PS3 trophies are auto-syncing

[Agent_Renegade22]

Hello to everyone, I'm sorry if this topic has been already discussed elsewhere (couldn't find anything about it here), but I've just noticed that after playing a bit of CoD Ghosts I got some Extinction trophies and they auto-synced on PS3 without me doing the manual sync (I verified this by randomly browsing on PS App and was kinda surprised) as I always do before turning off the console.

Now this could be a good thing considering the fact manual sync is pretty long on PS3 with common errors from time to time but on the other side of the coin you can't delete your user anymore because of that since your trophies will be already synced and no point on deleting the user in the first place, so if you start a game popping trophies and for whatever reason you regret playing it, or even worse if you end up in random hacked lobbies that could get you autopop trophies (I'm only aware of CoD WaW, BO2 and GTA V that suffer this thing but this doesn't mean there aren't/there won't be other games in the future with this issue) then it will be forever on your account without the possibility to get rid of it.

 

Now from what I've understood this is not a recent thing but it was introduced many years ago with a PS3 firmware update and I think it's linked with PS Plus, especially with the auto-update option and cloud saves. I tried to disable all auto-update options from my console, I've also selected "Offline mode" at my trophies settings but this just isn't working as I got other auto-syncs after that.

 

Is there a real solution to "fix" this? I'm luckily almost done with all my games with multiplayer trophies on PS3 and the only "dangerous" games I have left are CoD WaW (this shouldn't be a problem as private mode works fine and there's really no reason to play Zombie mode with randoms on public lobbies) and GTA V as I've heard the game can kick you from private lobbies and send you to public lobbies instead.

Besides, this also sucks because I found out a friend of mine recently had this issue too as he started Blur but the game glitched on him for that infamous leaderboard trophy, so now he had to hide the game instead of deleting the user.

 

I'd say for these reasons the auto-sync function on PS3 is really not necessary and if there's a way to avoid the scenarios I mentioned, better be safe than sorry.

Edited May 3, 2021 by Agent_Renegade22

[DaivRules]

10 minutes ago, Agent_Renegade22 said:

Is there a real solution to "fix" this?

Unfortunately there isn’t a fix, but I have found a workaround that works for me:

 

I disconnect the Ethernet cable that connects my PS3 to the internet and play offline. Clearly doesn’t work for online games 100%, but the concept still will: if you end up with modded trophies because of a hacked lobby, disconnect the Ethernet cable ASAP. There is still a slight lag between them popping on screen and syncing with PSN. With the Ethernet disconnected, you can still delete your profile and do that whole process. Then reconnect and try again if you’re brave. 

[Helyx]

I've had PS3 trophies auto-sync before, but I believe it was because I was also online on PS4 (maybe PS5?). A rare, but welcome occurrence for sure.

[Agent_Renegade22]

3 minutes ago, DaivRules said:

Unfortunately there isn’t a fix, but I have found a workaround that works for me:

 

I disconnect the Ethernet cable that connects my PS3 to the internet and play offline. Clearly doesn’t work for online games 100%, but the concept still will: if you end up with modded trophies because of a hacked lobby, disconnect the Ethernet cable ASAP. There is still a slight lag between them popping on screen and syncing with PSN. With the Ethernet disconnected, you can still delete your profile and do that whole process. Then reconnect and try again if you’re brave. 

I see, unfortunately I must play via WiFi as my router is located in the upper floor of the house and connecting the PS3 with an ethernet cable would be kind of a mess for a series of reason rather than a solution, and obviously that method is not 100% secure anyway.

 

It's crazy I've never heard of this before and found out randomly, I guess the only thing to do is trying to be super careful from now on.

 

3 minutes ago, Helyx said:

I've had PS3 trophies auto-sync before, but I believe it was because I was also online on PS4 (maybe PS5?). A rare, but welcome occurrence for sure.

My PS4 was off when I realized of this so that certainly isn't the issue. 

