PS5 Cache 2026: Option 6 Fix in 12 Steps, 10 Minutes

Every few weeks somebody's PS5 starts behaving like it resents them. Apps hang on their splash screens. The library takes a visible breath before it opens. A game that ran fine on Friday drops frames on Monday for no reason anyone can name. The internet's answer, delivered with the serene confidence of people who have never opened a support page, is always the same three words: clear the cache.

They are not wrong, exactly. They are just imprecise, and imprecision is how you end up holding the power button for the wrong number of beeps, wiring a controller with a cable that only carries current, and selecting the wrong line off a menu that Sony quietly renumbered sometime in the last two years. This is the long version of the fix. It tells you what the cache actually is, why the option every guide calls number five is now number six, and how to do the entire thing in about ten minutes without deleting a single save file.

We will do it against the current firmware, 26.05-13.60.00, which Sony shipped on July 23, 2026. We will cite Sony's own Safe Mode documentation rather than a YouTube thumbnail with an arrow drawn on it. And we will be honest about the part nobody selling you a miracle wants to admit out loud: sometimes the cache is entirely innocent, and clearing it fixes precisely nothing. Knowing which situation you are in is most of the skill.

What the PS5 Cache Actually Is

"Cache" is one of those words that means something exact to engineers and something vaguely magical to everyone else. On a PS5 it is not one thing, and half the frustration people feel comes from clearing the wrong one, or clearing it and expecting it to solve a problem that lived somewhere else entirely. Before you touch a power button, it is worth knowing what you are actually about to delete.

The three things people call "the cache"

First, there is the system software cache: temporary files the operating system writes while it runs. Thumbnails it generated, decompressed assets it staged, transient state from the last time an app launched. This is the thing Safe Mode's cache option removes, and it is the only "cache" Sony gives you a dedicated button for. Second, there is per-game scratch data, which individual titles write into their own storage; you do not clear this from Safe Mode, you clear it by deleting and reinstalling the game or its saved data. Third, and most commonly confused with the other two, there is the content database: the index the console uses to know what you own and where it lives on the SSD. That is not a cache at all in the strict sense, but it sits behind the same menu item, and it is what the word "Rebuild" refers to.

Why temporary files rot in the first place

Temp files are supposed to be disposable, which is exactly why nothing guards them carefully. An app crashes and leaves a half-written handle. A firmware update rearranges where things belong but an older temp file still points at the old address. Rest Mode suspends a process mid-operation and something never gets cleanly finalized. None of this is catastrophic, but stale state accumulates, and a console reading through a pile of dead handles behaves like a person re-reading a to-do list where half the items are already done. Clearing the system software cache forces the OS to regenerate that scratch layer from scratch, which is why the classic symptoms it addresses are slow launches, stuttering menus, and apps that hang on load.

What it is emphatically not

Clearing the system software cache does not delete your games. It does not delete your saves, your trophies, your screenshots, your accounts, your network settings, or your carefully arranged home row. It costs nothing, requires no PlayStation Plus subscription, and needs no internet connection to run. If you have read somewhere that clearing the cache "resets your home screen layout," file that under folklore: that is a side effect people have anecdotally seen after a full database rebuild reshuffled their content, not from the light cache clear. Sony's official Safe Mode page documents no such consequence for the cache action, and neither does Engadget's walkthrough. The cache clear is the least destructive maintenance action the console offers. Treat it accordingly, and stop being afraid of it.

Prerequisites: Firmware, Cable, 10 Minutes

This is a short list, but every item on it is load-bearing. Skip one and you will spend twenty minutes wondering why a dead controller will not wake up, which is the single most common failure of this entire procedure. Read the list, gather the parts, then start.

Hardware you actually need

You need a PS5. Any PS5 — the original disc model, the Digital Edition, the 2023 Slim revision, or the PS5 Pro. The Safe Mode flow is identical across all of them; guides like PC Guide's how-to explicitly confirm the PS5 and PS5 Pro use the same steps. You need a USB-C data cable — not a charge-only cable, and this distinction is the whole ballgame, because Bluetooth is disabled in Safe Mode. The DualSense's own charging lead uses a USB-C connector at the controller end, so that cable works if it carries data; some cheap third-party leads carry power only, and those will leave you staring at an unresponsive pad. A 2026 guide from Digitash makes the same point plainly: no Bluetooth in Safe Mode, so wire the controller. Finally, you need a display and roughly ten minutes. The cache clear itself runs in one to two, but budget for the boot, the wiring, and the reboot at the end.

