Apparently the problem was caused because 2010 is not a leap year. Somehow Sony thought it was when they wrote the code. Odd that they made the error as it was well documented way back in 1999 – when it was known as the Millennium Bug. Sony say that the problem only occured in older models – newer slim consoles were unaffected.

If the time displayed on the XMB is still incorrect, users can update the clock (either manually or via the internet), and all will be well.

It is possible to restore the program to its rightful place but it is a bit of a pain. Note that there is some risk in doing so as the law of averages means that some people with compromised PCs may have copies of the program that are infected by a Trojan, and this could include you. Anti-virus programs would normally attempt to clean the original program by removing the Trojan from it, warning if this is impossible. In our case Spotify.exe had itself been mis-identified as a Trojan, so it was safe to restore.

Norton’s official advice is to reinstall Spotify but ‘free’ users who don’t have the install files or their registration details may find it is no longer possible to register for the free version of Spotify. (Premium users can invite up to 10 friends to register for the free service.)

To restore the spotify.exe, simply follow these steps. Note that you need to wait until Norton have fixed the problem and your antivirus has been updated or it will simply quarantine the file again:

1. Double-click on the Norton icon in your System Tray (the bar on the bottom right hand corner of your screen, next to the clock)
2. Click on Quarantine. You should now see a list of Security History events that resulted in a file being quarantined
3. Near or at the top will be a message that a Trojan Horse has been removed, click on this so it is highlighted
4. Now click on the More Details button at bottom right
5. You should now be looking at a Security History Alert Summary saying “Trojan horse detected by Auto-Protect”
6. Clicking on the underlined words Risk Details will open a new window. Clicking on the Details tab should show that the supposed Trojan is spotify.exe. (If it doesn’t, go back to the Security history and lok for another Trojan removal event.) You can now close this window
7. Back in the Security history window, the final step is to click on the Restore button on the right

You should now see a screen a bit like this:

And you should now find that normal Spotify service is fully restored.

Just occasionally the retuning process goes wrong and gets stuck at 0% progress. The solution to the problem is quite simple though – switch the box to standby and turn the mains off at the socket (or pull the plug out…)

Leave the box off for 10-15 sec then turn the mains back on. After the box reboots, which takes a few minutes, you can start the retuning process by pressing the ‘BT Vision’ button, going to Settings, selecting TV Settings then Add Channels to TV Guide then finally Scan for Channels.

Happy viewing!

Here is how to switch away from the corrupt profile:

1. Go to the Windows Control Panel (Start/Control Panel) and double-click on the Speech icon
2. In the middle of the window is a box listing the speech user profiles, each of which has a tick box next to it
3. Select another profile (often the default profile is the only option) and click the ‘Apply’ button at the bottom of the window

You should now find that windows speech recognition is working again, although the computer may need a reboot before it is happy again. You should now go back to Control Panel/Speech, delete the old profile, create a new one and re-train the system to your voice.