A couple months ago I enabled auto-updates and saved almost all my savefiles to PS+ cloud as my PS3 is almost 11 years old now and it would suck to lose all of my progresses up to now if my console decides is time to die.

I'm just wondering if the auto-sync function for trophies happened long before that and I never realized it or from the moment I've put my hands to the PS+ settings, but considering auto-sync is running again even after I disabled all auto settings I believe it was a thing for months now, at least from the moment I subscribed again to PS+ last summer.

[DaivRules]

4 minutes ago, Agent_Renegade22 said:

I'm just wondering if the auto-sync function for trophies happened long before that and I never realized i

 

This has been happening for quite some time now (around when PS4 started auto-syncing if I remember correctly) and several members here were trying to troubleshoot whether there were particular triggers, but I don't remember them finding anything specific. Playing with "Play Offline" still allowed trophies to auto-sync, and having or not having Plus didn't seem to affect it either. I suspect if the OS determines it's got enough processing and network bandwidth, meaning not all reserved by the game currently being played, the trophies just auto-sync. I wasn't able to determine if it happened in the background of a game or it still required some sort of return to XMB, like hitting the PS button or quitting the game, even if the user doesn't go to view trophies.

 

Another possibility is you could try the ethernet over powerline adapters (https://www.amazon.com/Powerline-Ethernet-Adapter-Extender-TP-Link/dp/B084CZMYNM/). You'd plug one in near your router and connect an ethernet cable to the router, then the other adapter would go near your PS3 and would connect with an ethernet cable. Then you will have a cable to disconnect, as long as you remove the wireless settings so it doesn't fall back on the wireless connection when ethernet fails. It'll have an added benefit of lower ping times on all online games, possibly increasing download  and will probably speed up wifi for all the other devices with one less item connecting wirelessly.

 

 

[sephiroth4424]

Another thing that works is sign off and uncheck the auto-sign off whenever you are booting the ps3.

I've been doing this for a week and it hasn't autosync any trophies for Hunted yet.

 

[Stevieboy]

I was always led to believe that trophies would auto sync on PS3 if you ever went on the XMB while signed in to PSN. As long as you never go on the XMB while signed in then the trophies shouldn't auto sync.

[Agent_Renegade22]

55 minutes ago, DaivRules said:

 

This has been happening for quite some time now (around when PS4 started auto-syncing if I remember correctly) and several members here were trying to troubleshoot whether there were particular triggers, but I don't remember them finding anything specific. Playing with "Play Offline" still allowed trophies to auto-sync, and having or not having Plus didn't seem to affect it either. I suspect if the OS determines it's got enough processing and network bandwidth, meaning not all reserved by the game currently being played, the trophies just auto-sync. I wasn't able to determine if it happened in the background of a game or it still required some sort of return to XMB, like hitting the PS button or quitting the game, even if the user doesn't go to view trophies.

 

Another possibility is you could try the ethernet over powerline adapters 

 

 

I'll take a look to that Ethernet adapter, thank you.

 

As for the first part I'm pretty sure I didn't exit the game and I didn't press PS button either, just finished a random game of Extinction and had a couple trophies popped for that, then took a break but left the game on the Extinction menu. After a couple minutes I took my phone and opened the PS app to check messages etc but got surprised to see trophies for CoD Ghosts sync'ed on their own.

 

42 minutes ago, sephiroth4424 said:

Another thing that works is sign off and uncheck the auto-sign off whenever you are booting the ps3.

I've been doing this for a week and it hasn't autosync any trophies for Hunted yet.

 

This might be worth a try, thanks.

 

11 minutes ago, Stevieboy said:

I was always led to believe that trophies would auto sync on PS3 if you ever went on the XMB while signed in to PSN. As long as you never go on the XMB while signed in then the trophies shouldn't auto sync.

I'm not 100% sure but I believe I didn't press anything just left the game on the main Extinction mode menu while taking a break the first time I realized of this. 

Nevertheless I earned another trophy the next day, quickly launched PS App (probably just 1 minute later after the trophy popped) and new trophy was sync'ed too without doing anything else.