Firmware and version literacy

The current PS5 system software is 26.05-13.60.00, which PlayStation Lifestyle reported as the second July update, following 26.04-13.42.00 on July 1, 2026. Sony ships these "performance and stability" patches on a roughly monthly cadence, and you do not need the very latest one to clear a cache — but you do need firmware modern enough to have the cache option at all, which any console updated in the last few years will. The version string decodes like this:

26.05-13.60.00   <- current PS5 system software (shipped 2026-07-23)
|  |  |  |  |
|  |  |  |  +--- patch      (00)
|  |  |  +------ minor       (60)
|  |  +--------- major       (13)
|  +------------ release #    (05  = 2nd release of the 2026 cycle)
+--------------- year cycle   (26  = 2026)

previous build : 26.04-13.42.00   <- shipped 2026-07-01
NOT a PS5 number: 7.00 / 9.00     <- those are PS4 versions; the PS5 never used them

That last line matters, because a lot of copy-pasted guides tell you to check for "System Software Version 7.00" or "9.00." Those are PlayStation 4 version numbers. The PS5 has used the year-cycle format since launch and has never shipped anything that looks like "9.00." If a walkthrough cites those, it was written for the wrong console and you should distrust the rest of it.

What you do not need

You do not need a backup to clear the system software cache, because that action does not touch user data. You do not need PlayStation Plus. You do not need to be signed in, and you do not need the internet. You should back up your saves before you run the heavier options in that same menu — Rebuild Database and especially the Reset items — but for the light cache clear, the only thing you are risking is ten minutes. If you want a sense of how these one-off maintenance routines compare to other PlayStation procedures, our 12-step Remote Play walkthrough follows the same measured, no-shortcuts structure for a very different feature.

Cache vs. Rebuild vs. Reset

Here is where most people hurt themselves. The Safe Mode menu stacks a harmless action next to two that will erase everything you own, separated by a single line of text and one careless thumb. Understanding the ladder of destructiveness is not optional — it is the difference between fixing a stutter and reinstalling your entire library at midnight.

Clear System Software Cache: the light touch

This is the sub-option you are here for. It deletes the operating system's temporary files and nothing else. It runs in one to two minutes, keeps every byte of user data, and then reboots the console. If your problem is a slow app, a hanging launcher, or a menu that lags, this is the correct and complete answer. It is the maintenance equivalent of emptying the recycle bin: cheap, safe, occasionally exactly what was needed.

Rebuild Database: the heavy re-index

This shares the same menu item — the full label is "Clear Cache and Rebuild Database" — but it is a different, far slower operation. Rebuild Database scans your entire SSD and reconstructs the index of everything on it. On a nearly full 8TB drive this can take up to an hour, and because it re-sorts your content, it is the operation that can leave your home screen looking rearranged afterward. It still keeps your games and saves; it is not a wipe. But it is not something to run casually, and you never, ever power the console off while it is working. An interrupted rebuild leaves the index half-written, which is a worse state than the one you started in.

Reset PS5: the two nuclear options

Below the cache line sit "Reset PS5" and "Reset PS5 (Reinstall System Software)." These wipe all user data, and the second one also reflashes the firmware and demands reinstallation media. They exist for selling the console, for handing it to a repair depot, or for a corruption so deep nothing else touches it. They have absolutely nothing to do with clearing a cache, and the only reason we mention them is that they live two lines away from the thing you want. Read the label before you press X. The destructiveness ladder, laid out flat:

LEVEL 0  Clear System Software Cache   keeps: everything            ~1-2 min   risk: none
LEVEL 1  Rebuild Database              keeps: everything            up to ~1 hr risk: cosmetic reshuffle
LEVEL 2  Restore Default Settings      keeps: games + saves         ~1 min     risk: resets system prefs
LEVEL 3  Reset PS5                     keeps: NOTHING (wipes data)   minutes    risk: total data loss
LEVEL 4  Reset PS5 (Reinstall Sys SW)  keeps: NOTHING + reflashes    30+ min    risk: needs reinstall media

Ninety-five percent of the people reading this want Level 0. If you are not certain you want more than that, you want Level 0. Game studios agree: Activision's cross-platform support article recommends a cache clear as a first-line fix, and Epic Games officially points Rocket League players at the same Safe Mode cache action to resolve "load failure" errors. The light touch is the industry's default troubleshooting step for a reason.

