To give way to another premeditated maintenance operation, Sony is taking PSN offline for several hours on Feb. 12. The service downtime will start from 5 p.m. GMT (9 a.m. PT or 12 p.m. ET) until 8:30 p.m. GMT. 

For the entire duration of the downtime, players will not be able to log in to their accounts or use entertainment apps. They will also temporarily lose access to the PS Store as well as the PS Home. Any attempt to access the affected components will only lead to error codes.

However, it is still possible for PS4 owners to get into online gameplay, provided (1) the system is activated as the Primary system, (2) they have recently signed into their SEN account and (3) they have their authentication details cached. The last two prerequisites should also be met by PS3 and PS Vita owners for them to gain access to online gameplay. 

"Users who do not have their details cached will not be able to sign-in to their account or begin an online gaming session," the tech giant reminds its patrons via its community blog.

In addition, the upkeep may go beyond the prearranged timeframe for equally vital testing purposes so Sony also wants users to keep that in mind. 

IGN suggests that players sign in to their account before the downtime sets in so they can still play games online and use apps like Netflix to keep themselves busy while Sony does some much-needed tweaking on the system. Another thing that players can do during the three and a half hour-running is collect trophies. However, they need to remember that these trophies will not appear until the network goes live again. 

The tech and gaming firm schedules maintenance such as this one to keep PSN in pristine condition and ultimately allow players to make use of the service without hassle or inconvenience.