LittleBigPlanet servers expired on August 6th. However, it is unlikely that this is the cause of the problems with the servers.

A screenshot of the Littlebigplanet security certificate. It expired on August 6th, 2023.

LBPU R&D Developer Daggintosh explains, “LBP is set to just accept Sumo Digital’s self-signed certificate. The root CA doesn’t need to be in the system’s root certificates, the self-signed certificate is included and trusted in the game’s EBOOT.”

In simpler terms, Sumo Digital created a ‘key’ (SSL certificate) that your game is set to trust. Although it officially expires, it still works as intended, and likely isn’t cause for alarm.

In response to the server performance and the delayed response from the LittleBigPlanet team, the community has begun to respond with fear and uncertainty. Some users have even brought back the hashtag #SaveLBP, which was used as the face of the response to the server shutdown crisis in 2021.

Although the LittleBigPlanet servers are experiencing new issues, they are still experiencing some old ones as well. LittleBigGifts haven’t worked for years, and the permanent shutdown of the LBP.me means that the only LittleBigPlanet games with proper privacy settings are LittleBigPlanet 1, 2, 3, and Vita on unofficial custom servers. The servers ever since reopening in 2021 have also been slower than ever before.

Thank you for reading! Keep track of this story as it develops by joining our Discord server! We post push notifications for major server updates so you’ll be one of the first to know. You can also check for server status updates on our status page.

Related Posts