The Option 5-vs-6 Problem

Search for this procedure and you will find a hundred confident sources telling you to select "Option 5." You will also find, if you actually look at your own screen, that the thing they are describing is sitting on line six. Neither the sources nor your console is lying. Sony moved it, and most of the internet has not caught up.

Why every old guide says Option 5

For years the PS5 Safe Mode menu held seven items, and "Clear Cache and Rebuild Database" sat fifth in the list. Every walkthrough, every video, every forum post from that era memorized "Option 5," and that number got copied forward the way all folklore does — by people who wrote down the number instead of the label. The 2026 videos still doing this are not malicious. They are just transcribing an older menu from muscle memory. A Digitash guide and various YouTube walkthroughs from 2025 into 2026 still print "Option 5" because the steps around it never changed — only the count did.

What Sony actually changed

At some point Sony inserted a new item, Repair Console Storage, at slot three of the menu — a file-system scan-and-repair tool for the SSD. Inserting anything at slot three shoves every item below it down by one. "Clear Cache and Rebuild Database" did not move relative to the reset options above and below it; the whole lower half of the list simply slid down a notch. The menu that used to have seven items now has eight, and the cache action that used to be fifth is now sixth. This is not speculation. We fetched Sony's Safe Mode page directly, and the live, current ordering reads exactly like this:

BEFORE (7 items, pre-"Repair Console Storage"):
  1 Restart PS5
  2 Change Video Output
  3 Update System Software
  4 Restore Default Settings
  5 Clear Cache and Rebuild Database   <-- every old guide says "Option 5"
  6 Reset PS5
  7 Reset PS5 (Reinstall System Software)

NOW (8 items, current firmware 26.05-13.60.00):
  1 Restart PS5
  2 Change Video Output
  3 Repair Console Storage             <-- INSERTED here, shifts everything below +1
  4 Update System Software
  5 Restore Default Settings
  6 Clear Cache and Rebuild Database   <-- same action, now "Option 6"
  7 Reset PS5
  8 Reset PS5 (Reinstall System Software)

The editorial-safe rule: read the label

The lesson here outlives this one menu. Numbers on a menu are a snapshot; labels are the contract. When Sony's Safe Mode documentation — the version current as of its August 2026 revision — lists eight options with the cache action sixth, and a video insists it is fifth, the video is describing a console that no longer exists. Find the words Clear Cache and Rebuild Database on your screen and select those words, wherever they happen to land. That habit will survive the next time Sony reorders the menu, and there will be a next time. We build our own coverage around it, which is why our sibling explainer is titled around the label rather than a line number wherever menus are involved — text is stable, positions are not.

Clear the Cache in 12 Steps

Twelve steps, each with the reason it exists, because a step you understand is a step you will not skip. Do them in order. The whole run takes about ten minutes, most of which is boot and reboot; the actual cache clear is the fast part.