[Helyx]

45 minutes ago, Agent_Renegade22 said:

PS App (probably just 1 minute later after the trophy popped) and new trophy was sync'ed too without doing anything else.

 

Could it be that the PS app is calling for trophy data on any consoles connected to PSN?

[Agent_Renegade22]

34 minutes ago, Helyx said:

 

Could it be that the PS app is calling for trophy data on any consoles connected to PSN?

I just got another trophy on CoD Ghosts and instantly opened PS App without pressing anything else on my joypad.

This time even after 2 minutes after my trophy popped, the PS App didn't show the new trophy even if I was constantly reloading/refreshing the trophy section on the app.

At this point I pressed PS button without exiting the game and trophy still didn't sync on PS App despite refreshing it.

As soon as I closed the game the trophy synced on the PS App.

 

Now this leads me to believe that closing an application and reaching the XMB makes the trophies to auto-sync, indeed, but if I think about the first time I noticed this I'm 100% sure I didn't exit the game, neither pressed PS button and such, nevertheless the trophies auto-synced so probably there's a very small timeframe before the trophies to correctly auto-sync to the PSN.

 

This is relieving to know in certain way because turning off both the console and internet access would/should be enough to erase the user in case of hacked auto-popped trophies and such.

Anyway this wouldn't work in the case of my friend when he tried Blur as he got few trophies first and after several minutes he tested the glitched trophy (that proved to be glitched, indeed), because of that short timeframe from the time a trophy unlocks to the time the PS3 auto-syncs new trophies earned.

[MidnightDragon]

I guess if you can catch it fast enough, you can erase the list on your PS4.

[lordzeze]

This happened to me about a week ago. Earned a few trophies in House of the Dead 3 and went to sync trophies but after 25 minutes it was only at 12% complete so I canceled the sync but they still showed up in my profile on my PS4 and on this site so they somehow must have synced. 

[Otonio_Bruno]

12 hours ago, lordzeze said:

This happened to me about a week ago. Earned a few trophies in House of the Dead 3 and went to sync trophies but after 25 minutes it was only at 12% complete so I canceled the sync but they still showed up in my profile on my PS4 and on this site so they somehow must have synced. 

 

Most of time, if you start a synch and cancel at even 7/8% it will synch the newly acquired trophies.

[Agent_Renegade22]

41 minutes ago, Otonio_Bruno said:

 

Most of time, if you start a synch and cancel at even 7/8% it will synch the newly acquired trophies.

Didn't know about this.

 

Anyway, I have a suspicion that trophies do auto-sync for games when you're playing online (or if you are playing games with online functionalities of some type).

I finally finished my first playthrough on CoD Classic few days ago and trophies didn't auto-sync this time, even though I was constantly checking every 10 or so minutes on the App, while it synced pretty quickly with Ghosts while playing online this time I had to do a manual sync for the trophies of CoD Classic to show up on the App and here on PSNprofiles.

Edited May 11, 2021 by Agent_Renegade22

[PL_Tomasz_G]

On 3.5.2021 at 2:52 PM, Agent_Renegade22 said:

Hello to everyone, I'm sorry if this topic has been already discussed elsewhere (couldn't find anything about it here), but I've just noticed that after playing a bit of CoD Ghosts I got some Extinction trophies and they auto-synced on PS3 without me doing the manual sync (I verified this by randomly browsing on PS App and was kinda surprised) as I always do before turning off the console.

Now this could be a good thing considering the fact manual sync is pretty long on PS3 with common errors from time to time but on the other side of the coin you can't delete your user anymore because of that since your trophies will be already synced and no point on deleting the user in the first place, so if you start a game popping trophies and for whatever reason you regret playing it, or even worse if you end up in random hacked lobbies that could get you autopop trophies (I'm only aware of CoD WaW, BO2 and GTA V that suffer this thing but this doesn't mean there aren't/there won't be other games in the future with this issue) then it will be forever on your account without the possibility to get rid of it.

