The dreaded WS-37397-9 error and how to fix it (PS-4)

If you aren't familiar with this error all I can say is "lucky you and I hope it never happens to you."

When this pops up a lot of your functionality in your PS4 (and i suppose PS5 - I don't own one) has very limited functionality and any sort of online play or getting access to your stored titles that are not currently installed can't be accessed / downloaded at all. This was the case with me for days and it was really frustrating because I have lately been playing a lot of competitive Tetris on the PS Network.

These error codes always kind of confused me as to why they are displayed because they aren't terribly helpful to the user. WTF does that even mean to anyone that doesn't work for Sony? As a matter of fact the people who answer the phone as Playstation tech support don't even know what it means and have to look it up. I was on hold for a very long time and the guy eventually told me that he would call me back once he had an answer. Unfortunately, when he did call me back the information he gave me wasn't terribly helpful, especially the one where he passed the buck and blamed it on my internet service provider.

There are a number of things that you can do when this error occurs and unfortunately, none of them are the sure answer to it.

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Rebuild database

This sounds scary and most people think that they are going to delete their games / saves / other stuff by doing it but it is basically the same thing as a disk defragmentation (if you remember what those were.)

You access this by shutting down your PS system totally (not rest mode, not restart). Then you plug in the controller because in "safe mode" the bluetooth will not function. You then turn on your system by holding down the power button or by pressing "X" on the controller for up to 10 seconds. The PS4 will make two beeps to indicate that you've done it correctly and can now stop pressing

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It is VITAL that you don't fuck around too much in here and especially don't mess with options 6 and 7 because this can (one of them WILL) format your hard drive and all of your data will be gone.

Rebuilding the database simply moves the information to a more appropriate place and it will speed up your machine just like a disk defrag would speed up your computer back in the day.

Sometimes this can fix the connection issue, but I wouldn't count on it since it didn't work for me. I am still glad I did it because the menu and basically everything else was noticeably faster because of it. This process will take up to 3 hours so better to do it when you have something else to do.

Use different DNS

This is accomplished by entering the network settings and adjusting the default DNS settings. There are some people out there that have experienced success doing this and the most common ones that have been used are the Google ones. About 20% of people have experienced success with this according to forums that I have looked at.

The DNS settings to change are as follows

Primary DNS: 8.8.8.8
Secondary DNS: 8.8.4.4

Change your IP address

This might not be something you are actually able to do, especially if you are not in charge of your own router. The reason why you can not connect could actually be because of some other player that was banned from the PS Network for various reasons. Since ISP's tend to batch their IP addresses rather than assign a unique one to every single user the reason why you are banned is probably not even your fault. You can try this by setting a new IP address and I'm not going to get into how that is accomplished because all routers have different interfaces. You'll have to look that one up on your own.

If you do not own the router, which was the case in my situation, this will not help you either

This method also did not work for me - so where am i going with this?

Your Service Provider needs to get involved

For reasons that are not explained and are likely only speculated about, Sony doesn't update their internal interface to match the nuances of various ISP's around the world and to be fair, how could they possibly cater to EVERYONE?

As it turned out the settings in my building, which has shared internet, the owner of the building had set up certain throttles to prevent certain types of traffic. While he wasn't actually trying to block Playstation traffic (why would he? Maybe he's an Xbox guy?) it was an unintended side-effect of the entire process. When the technician turned up they simply made a MAC address exception for my particular PS4 - which doesn't really address the problem and is going to have ramifications in the future because I am certainly not the only person that is ever going to live here that enjoys online gaming.

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In the end the last option was only chosen last by me because I find it embarrassing to bring someone out to my house only to discover that it was something completely unrelated to the Service Provider. They also charge you for this and take AGES to get to your house.

This was a royal pain in the butt-ox yesterday, and I sincerely hope that my fellow PS player pals out there never encounter this because since so many different things could be the issue there is no one certain fix. Oh and before you do any of the above things you should of course try the tried and true method of fixing almost anything electronic first

Restart all of your equipment and see what happens