Sony: "Do not use your PS3" until glitch is fixed (Hmm?)

Got an older, "fat" PlayStation 3 console? Can't get it to connect to the PlayStation Network? Well, Sony knows about the bug and says it's working on a solution; in the meantime, though, Sony is warning that you "do not use your PS3."

Millions of PlayStation 3 owners worldwide (myself included) started noticing Sunday that their consoles weren't connected to the PlayStation Network, Sony's online hub that allows for multiplayer gaming, movie rentals, and downloadable game shopping.

The glitch is also preventing some gamers from using titles that don't even feature online play—"Heavy Rain," for example, which (as of Monday afternoon, anyway) grinds to a halt before it even gets started, displaying the error message: "Registration of the trophy information could not be completed. The game will quit." After checking a few other games myself, it appears that titles with "trophy" support (trophies are equivalent to "achievements" on Xbox Live) aren't working at all, but trophy-less games are still playable in offline mode.

So, what's the deal? Naturally, speculation initially focused on the PlayStation Network itself, but it turns out the problem lies with the PS3 hardware—specifically, the glossy, older-model PS3 consoles, not the new, "slim" PS3.

In a post on the official PlayStation blog, Sony says that the glitch "is being caused by a bug in the clock," which (as the bloggers at Sony Insider are guessing) may have gotten tripped up in the changeover from February 28—yesterday—to March 1.

Symptoms of the bug include your PS3's internal clock being reset to Jan. 1, 2000; the inability to set the clock via the Internet, or to connect to the PSN at all; PSN video store rentals that won't play, even though their rental windows haven't expired; and, worst of all, disappearing "trophy" data for some games, with the message "Failed to install trophies; please exit your game" when you try to launch the said games.

Sony says it "hopes" to get the problem fixed "within the next 24 hours," but it has also issued a sobering warning: "In the meantime, if you have a model other than the new slim PS3, we advise that you do not use your PS3 system, as doing so may result in errors in some functionality, such as recording obtained trophies, and not being able to restore certain data."

Uh, say what? What does "not being able to restore certain data" mean, exactly? Good question; personally, I know I won't be alone in getting hopping mad if any of my saved games or hard-won PS3 trophies are gone come tomorrow morning.