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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

Anonymous
Not applicable

enigma01 said:


J-Tricky said:
I think many of the issues we are seeing are simply software and driver related (seemingly mostly related to Thunderbolt 3 ports) and will eventually be ironed out. It sucks for those of us that are having problems but we must also remember that Quest Link is still in Beta so we can’t expect flawlessness at this point. 


So I think I have demonstrated your theory wrong in my situation (sorry! lol)...

I wanted to try rule out any issues with my drivers etc causing Link not to work when using the Official cable connected to my Thunderbolt 3, so I borrowed a 1m (I know too short for practical gaming, it was just to test) Cable Matters 3.1 Gen 2 type c to type c Thunderbolt 3 compatible cable (Amazon ASIN B07QDZV9PY) 

Connected the Cable Matters cable to my Thunderbolt 3, and guess what... Link launched and worked just fine, I was able to launch Asgards and everything seemed to work fine with no stutters etc. My official cable would not launch to Link at all. 

So, if the issue I am facing with my Official Oculus link cable not working when connected to my Thunderbolt 3 is software / driver related. Then when does the Cable Matters cable launch Link just fine when connected to the same port? 


I'm unable to check the cable you tried on Amazon. No sure how to search via ASIN, regular searching for 'B07QDZV9PY' returns zero results.
Remember, that not just any Thunderbolt cable will do. The whole point here is that Oculus is selling a Fiber Optic cable. Your test will only be valid if you used such a cable. Judging by the length (makes no sense to manufacture a 1m fiber optic cable), I guarantee you have a copper wire - you're comparing apples to oranges at that point.

Anonymous
Not applicable
To understand it better, this is my explanation on the matter --- which I'm still waiting for an expert to validate:
kilogold said:


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?

enigma01
Trustee

kilogold said:
Your test will only be valid if you used such a cable. Judging by the length (makes no sense to manufacture a 1m fiber optic cable), I guarantee you have a copper wire - you're comparing apples to oranges at that point.


It was a copper cable, the purpose of my test was to establish whether the issue with Link not working when connected to my Thunderbolt was in relation to my computer drivers not working correctly. As Link did work, my drivers must be okay right? I had missed your previous comments in relation power. When you say 'Maybe the Oculus driver is not programmed to handle a Thunderbolt connection', do you mean specifically when using the Oculus Fibre cable, as Link worked for me as mentioned previously using my Thunderbolt, but a copper only cable?

kilogold said:
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?


I am assuming the Oculus Link cable works in a similar manner to Cornings Fibre USB cable https://www.corning.com/optical-cables-by-corning/worldwide/en/products/usb-optical-cables.html. Which does have a copper conductor element. 

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h.r.gargi said:

Found another thing: What is not working is a "Hub" Please for those who the cable is not working: Unplug the cable from your machine. Shutdown your machine. Plug the cable into the headset FIRST! After your computer restarts plug the cable into your USB C Port. This seems to work! The Quest has to be attached to the Link cable before you connect it to your PC! 


I just tried this and still didn't work for me. Powered on my Quest and waited to load up fully, connected Oculus Link cable then connected to my Thunderbolt 3 from a freshly booted computer, I still got the 'PC can't be detected' message from within the headset. 

cnorton76
Honored Guest
I am having similar issues with the official Quest Link cable. I have an Alienware 17R4 and everything works perfectly when connected to the side USB-C port. When moving to the Thunderbolt 3/USB-C port, the headset shows "PC Not Detected" error message everyone else is getting.

Anonymous
Not applicable

enigma01 said:


When you say 'Maybe the Oculus driver is not programmed to handle a Thunderbolt connection', do you mean specifically when using the Oculus Fibre cable, as Link worked for me as mentioned previously using my Thunderbolt, but a copper only cable?


 Ah, yes, excuse my incomplete phrasing.
Indeed, I meant that perhaps the driver assumes a copper connection (because there is some copper), and therefore expects a particular power consumption, which never occurs because the cable is actually fiber optic. Therefore, a connection is not properly established.

This is only an assumption though - because I've managed to connect via Oculus Link Cable a handful of times, though the repro steps seem to always change, leading me to believe this is a race condition issue:

kilogold said:
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...?



