Virtual Reality SDK Oculus failed to initialize

You're getting this error when you "build & run" to the phone? Does it end up just displaying one eye? Does it refuse to run all together?

Refuses to run in play test.

In the Unity Editor or in the GearVR? The Unity Editor will naturally throw a "Virtual Reality SDK Oculus failed to initialize" unless you have a PC-VR headset connected to your PC. You need to build and run your project over to your phone.
The "Failed to initialize" errors don't usually result in a refusal to run though. It should just default to standard monoscopic rendering - So I'm questioning whether I'v really understood what you meant. 

Yes @Tolin93 , you understood perfectly- thank you. I'll try the build & run to see if I can get the project on the phone.

It still shouldn't refuse to run in the Editor though. When you hit play, aside from the (yellow) warning in the console, do you get any (red) errors?

no crit errors, just alerts

Then just ignore it :-) It's just a Unity warning letting you know it's not finding a connected VR headset. When you deploy and run on the phone the Oculus SDK will run as it should as well.

Under "Player Settings", try setting your Target API to Level 23. That should fix it. 
It sounds like you might have an older version of the Android Build Tools installed. 

I went all the way back to API 21, it doesn't work for VR- just regular APK