 

Now from what I've understood this is not a recent thing but it was introduced many years ago with a PS3 firmware update and I think it's linked with PS Plus, especially with the auto-update option and cloud saves. I tried to disable all auto-update options from my console, I've also selected "Offline mode" at my trophies settings but this just isn't working as I got other auto-syncs after that.

 

Is there a real solution to "fix" this? I'm luckily almost done with all my games with multiplayer trophies on PS3 and the only "dangerous" games I have left are CoD WaW (this shouldn't be a problem as private mode works fine and there's really no reason to play Zombie mode with randoms on public lobbies) and GTA V as I've heard the game can kick you from private lobbies and send you to public lobbies instead.

Besides, this also sucks because I found out a friend of mine recently had this issue too as he started Blur but the game glitched on him for that infamous leaderboard trophy, so now he had to hide the game instead of deleting the user.

 

I'd say for these reasons the auto-sync function on PS3 is really not necessary and if there's a way to avoid the scenarios I mentioned, better be safe than sorry.

Here is a trick how to avoid autosync:

 

Start your console without auto sign in. Start the game you wanna play. When the game reach the menu you can login and enjoin online gaming without autosync

[johncnstntn__]

In addition to ^this the game has to ask sign in to continue I failed on both AC games I did recently but worked perfectly on another game for like 2 months while finishing the online.

[Agent_Renegade22]

5 hours ago, PL_Tomasz_G said:

Here is a trick how to avoid autosync:

 

Start your console without auto sign in. Start the game you wanna play. When the game reach the menu you can login and enjoin online gaming without autosync

Thanks for the tips, glad there's this workaround.

Edited May 19, 2021 by Agent_Renegade22

[MrHealthy]

On 5/11/2021 at 0:20 AM, lordzeze said:

This happened to me about a week ago. Earned a few trophies in House of the Dead 3 and went to sync trophies but after 25 minutes it was only at 12% complete so I canceled the sync but they still showed up in my profile on my PS4 and on this site so they somehow must have synced. 

On 5/11/2021 at 1:53 PM, Agent_Renegade22 said:

Didn't know about this.

That happens because its not just syncing your new local trophies up to PSN but also pulling any new trophies you have synced from other consoles down from PSN to your local list. It usually sends your new local trophies up to PSN first, so if you cancel partway through or it errors they will be secured.

[KingmathyGoodman]

As far as i know, the ps3 auto sync trophies when you load a game; it checks and syncs in the process.

[Helyx]

On 5/11/2021 at 1:12 PM, Otonio_Bruno said:

Most of time, if you start a synch and cancel at even 7/8% it will synch the newly acquired trophies.

 

This used to work for me like a charm, but now I have to let it get to 100% before it shows up. Even worse, most of the time when I cancel around 7-10%, the trophy app stalls and takes longer to load back to XMB than just letting it sync fully.

[Floorkiller74]

11 minutes ago, Helyx said:

 

This used to work for me like a charm, but now I have to let it get to 100% before it shows up. Even worse, most of the time when I cancel around 7-10%, the trophy app stalls and takes longer to load back to XMB than just letting it sync fully.

 

 

Mine was like this for quite awhile. For over a year, I couldn't sync trophies on (PS3) PSN because no matter what...my progress never gets past 12%. Luckily it randomly started syncing again at lower levels, so I usually stop it at 10% and they all sync up just fine. I haven't seen it hit 100% in yeaaars, lol

[Otonio_Bruno]

8 hours ago, Helyx said:

 

This used to work for me like a charm, but now I have to let it get to 100% before it shows up. Even worse, most of the time when I cancel around 7-10%, the trophy app stalls and takes longer to load back to XMB than just letting it sync fully.

 

I'm pretty sure the mileage vary depending on how much games your profile has, but yeah, I'd say up to 15% synch recent games for most people...but then again I also haven't stopped the synch process like forever ago, my ps3 also stall (or even crashes) if I try to cancel the operation and since I know it always take some time, I just go to the bathroom while it's doing its job.