1. Save and quit everything, and note the app you were in. Close your game, back all the way out to the home screen, and remember which title was misbehaving. Rationale: you want a clean point to test against afterward, and you do not want an app writing to storage while you shut down.
2. Power the console fully off — not Rest Mode. From the control center or the power menu, choose Turn Off PS5. Rationale: Safe Mode can only be entered from a cold, fully powered-down state. Rest Mode keeps processes suspended in the background, and Digitash's 2026 guide is explicit that the cache flow requires a full shutdown, not Rest Mode. This is the step people botch most.
3. Wait for the power indicator to go completely dark. No pulsing, no glow — off. Rationale: the light tells you the console has actually finished shutting down rather than dropping into standby. Rushing this is how you fail step seven.
4. Get a USB-C data cable and your DualSense within reach. Rationale: Bluetooth is disabled in Safe Mode, so you will need to physically wire the controller in a moment. Confirm the cable carries data, not just power.
5. Press and hold the physical power button on the console. Rationale: there is no Settings menu path into Safe Mode on the PS5 — the same is true of the PS4 — so the hardware button is the only door. Keep your finger down; you are not tapping, you are holding.
6. Listen for the first beep, which sounds the instant you press. Rationale: the first beep is the normal power-on tone. If you release now, the console just boots normally and you start over. Keep holding.
7. Release only after the second beep, roughly seven seconds in. Rationale: the second beep is the Safe Mode signal. Two beeps, about seven seconds apart — release on the second. This timing is consistent across every credible 2025 and 2026 walkthrough, and it is the single most important gesture in the procedure.
8. Connect the DualSense with the USB-C cable and press the PS button. Rationale: because Bluetooth is off, the console cannot see a wireless pad; the cable is how it registers your controller, and the PS button is how you claim it. A wireless-only attempt here produces a dead, ignored controller and a lot of confusion.
9. Read the menu and locate "Clear Cache and Rebuild Database." On current firmware it is the sixth item, below Restore Default Settings and above Reset PS5. Rationale: you are selecting by label, not by memorized number, for all the reasons in the section above.
10. Select it, then choose the sub-option "Clear System Software Cache." Rationale: this is the light, non-destructive action — the one that clears temporary OS files in a minute or two. The other sub-option, Rebuild Database, is the slow re-index; you are not choosing that one today.
11. Confirm the prompt and wait for the clear to finish; the console reboots itself. Rationale: the operation completes on its own and restarts the system. Do not power off during it. When it comes back, you are on the normal home screen, not in Safe Mode.
12. Reopen the app that was misbehaving and test it. Rationale: this is your verification step. If the stutter or hang is gone, you are done. If it is not, the cache was innocent, and you have learned something useful — the problem lives elsewhere, and no amount of re-clearing will move it.

That is the entire procedure. Twelve steps, one of them the actual fix and eleven of them making sure you reach it cleanly. If you find yourself doing this monthly on a schedule rather than in response to a symptom, stop — that is cargo-cult maintenance, and we will get to why in the section on whether any of this works.

What You Should See at Each Stage

A console is not a terminal; it does not print logs. But it does show you specific text at each stage, and knowing what that text should say is how you catch a wrong turn before it costs you time. Here is the expected on-screen output, stage by stage.

Entering Safe Mode

After the second beep, the screen goes to a plain background with a single instruction. If you see your normal home screen instead, you released on the first beep — power down and try again. The correct output:

[ Safe Mode ]

Connect the controller using the USB cable,
and then press the PS button.

The menu and the confirmation

Once the controller is wired and the PS button pressed, the eight-item list appears. Navigate to the sixth item and open its sub-menu. You are looking for exactly this structure, and you want the first sub-option highlighted:

[ Safe Mode ]
  6. Clear Cache and Rebuild Database
       > Clear System Software Cache
         Rebuild Database

confirm dialog:
"Clear the system software cache?"     [ OK ]   [ Cancel ]

Completion and reboot

Select OK and the console works for a minute or two, then restarts on its own. The progress text is deliberately unglamorous. If you see it, the operation is running correctly and you should leave the console alone until it reboots:

Clearing the system software cache...
Please do not turn off the PS5.
---------------------------------------------
Preparing to restart...

[ console reboots to the normal home screen ]

The absence of any "success" fanfare is expected. Sony does not throw a confetti animation for a cache clear; the reboot to a normal home screen is the success signal. If instead you land back in Safe Mode, something interrupted the operation — check that your cable stayed seated — and run it again.

Five Pitfalls That Waste Your Afternoon

None of these are exotic. They are the same handful of mistakes, made over and over, by people who trusted a video that skipped the reasoning. Read them once and you will recognize each failure the instant it happens instead of an hour later.

The charge-only cable

The trap: your controller will not respond in Safe Mode no matter how many times you press the PS button. The cause: the USB-C cable carries power but not data, so the console never registers the pad. The fix: use a data-capable USB-C cable — the DualSense's own charging lead usually works. This one failure accounts for more abandoned attempts than every other pitfall combined, precisely because the cable looks fine and the controller light may even glow while charging.

Releasing on the first beep

The trap: the console boots to the normal home screen instead of Safe Mode. The cause: you let go on the first beep, which is just the ordinary power-on tone. The fix: hold through the first beep and release only on the second, about seven seconds in. Count it out if you have to; impatience is the enemy here.