Furthermore, your test was only testing the Windows driver, which never really was an issue AFAIK, because Windows does seem to recognize the device regardless. You can see the device in device manager. Oculus app does also detect the device is connected. So this also leads me to believe it's an Oculus driver, not a Windows driver. There's nothing we can install to fix this - Oculus would have to simply fix how a Fiber Optic USB connection from a Thunderbolt is detected, which is closer to the hardware level, aka a driver.

Edit:
To test my theory, I'm tempted on buying this:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MBWH7QG/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_HXphEbW4NNMB4

Does anyone have one of these perchance? I only need it for a test.

My hypothesis is that this will seemingly create a "copper connection" from the computer's end, thus providing usual copper-cable power output that which shall drive the fiber optic cable.
In other words:
Fiber optic requests too little power. Make the cable seem copper in order to receive more power than the fiber cable is requesting.


nschlip
Protege

kilogold said:


enigma01 said:


When you say 'Maybe the Oculus driver is not programmed to handle a Thunderbolt connection', do you mean specifically when using the Oculus Fibre cable, as Link worked for me as mentioned previously using my Thunderbolt, but a copper only cable?


 Ah, yes, excuse my incomplete phrasing.
Indeed, I meant that perhaps the driver assumes a copper connection (because there is some copper), and therefore expects a particular power consumption, which never occurs because the cable is actually fiber optic. Therefore, a connection is not properly established.

This is only an assumption though - because I've managed to connect via Oculus Link Cable a handful of times, though the repro steps seem to always change, leading me to believe this is a race condition issue:

kilogold said:
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...?



Furthermore, your test was only testing the Windows driver, which never really was an issue AFAIK, because Windows does seem to recognize the device regardless. You can see the device in device manager. Oculus app does also detect the device is connected. So this also leads me to believe it's an Oculus driver, not a Windows driver. There's nothing we can install to fix this - Oculus would have to simply fix how a Fiber Optic USB connection from a Thunderbolt is detected, which is closer to the hardware level, aka a driver.

Edit:
To test my theory, I'm tempted on buying this

Does anyone have one of these perchance? I only need it for a test.

My hypothesis is that this will seemingly create a "copper connection" from the computer's end, thus providing usual copper-cable power output that which shall drive the fiber optic cable.
In other words:
Fiber optic requests too little power. Make the cable seem copper in order to receive more power than the fiber cable is requesting.




I and several others have already tested this theory in another post on this forum, and indeed it does fix it. If you use a USB C to A converter (like the link you posted) the official Oculus link cable will work. It's still irritating we have to use a converter just to get this $80 cable to work.

enigma01
Trustee

nschlip said.

I and several others have already tested this theory in another post on this forum, and indeed it does fix it. If you use a USB C to A converter (like the link you posted) the official Oculus link cable will work. It's still irritating we have to use a converter just to get this $80 cable to work.


The link he posted was a USB C extender not a USB C to A. He plans to try this with a Thunderbolt 3 port. 

MidnightDisplay
Explorer
Have the same issue on my Dell Precision 7530 laptop. (Quadro P3200, 2x USB3 A and 2x USB C Thunderbolts on board)
The USB A to C copper cable I got from Amazon does work well for a while. However, disconnects when the laptop starts bursting the cooling fans. USB A loses power for a split second when the fans switch on, I guess??
To avoid that I bought the official link cable and... it doesn't work at all!
I have 2 USB C thunderbolts I tried it with. Behaves exactly as described by @kilogold, device is "connected" but VR doesn't run.
Going to try A to C adapter to test it with the USB A ports on the other side.

Does anyone have any speculations on whether this will ever be fixed? Can this be fixed at all?

nalex66
MVP
MVP
If it was a power fluctuation issue causing the drop-outs, you might be able to fix it by running I through an externally-powered USB hub.

DK2, CV1, Go, Quest, Quest 2, Quest 3.


Try my game: Cyclops Island Demo

MidnightDisplay
Explorer

nalex66 said:

If it was a power fluctuation issue causing the drop-outs, you might be able to fix it by running I through an externally-powered USB hub.


Well, I guess the only way to find out is to get one. Which I don't have atm.

My thinking was: "I better buy the Official Link Cable to avoid all the hackery-tinkery." So I did.
Such a shame these Thunderbolt 3 ports refuse to run Oculus Link VR. Or Oculus Link VR refuses to run with them.
I double-checked that all of the chipset drivers are up to date. And they are.
I have no issues running 2 additional monitors and other peripherals through the DELL dock that hooks up to those two ports when I'm at work. So they must be okay.