The worst technical issues are the ones that don’t provide any insight into the problem. Unfortunately for some PlayStation 5 owners, the system will occasionally say that an unidentified error occurred. This seems to happen most frequently when making purchases from the PS Store. Thankfully, there are a few ways you can fix the unidentified error and complete your PlayStation Store purchase.
PS5 | An unidentified error occurred fix
The “an unidentified error occurred” message typically appears when trying to purchase content from the PS Store. The message will often advise you to try again in a few moments. In some cases, the error can be resolved by making repeated attempts to complete the purchase. Other times, the only fix to the unidentified error is to use a different payment type.
Because this error message is so vague, there’s really no telling what it’s supposed to mean. However, it mainly seems to appear when buying games or DLC from the PlayStation Store. This means the problem somehow ties into either the PS Store servers or simply the act of trying to make a purchase.
Verify your payment method
As it turns out, this problem has been brought to the attention of the Ask PlayStation Twitter account. In one thread, PlayStation representatives advised that users should make sure the region of their payment method matched the region of their PSN account. In other words, if you try to purchase content from another region, you will likely find that an unidentified error has occurred.
That’s not to say that’s the only cause of the problem, however. Users on the PS5 subreddit have reported this error appearing during what should be valid purchases. One post garnered nearly 60 replies where users stated they were able to get around the problem by changing their payment method. It’s a bit of a hassle, but using a different credit card (or simply purchasing PS Store credit from another vendor) seems to do the trick.
There is one other solution, though. A few users have reported getting around the unidentified error message by simply spamming the X button after the prompt appears. It’s sort of a brute-force method, presumably one that involves retrying the purchase over and over again until it goes through. This may work, but be advised that this method could result in multiple charges to your account. Assuming the purchase actually goes through, that is.
If the PS Store is saying an unidentified error occurred, double check the payment information saved to the PS5. The issue may come down to the region of your card or of the content you’re trying to buy. Barring anything else, you may simply take the advice to wait and try again later. This is especially true if there’s any kind of service interruption to PlayStation servers.