Rest Mode instead of a full shutdown

The trap: the power button does not produce the Safe Mode sequence, or the console wakes oddly. The cause: you used Rest Mode, which suspends rather than shuts down, so there is no cold state to boot Safe Mode from. The fix: choose Turn Off PS5, wait for the light to go fully dark, then hold the button. Digitash's guide flags this same mistake for a reason — it is endemic.

Picking the wrong sub-option

The trap: you meant to spend two minutes and instead the console is grinding away for an hour, or worse, you see a warning about wiping data. The cause: you selected Rebuild Database instead of Clear System Software Cache, or drifted down to a Reset item entirely. The fix: read the sub-menu carefully. "Clear System Software Cache" is the light one. If a dialog mentions deleting user data, cancel immediately — that is not the cache action.

Chasing the number instead of the label

The trap: a guide said Option 5, your screen shows something else at line five, and you either select the wrong thing or freeze. The cause: the menu was renumbered when Sony inserted Repair Console Storage. The fix: ignore the number and select the words "Clear Cache and Rebuild Database." A sixth, quieter pitfall deserves a line of its own: expecting the cache clear to fix a hardware problem. It cannot, and pretending otherwise just delays the real diagnosis.

Troubleshooting Table

When the procedure misbehaves, it almost always misbehaves in one of a small number of ways. Match your symptom to the row, apply the fix, move on. If your problem is not on this list, it is probably not a cache problem, which is itself the answer.

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
Controller does nothing in Safe Mode	Bluetooth is off; cable carries power only	Wire the DualSense with a USB-C data cable, then press the PS button
Console boots normally, never reaches Safe Mode	Released on the first beep	Full power-off, hold the button, release on the second beep (~7 s)
Power button produces no Safe Mode sequence	Console was in Rest Mode, not off	Choose Turn Off PS5, wait for the light to go dark, then hold
"Clear Cache and Rebuild Database" is missing	Firmware too old to include the option	Run Update System Software (Option 4) first, then retry
Rebuild Database sits at low percent for ages	Large or nearly full SSD being re-indexed	Normal on an 8TB drive; can take ~1 hr — do not power off
Games still stutter after the clear	Not a cache problem (thermal / hardware)	Cache clear will not fix it; diagnose cooling or storage health
Black screen after entering Safe Mode	Wrong video output for your display	Use Change Video Output (Option 2) to reset resolution/HDCP
Home screen looks rearranged afterward	A Rebuild reshuffled content (not the cache clear)	Cosmetic only; re-sort your library manually
Rocket League "load failure" persists	Cache clear did not take, or files are corrupt	Re-run the clear; if it recurs, verify or reinstall the game
Console dropped power mid-rebuild	Interrupted index left half-written	Re-enter Safe Mode and run Rebuild Database to completion

Advanced Maintenance and Firmware Hygiene

The cache clear is the beginner move. If you actually care about keeping a PS5 responsive over years rather than reacting to symptoms, there are a few adjacent practices worth understanding — and a few worth deliberately avoiding.

When to rebuild the database instead

Reach for Rebuild Database, not the cache clear, when the symptom is about content rather than performance: games missing from the library that are still installed, corrupted-looking tiles, downloads stuck in a phantom state, or the console misreporting free space. Rebuild re-indexes the entire SSD and fixes the map of what-lives-where. Budget up to an hour on a full drive, back up your saves first as a matter of hygiene even though rebuild is non-destructive, and never interrupt it. If the cache clear did nothing for a genuinely index-flavored problem, this is your next escalation — not a Reset.

The Rest Mode question and storage repair

Rest Mode is convenient and also the source of a disproportionate share of "my PS5 got weird" reports, because suspending a system mid-operation is exactly how temp files end up orphaned. If you clear the cache regularly to compensate, consider instead fully powering the console off when you are done for the night; you will find you need the cache clear far less often. The newer Repair Console Storage option — the very item whose insertion renumbered this menu — is the tool for suspected file-system damage on the SSD, a different and deeper problem than a cluttered cache. Use it when Repair, not Clear, is what the symptom is asking for.

