Several sources, tips, and Twitter updates have given word that the error that struck the “fat” Playstation 3 systems last night and lasted into this afternoon has finally been fixed.

Error 8001050F, which has come to be known as the “clock bug” (or even “ApocalyPS3″ over at Joystiq), invaded the vast majority of the older model PS3s last night. The effected systems couldn’t play games, connect to the Playstation Network, and the clocks reset themselves to 12/31/1999. Even worse, any trophies earned that the user hadn’t synced before the error struck were lost.

But it appears now that everything is back to normal. We’re not even entirely sure how, as no patch was ever sent out by Sony. So to test it out for ourselves, I powered up my fat Playstation 3 to see if the reports were true. Alas, they were. My PS3 ran Modern Warfare 2 flawlessly.

We have yet to hear an official from Sony on how it was fixed, or even what the overall damage was. Expect one last post on ApocalyPS3 either tonight or tomorrow.

Sony has finally released a more concrete statement on the network connection and date errors that is currently affecting most of the non-slim Playstation 3 consoles.

As you may be aware, some customers have been unable to connect to the PlayStation Network today. This problem affects the models other than the new slim PS3.

We believe we have identified that this problem is being caused by a bug in the clock functionality incorporated in the system.

Errors include:

* The date of the PS3 system may be re-set to Jan 1, 2000.
* When the user tries to sign in to the PlayStation Network, the following
message appears on the screen; “An error has occurred. You have been
signed out of PlayStation Network (8001050F)”.
* When the user tries to launch a game, the following error message appears
on the screen and the trophy data may disappear; “Failed to install
trophies. Please exit your game.”
* When the user tries to set the time and date of the system via the
Internet, the following message appears on the screen; “The current date
and time could not be obtained. (8001050F)”
* Users are not able to play back certain rental video downloaded from the
PlayStation Store before the expiration date.

We hope to resolve this problem within the next 24 hours. 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.

As mentioned above, please be advised that the new slim PS3 is not affected with this error. We are doing our best to resolve the issue and do apologize for any inconvenience caused.

So it looks as if what we reported on earlier is true. We’ll keep you updated.

This was quite the rude awakening to the month of March for Playstation 3 owners. Reports from all over came in Sunday night that the PlayStation Network was suffering from login errors that’s causing many players to be left unable to play games. Many players are even losing recently earned trophies for games such as the newly released Heavy Rain.

“We’re aware that many of you are having problems connecting to PSN, and yes, we’re looking into it. Stay tuned for updates,” an update on Playstation’s official Twitter account said.

A couple of hours after that update, more reports started coming in from owners of the original Playstation 3 systems (the non-slim units) that the date on their console is being reverted to 12/31/1999. A possible theory on this is explained in this forum thread. According to SonyPlaystation’s most recent Twitter update, PS3 Slim consoles appear to be unaffected. But, according to Develop, the debug PS3 consoles that game developers use to develop PS3 games are also suffering from a similar system error.

We’ll try and keep you updated, but it’s been several hours since Sony last gave us an update, so it’ll be hard for us to do that until they give us something to work with.

UPDATE: Sony has released another update.