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Firmware 1.8.1 Killed My Rift S

mattsoft
Honored Guest
Been using the Rift S on my Windows 10 PC since the first week with no issues at all. The other day I turned on the PC, fired up Oculus, and it asked to update the firmware of my Rift S to 1.8.1. YES I said. When it finished, my Rift S was "dead" - USB 3 and DisplayPort were RED indicators in the Oculus app. Restarted my PC and then USB indicator was orange and DisplayPort indicator was green. OK, that orange USB indicator is odd, but whatever. Fired up a game, and after about 1 minute, the Rift S goes black (orange light on headset) and my DisplayPort indicator turns RED.

Contacted Oculus support. Have uninstalled/re-installed now FOUR times per their instructions. SAME. DAMN. PROBLEM. Sometimes the Rift S crashes on setup, sometimes I get through setup and it crashed in game. Always no longer than a minute or so. If I just leave the Rift S plugged in and the Oculus up and running, it will do the same thing. DisplayPort indicator just turns RED after a minute or so like it's losing communication. 

Oculus is complaining that the DisplayPort is unavailable, but it's plugged in. Nothing has changed except for that damn 1.8.1 firmware.

Have sent Oculus support my crash log. Nothing. Oculus support has been useless. Sigh.

Is there anyway to downgrade the firmware?
10 REPLIES 10

SouthernSilverm
Honored Guest
i hope so, very similar problem for me.

Anonymous
Not applicable

Got mine day 1 and it was working fine up to about two weeks ago.  The latest windows 10 update killed mine.  It wont even turn on when I log into my MAIN windows user account.  Keeping everything the same, if I log into a dummy created windows user, it turns on and works fine.  But I hate having to switch between users just to play, esp when I don't even unplug it, just change names.  One says its broke, the other says its fine. 


Try this.  Create another NONmicrosoft user for windows and give it all administrative rights.  Name it something simple like a 4 letter name like Tony.  No special characters or spaces.  Log into the dummy user name account and try installing it there.  It worked for me.  I let tech support know, but I have not heard anything in two weeks if they are working on this windows 10 update issue it has caused.  Some say its due to special characters in the user name (Microsoft user names are email address most of the time and that has a @ and period in the name).  I hope they fix it soon because I am tired of logging in and out just to play VR.  Try it and let us know...  you can always delete the dummy account later...

sraura
Heroic Explorer
@mattsoft you could try couple things;
  • if you have usb-c port on your computer then you might have thunderbolt settings on your motherboard bios (usually under acpi settings). Try enabling that even if you're not using your usb-c port.
  • if you have more than one display port on your graphics card, try using some other port. Preferably the primary port.
  • if you have more than one monitor connected to your computer, try using only one with rift. Both need to be connected to discrete graphics card, none to motherboards built-in graphics
  • set your discrete graphics card as primary from bios (and disable built-in graphics chip if possible)
Then also the obvious stuff
  • update display drivers (or if you have laptop, use the latest from laptop manufactures site)
  • if you are using extension cables or adapters to connect your rift, try running without them
  • check the cable connector from hmd's end
  • try using some other usb3.x port
  • update your other device drivers and system bios from computer/motherboard manufacturer's site
...and in you case the less likely stuff
  • if you power supply is 550W and/or very old, you might want to try changing that.

Also after changing ports, shut down the computer. Don't just "restart". Sometimes this seem to make difference. Not sure why, but probably has something to do with windows/bios and how they initialize devices.

dmkvrt
Explorer
My Rift S did the same thing with firmware 1.8.0. I tried all the possible solutions with no positive results. When older software/firmware was available, reverting help eight away. So it is for sure an incompatibility with new firmware and some specific hardware components. 

Oculus decided to replace my headset (will take a couple of weeks). If it fixes the problem then it means that probably they changed some hardware components in newer batches. But something tells me that the new headset is going to behave exactly like the old one. 

mattsoft
Honored Guest

Vortimous said:

Got mine day 1 and it was working fine up to about two weeks ago.  The latest windows 10 update killed mine.  It wont even turn on when I log into my MAIN windows user account.  Keeping everything the same, if I log into a dummy created windows user, it turns on and works fine.  But I hate having to switch between users just to play, esp when I don't even unplug it, just change names.  One says its broke, the other says its fine. 


Try this.  Create another NONmicrosoft user for windows and give it all administrative rights.  Name it something simple like a 4 letter name like Tony.  No special characters or spaces.  Log into the dummy user name account and try installing it there.  It worked for me.  I let tech support know, but I have not heard anything in two weeks if they are working on this windows 10 update issue it has caused.  Some say its due to special characters in the user name (Microsoft user names are email address most of the time and that has a @ and period in the name).  I hope they fix it soon because I am tired of logging in and out just to play VR.  Try it and let us know...  you can always delete the dummy account later...