Firmware cadence: update, but not superstitiously

Sony ships system software on a monthly rhythm — 26.04-13.42.00 on July 1 and 26.05-13.60.00 on July 23 being a representative pair — and most of these are quiet stability work. Keep current, because firmware fixes are the thing that actually addresses systemic slowdowns, but do not clear your cache after every single update as a ritual; Sony's real guidance amounts to "do it when you have a problem," not "do it on a calendar." The same disciplined-maintenance mindset applies on the other side of the living room: our Windows 11 frame-drop guide makes the identical argument for PC, and if you are weighing whether a persistently sluggish console is worth replacing at all, our breakdown of the 2026 PS5 Pro update is the sober version of that math.

Does Any of This Actually Work?

Time for the part the fix-it videos skip. Clearing the cache is real maintenance with real uses, but it has become a superstition — the digital equivalent of blowing on a cartridge — and treating it as a cure-all wastes your time and misdiagnoses your console.

What it genuinely fixes

Slow app launches, hanging splash screens, laggy menus, and specific load-failure errors that studios explicitly attribute to stale local state: these are the cache's home turf. When Epic Games tells Rocket League players to clear the cache for load failures, and Activision lists it as a first troubleshooting step, they are pointing at exactly the class of problem it solves — transient software clutter. In those cases it works, it works quickly, and it costs you nothing.

What it cannot touch

It will not fix a failing SSD, a fan choked with dust, thermal throttling, a degrading power supply, or a game that simply runs badly by design. Engadget puts it bluntly: a cache clear is a short-term remedy, not a repair for hardware degradation. If your frame drops correlate with a hot room, or your console has been screaming for months, or performance falls off a cliff after twenty minutes of play, the cache is a bystander. Clearing it will make you feel productive and change nothing.

Reading the diagnostic signal

The most useful thing about step twelve — reopening the misbehaving app — is what a failure tells you. If the clear did not help, you have ruled out software clutter, and the next suspects are thermals, storage health, or the title itself. That is progress, not a dead end. And if a console has degraded to where routine maintenance no longer holds it together, that is a hardware conversation, not a cache one; our look at the PlayStation 6 timeline is the honest frame for deciding whether to keep nursing an aging machine or plan around its successor. A cache clear buys responsiveness for a while. It does not reverse entropy.

The Complete Safe Mode Map

Here is the whole thing on one screen — the working reference to keep so you never have to trust a stranger's recollection of a menu again. This is the current PS5 Safe Mode layout, verified against Sony's own documentation as revised in August 2026, with the cache action and its sub-options marked.

PS5 SAFE MODE  --  firmware 26.05-13.60.00  (verified 2026-08 via playstation.com)
============================================================================
ENTRY   : physical power button ONLY (no Settings path on PS5 or PS4)
HOLD    : release on the SECOND beep (~7 s); first beep = normal boot
CONTROL : USB-C DATA cable + press PS button (Bluetooth is OFF in Safe Mode)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1  Restart PS5 ................. normal reboot
2  Change Video Output ........ fix black screen / resolution / HDCP
3  Repair Console Storage ..... scan + repair the SSD file system
4  Update System Software ..... install firmware from internet / USB
5  Restore Default Settings ... reset system prefs (keeps games + saves)
6  Clear Cache and Rebuild Database        <== YOU ARE HERE
     6a  Clear System Software Cache ...... light, ~1-2 min, deletes OS temp files
     6b  Rebuild Database ................ heavy, up to ~1 hr, re-indexes the SSD
7  Reset PS5 .................. WIPES all user data (do NOT confuse with 6)
8  Reset PS5 (Reinstall Sys SW)  WIPES + reflashes firmware (needs media)
============================================================================
6a KEEPS : games, saves, trophies, screenshots, accounts, settings
6a COSTS : nothing; no PS Plus; no internet required for the clear
DO NOT   : power off during 6b; unplugging mid-rebuild forces a re-run of 6b
RULE     : select by LABEL, never by number -- Sony renumbers this menu
============================================================================

Using this map

Ninety percent of visits to this menu should end at 6a. Print it, screenshot it, or just remember the one rule at the bottom: select by label, never by number. That single habit immunizes you against every outdated guide and every future reordering, because the words "Clear Cache and Rebuild Database" will keep meaning the same thing long after "Option 6" stops being true.

The short version, for next time

Power fully off. Hold to the second beep. Wire the controller. Select the cache label, choose the light sub-option, wait two minutes, test the app. If it worked, you are done in ten minutes. If it did not, you have learned the cache was innocent — and that, not a placebo re-clear, is where the real troubleshooting begins.