For the past few months I have been using the new PlayStation Vue internet TV service. I was lucky enough to live in an area where they’re offering it early and thus far have been happy with the service. It’s helped me cut the cord again and have no regrets. It has turned the PS4 into the ultimate media box for the living room, and the fact that the service works on PS3 is a great bonus.

But recently I upgraded the hard drive on my PS4 to a new 1TB drive, and after signing in and re-installing all the games and apps, PlayStation Vue would not launch. It failed with an error “Authentication of your PlayStation Vue account failed (s1_2e4-3)”. Not terribly helpful, but after chatting with Sony support, they provided me with the following solution.

First, you’ll need to make sure you have the USB cable that came with your PS4 (any micro USB cable should be fine).

Perform the following steps:

• Completely power off the PS4 (do not put it in Rest Mode).
• Hold down the Power button on the PS4 for several seconds until it beeps. The PS4 should then boot up into Safe Mode.
• Connect the controller to the PS4 via the USB cable and press the PS button.
• In the Safe Mode menu, scroll down to the option “Rebuild Database” and select it.
• The PS4 will reboot and take several minutes to rebuild the database.
• Once complete you can log back into the PS4. You should now be able to launch PS Vue successfully.

Hope this helps.