Hi Vortimous - I did try this after reading the comments up here but I get an Oculus error when starting the app (I forget the number off the top of my head). A quick lookup on the Google says the error is that Oculus does not have permission to access (or modify) the Oculus software directory on my C drive. I cannot get around the error and launch Oculus, so it's a no-go. The 2nd account was named "vr" and was a non-Microsoft admin account so I don't know what's up. My primary user name is all ASCII characters anyway, so I don't think I'm affected by the non-ASCII username bug.

mattsoft
Honored Guest

sraura said:

@mattsoft you could try couple things;
  • if you have usb-c port on your computer then you might have thunderbolt settings on your motherboard bios (usually under acpi settings). Try enabling that even if you're not using your usb-c port.
  • if you have more than one display port on your graphics card, try using some other port. Preferably the primary port.
  • if you have more than one monitor connected to your computer, try using only one with rift. Both need to be connected to discrete graphics card, none to motherboards built-in graphics
  • set your discrete graphics card as primary from bios (and disable built-in graphics chip if possible)
Then also the obvious stuff
  • update display drivers (or if you have laptop, use the latest from laptop manufactures site)
  • if you are using extension cables or adapters to connect your rift, try running without them
  • check the cable connector from hmd's end
  • try using some other usb3.x port
  • update your other device drivers and system bios from computer/motherboard manufacturer's site
...and in you case the less likely stuff
  • if you power supply is 550W and/or very old, you might want to try changing that.

Also after changing ports, shut down the computer. Don't just "restart". Sometimes this seem to make difference. Not sure why, but probably has something to do with windows/bios and how they initialize devices.


That is a long list sraura! Phew! I have tried some of those things: different USB 3 port, update display drivers (no update available). Some things are already set like my card being primary in the BIOS.

I'll wait for another firmware update or a replacement headset.

OpenRing
Honored Guest
I did a Poll about Firmware 1.8.1 issue. Let's everybody vote! If we are many, maybe they move to a downgradable firmware. They just need to sign a new firmware version containing the old code. Than Oculus App will do the rest.
A Firmware update/upgrade is a serious thing. They can't just take our money and do what they want with our hardware.
We need a way to make the "step back" and wait for the official fix WHILE using our headset!!

THE DOWNGRADABLE FIRMWARE POLL

Anonymous
Not applicable

mattsoft said:


Vortimous said:

Got mine day 1 and it was working fine up to about two weeks ago.  The latest windows 10 update killed mine.  It wont even turn on when I log into my MAIN windows user account.  Keeping everything the same, if I log into a dummy created windows user, it turns on and works fine.  But I hate having to switch between users just to play, esp when I don't even unplug it, just change names.  One says its broke, the other says its fine. 


Try this.  Create another NONmicrosoft user for windows and give it all administrative rights.  Name it something simple like a 4 letter name like Tony.  No special characters or spaces.  Log into the dummy user name account and try installing it there.  It worked for me.  I let tech support know, but I have not heard anything in two weeks if they are working on this windows 10 update issue it has caused.  Some say its due to special characters in the user name (Microsoft user names are email address most of the time and that has a @ and period in the name).  I hope they fix it soon because I am tired of logging in and out just to play VR.  Try it and let us know...  you can always delete the dummy account later...




Hi Vortimous - I did try this after reading the comments up here but I get an Oculus error when starting the app (I forget the number off the top of my head). A quick lookup on the Google says the error is that Oculus does not have permission to access (or modify) the Oculus software directory on my C drive. I cannot get around the error and launch Oculus, so it's a no-go. The 2nd account was named "vr" and was a non-Microsoft admin account so I don't know what's up. My primary user name is all ASCII characters anyway, so I don't think I'm affected by the non-ASCII username bug.



Try instead of starting the app under the new user.... try downloading and installing it under that new user.  That way it places all the files for that user where its needed.  I know I had to go threw the whole setup again to make it work.  See if that helps....

Digikid1
Consultant

OpenRing said:

I did a Poll about Firmware 1.8.1 issue. Let's everybody vote! If we are many, maybe they move to a downgradable firmware. They just need to sign a new firmware version containing the old code. Than Oculus App will do the rest.
A Firmware update/upgrade is a serious thing. They can't just take our money and do what they want with our hardware.
We need a way to make the "step back" and wait for the official fix WHILE using our headset!!

THE DOWNGRADABLE FIRMWARE POLL


Polls don’t do squat.