pinky is right, bans are usually permanent and do not get lifted unless your reason for being banned was something asinine.
Also
@Ted Hawn, all permabans have only ever been lifted once... and I believe that was in 2014, when lizard squad did the distributed denial-of-service on the PSN servers. (when inFamous or LittleBigPlanet was made free due to the 2-month downtime) The entire PSN server was completely compromised, thousands of people's info stolen and all accounts were un-banned due to the re-structure
Bans for using CFW, HFW or whatever will always say the same thing... "modified or illegal software detected" All 3 of my bans occured after doing mods for either Black Ops 2 or GTA5 and they were likely due to anti-cheat methods.
I'm almost positive that the anti-cheat for GTA5 servers does work because the mods that I can use online without getting banned are very far & few, for the hundred or more mod menus that there are for GTA5, most of them are high-risk and I haven't gotten away with using a mod menu on this game for more than a day since 2018, even being on DEX with many precautions, I still get banned for GTA5 mods.
Modding Black Ops 2 has become alot of testing for me. There aren't many good menus for BO2 but I paid $20 to have Reflex Engine 2.5 on Zombies a couple years ago or more. The thing with paid .sprx menus is that they can steal your Console ID or worse and even though I've become completely aware of this, I still choose to play BO2 zombies from time-to-time.
Another thing you should know about bans is that they usually occur in "waves" and these ban waves happen every time we make it into a new month. I've never been banned "in the middle" of a month, only at the end of one and the start of another. Still, you could have done something before the month was over that raised a red/yellow flag on your account and be totally unaware of it.
doing mods for COD4, COD5, COD6 & COD7 have never resulted in bans for me, but I'd still go so far as to say that you could get banned for modding anything, especially if the "snitch gamer" happens to record the entirety of your gameplay which PSN has stated before that this is the only way they can ban players for modding old games that have a complete lack of anti-cheat system.
■ = Never been banned while using one of these
■ = Heard of bans occurring, but never witnessed.
■ = Been banned while playing, but still in question
■ = Do not test online (unless willing to risk ban)
FOR SINGLE PLAYER GAMES, YOU SHOULD BE DOING OFFLINE TESTS ONLY.
(SP) FALLOUT NV = .ESP Mods from nexusmods
(SP) KILLZONE 2 = Developer Debug Menu EBOOT
(SP) RDR = Red Dead Rekt .SPRX
WAW = 7 .FF menus
MW1 = 14 .FF menus
MW2 = 27 .SPRX (13 Non-Host, 14 Host Only)
MW3 = 23 .SPRX (17 Non-Host, 6 Host Only)
BO1 ZM =
SC58's DEX EBOOT (Never use
RED DEVIL OR
Gr3zZ v3)
BO1 MP =
Snow Engine,
Firehawk &
Undercover V3
BO2 ZM =
Licerne V1 &
Paid Reflex v2.5
BO2 MP = 14 .SPRX (All Non-Host)
BO3 ZM =
Skyfall Mod Menu
BO3 MP =
iMoDz V2,
Spectre &
Retro Client
GHOSTS = Sapphire & Ascendance + Cracks for Reflex & Frost Engine
ADV WF = Defcon & Zincou45 + Paradox Cracked
GTA5 = 39 .SPRX Menus & 3 .RPF Loaders
When I test the mods for a game, I test all the mods I have in the same day, so by the time that I eventually do get banned, I am not always sure of what has resulted in my ban due to testing so many of them one-by-one. I can definitely verify that Reflex for Zombies on BO2 will result in ban as I have been banned twice at the end-of-month for using this menu.
Still, I am testing another round of BO2 bans as of recent and my new theory is that CID theft through a .SPRX menu may be possible to avoid if you are using a Modem > Router > PS3 Method instead of just using Modem hooked directly to PS3. My connection has been shittier, but I have not been banned for using Reflex as of recent with this new connection method.
I also have cracks of Reflex, Paradox & Paradise for MW2 & MW3. I speculate that the cracked releases of these menus are safe to use but these menus could still be stealing your ConsoleID/xRegistry.sys if not properly re-built... but still, I think JoMilk created these cracks with the intent to help others get around buying a menu from an illegitimate company that is going to make you pay money for their menu just to have your CID stolen by the company that you paid money towards to get said menu.
ReflexEngine.co and Paradox Framework will steal your CID, but like I said, Modem > Router > PS3 may be an extra safety step.
GTA5, I have no opinions... too many mod menus and it has been verified multiple times that Rockstar's anti-cheat system is still working and able to get modders banned to this day. If you have been banned on any of the CODs labelled in orange, then it is likely due to another player reporting you or possibly from a bad cheat inside of a menu that you used and it happened to activate the game's anti-cheat parameters. Also, another warning is that there are players who use menus that can dump your CID/IP on certain games.
So, it really doesn't matter how much pre-caution you take because there is always that one flaw in the system that strikes vulnerability across most of the games on the platform. I also advise to stay away from .RPF menus, .GSC menus or anything owned/licensed by EA.
