cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

The Official Oculus Link cable is not working for me. Anyone else have this issue?

TuSwab
Honored Guest
My third-party cable works perfectly fine but I cannot enable Oculus Link with the $80 cable that I just received. The oculus software will detect that the quest is plugged in to my USB-C port, yet I get no pop up to turn on Oculus Link and It wont work manually either because the quest doesnt know its plugged in. 

I've submitted 2 support tickets with no response. I've also posted on reddit and I found that there are other users with this exact problem. They have also submitted tickets with no response. I'm about to send it back for a refund, but I really want this cable to work.
137 REPLIES 137

enigma01
Trustee
Do people who are are having issues with Oculus official Link cable have a laptop with Thunderbolt 3 which also supports USB 3.1 Gen 2? I’m wondering if that may have something to do with why it’s not working for some? I have a Thunderbolt 3 which works upto 40gbps, but also works as USB 3.1 Gen 2 upto 10gbps. Thunderbolt ports are technically also USB 3.1 ports, but USB C 3.1 ports can’t operate as Thunderbolt, correct? Has anyone had Link working on a Thunderbolt 3? 

The_Kingpin66
Honored Guest
Same issue here. Using the official link cable with a  Inateck KT2001 usb 3.1 pci-e card. Oculus software shows connection but as a usb 2, Tried driver updates to no avail. Thinking of returning this cable.   

enigma01
Trustee


Same issue here. Using the official link cable with a  Inateck KT2001 usb 3.1 pci-e card. Oculus software shows connection but as a usb 2, Tried driver updates to no avail. Thinking of returning this cable.   


My Oculus software shows as connected with green ticks and as USB 3.0, but headset doesn’t detect my PC. Oculus support had me run a diagnostic report to send them. I looked into some of the data myself, there was one for USB and I could see that Oculus PC software was detecting my headset connected to USB 3.0 and reporting no faults. 

endertuber123
Explorer

enigma01 said:

Do people who are are having issues with Oculus official Link cable have a laptop with Thunderbolt 3 which also supports USB 3.1 Gen 2? I’m wondering if that may have something to do with why it’s not working for some? I have a Thunderbolt 3 which works upto 40gbps, but also works as USB 3.1 Gen 2 upto 10gbps. Thunderbolt ports are technically also USB 3.1 ports, but USB C 3.1 ports can’t operate as Thunderbolt, correct? Has anyone had Link working on a Thunderbolt 3? 


I can personally confirm that Oculus Link can operate over Thunderbolt 3 with a USB 3.1 cable. I can't confirm that the Official Link Cable works over Thunderbolt 3. I don't think the problem is with any physical data/power limitations of the cable. I've been able to temporarily get it to work once by having the Oculus PC software and the Sidequest software on at the same time. The connection didn't last long, but it tells me that the cable CAN work, it just refuses to work for some reason. 

The_Kingpin66
Honored Guest

enigma01 said:



Same issue here. Using the official link cable with a  Inateck KT2001 usb 3.1 pci-e card. Oculus software shows connection but as a usb 2, Tried driver updates to no avail. Thinking of returning this cable.   


My Oculus software shows as connected with green ticks and as USB 3.0, but headset doesn’t detect my PC. Oculus support had me run a diagnostic report to send them. I looked into some of the data myself, there was one for USB and I could see that Oculus PC software was detecting my headset connected to USB 3.0 and reporting no faults. 


Then I would have to believe it's a software issue at this time. 

Anonymous
Not applicable

kilogold said:

Since I don't know whether my work machine should ever work with this cable, I'm going to return the Official Cable at this point and get the alternative cables... 

I'm actually depending on Oculus Link for development, and trying to get the Official Link Cable working has been a drain of company time & money. 



So... I'm still trying to solve this mystery - and I am damn sure my boss is going to kill me for beating this dead horse... Maybe I'm stubborn...

I think I have learned something... But I'm in dire need of an expert's input on this.
There's a recurring theme in this issue thread - most of us are attempting to connect via Thunderbolt, and we are not alone:
On that last reddit post:


Cables: I got the recommended Anker cable with the Amazon basics extension which gives me a total of 10 feet. Though both cables work in general, the extension cable won’t be recognized by link if you connect it through a USB A port. I connected a USB C hub to the Thunderbolt port which gives me 3 additional USB A ports. Connected to one of those, both cables worked fine in conjunction. Disclaimer: Boneworks didn’t run as smoothly and froze several times with the extension cable so I guess the longer the better doesn’t apply here. But in general I think that connecting your cable through the Thunderbolt port (I didn’t have a USB C to USB C cable) will give you a better connection especially when your are on a slower PC.

According to Wikipedia:
Thunderbolt 3 has limited power delivery capabilities on copper cables and no power delivery capability on optical cables. Using USB-C on copper cables, it can incorporate USB Power Delivery, allowing the ports to source or sink up to 100 watts of power.

Call me crazy (or ignorant) here but...
It seems to me that anyone reporting stable success with Thunderbolt 3, is proxying through some sort of copper connection, instead of a direct optical connection (using adapters, hubs, etc.). It makes sense that copper wires work because they follow USB protocols to draw power, but perhaps a pure optical connection is not instructing the hardware to draw the expected amount of power to operate an Oculus optic cable. By using a typical adapter, the computer only sees a "copper USB cable connection", which happens to actually be an optical cable on the other end of the adapter, thus provides some expected amount of power.
I'm guessing the Oculus proprietary drivers (not the hardware USB drivers) are expecting the power traffic to match a copper wire's power consumption to determine a valid connection for Oculus Link.

Because the power traffic differs in optical, perhaps the intermittent Thunderbolt success is that lucky timing (race condition) between the Oculus driver sampling a power consumption and an optical connection being recognized. It's almost as if there's a tiny window when the optical cable connection happens to consume about as much power as a copper cable...?
Since optical cables provide no power, there must be some copper in the Oculus Link cable, if it's able to charge the Quest, right?

tl;dr....
Maybe the Oculus driver is not programmed to handle a Thunderbolt connection?

softtouchph
Explorer
I think the problem with laptops is, that no compatible video card is detected. I faced the same with my MSI VR Ready gaming laptop, which has an intel and also nvidea 1060 in it. The nvidea is not detected, and the intel of course is not compatible to link, so it shows green but cant detect anything else.

Anonymous
Not applicable


I think the problem with laptops is, that no compatible video card is detected. I faced the same with my MSI VR Ready gaming laptop, which has an intel and also nvidea 1060 in it. The nvidea is not detected, and the intel of course is not compatible to link, so it shows green but cant detect anything else.


That does not explain why works flawlessly when it (miraculously) happens to connect. In the past two days, I managed to get it successfully connected three or four times - I even played Asgard's Wrath for a few minutes without issues before going back to work in Unity on a VR project I have, which also worked well until I rebooted my machine. 

endertuber123
Explorer
kilogold I think you're right. Your explanation makes the most sense to me. The Official Link cable is the only cable I used that has fiber optics. The downside is that it means the only solution is to have Oculus drivers that can handle Thunderbolt 3. Which means the only way to fix the problem is to wait for Oculus to fix the problem. At least we can reach a conclusion: if you plan on using a Thunderbolt 3 port for Oculus Link, use a copper cable.

Anonymous
Not applicable
you are not the only one. my 3rd party cable works instantly for me, but the official cable doesn't.