New Participant

Solved

My quest 3 isn't charging with my link cable but the quest 2 did.. anyone know why?

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
October 10, 2023
122 replies
88313 views

My quest 3 isn't charging with my link cable and I've had no problem doing it with quest 2 but it just stays at the same percentage.. I haven't tried the charger the comes in the box but It should be charging.

Best answer by TheAntiSocializer

Hey everyone! I've gotten confirmation from the engineering and product team. It looks like when in use, the headset may adjust the charging rate to optimize battery performance based on factors such as temperature. For safety and performance reasons, your headset’s battery also may not fully charge if it is plugged in while in use and exceeds the optimal charging temperature. Once the device is no longer in use and its temperature has returned to normal, your device should resume charging to 100% while plugged in to charge.
When plugged into a laptop/PC, using a USB port that is not Power Delivery-compatible and capable of 18W+ will slow down charging.

If you have any other questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to reach out to the support team through PM or back in this thread. We appreciate all feedback!

Show previous replies

F

fjo78

New Participant

This issue is such a shame... But.. The device is still somewhat young so they might resolve this with updates.

BusterG

Participant

Hey S15, have you tried unplugging all cables and plugging them back in using this order?

1. Link lead to pc
2. Link lead to headset
3. USB charge lead to link lead

Seems to work for me.

M

Macthstick

Participant

I did finally get it to work by using a power injection cable and plugging in in the right order. I actually bought a pass through usb meter so I could be sure it was actually maintaining while playing and charging when idle. Then I discovered virtual desktop bobo vr headset and batteries and found it works better with no cable needed

B

biglarrr

Participant

I wish I could use the words to express how I feel about this, but you wouldn't be reading it if I did. We've had two Quest 3's since the day they became available. The play time is somewhereh around half of what the Quest 2's were, but we bought battery packs and have been using them for well over a year without any issues. Obviously - Meta did some update that has messed up the ability to charge them. We got both headsets within days of each other. A few days ago, my wife's headset quit charging. Now mine has quit charging.
We've done all the troubleshooting suggestions. Switch chargers, switch cables, factory reset, clean USB ports. Unplugged, and replugged, multiple times. Used Boot Device, Searched the forums, and done everything once twice and a dozen or more times. Since it was just my wife's device until today, I gave up and ordered a new one. We're in our 70's, and Quest has been a part of our entertainment and exercise regimen since they first came out. I was guessing that her's just burned something out, or maybe the connecter on the the headset had gone bad.
I even tried putting them in the refrigerator for half an hour after reading that it was probably a warm battery, that triggered a reduced charge condition, that was actually preventing it from charging at all. Now after reading all of the comments here, I'm going to cancel/return the headset I just ordered. We are still able to use the Quest 3 headsets with battery packs, and I'll just use them that way, until Meta admits to some faulty upgrade, or whatever that's causing this issue for multiple owners. If You've actually read all of this, go back and add all of the expletives you want - basically after every other word. At least it might give you a laugh.

steve40

Honored Contributor

We have two Quest 3 headsets. Mine is on v2.1 and has Elite headstrap and my daughter's is on v85 (no external battery headstrap). Both charge fine to 100% and we've never had any charging issues. The only thing is, I must fully power off my headset before connecting the charge cable to the Elite battery as it won't charge the Elite battery if I plug in the cable while using the headset. But once I have connected the cable (powered off) I can then power it on and the batteries will continue to charge.

PS. Putting the headset or external battery into the fridge is a terrible idea, you are inviting condensation into the unit.

B

biglarrr

Participant

To Steve - and anyone who thought the refrigerator idea was not a good idea.
I had tried every solution I could find. I had tried most of them that seemed like they made sense - more than once. I had already written that headset off as a loss and ordered a new one.
NOTE: the headset never felt even slightly warm. And "IF" warm triggers some action that reduces headset charging, there should be one of the annoying popups that are usually useless.
With all of that being said. I decided to put the headset in the refrigerator for a timed 30 minutes.
When I removed it, I plugged in the charger, and it charged normally to 100%.
So - although I will not be putting it in the refrigerator again, I've come to the conclusion, that from now on I won't even try to charge my headsets until at least an two hours after we've used them.
This is a new issue, and I'm betting that Meta deliberately put this in an update. That conclusion is based on the fact that we have never had issues with charging until the past week, and since updates are not rolled all at once, it took a couple of days before mine had the same symptoms as my spouse had.
Anyway - until I'm proven wrong, I'm going set a reminder when we finish playing to connect the chargers two hours after use.
If they're still too warm to charge, I may wait until we call it a night, and try to remember to put them on charge at bedtime.
Maybe I should just throw them on the bed when we finish with them, so I can't forget to put them on charge when we're ready to retire for the night.

Rociel

Participant

As this is a very old post that still sees some action, I will update with the latest relevant information about my personal experience.

So initially I had issues where the quest would completely stop charging at times and charging would not work with any e.g. Samsung chargers.

The completely stopping charging got solved after a time, not sure how, but it did. I did not do anything special.

Next part then was, once that got solved, the charging being slow even when plugged in wall with original charger from packaging and later on came up an issue with constant debris/water damage warnings while there were none, which interfered with charging.

So, the charger that comes with package is just not enough to keep up the charge. It's advertised to be 15w/18w, which should be exactly enough to keep headset charged while plugged in a wall, but it just is not enough no matter what I do.
I bought a different third party 18w charger and, when in VR environment e.g. using Virtual Desktop, it keeps me 100% when plugged in. However it very slowly drops when doing anything Mixed Reality with cameras. It's fine, I don't usually do that, but fact is that something just does not let the headset get all the necessary power when plugged it. So either it's overheating limitation or the headset in fact draws more than 18w of power and Meta is being silly by including the 18w charged with the headset. It's most likely the latter. I just don't want to go out of my way to test it, I am sure others have done so.

Finally, the message about debris/water damage - it has finally, after 2 years, gone away on the public test version 2.+, which is great!

So there are definitely software issues, non-transparent hardware specs, and it takes embarrassingly long time for Meta to fix any of that and they never even acknowledge them, but at least it has gotten better over time. The charger not functioning as expected however has convinced me not to waste money on their own pricey stuff and just stick with 3rd party.

B

biglarrr

Participant

So this is actually an issue that hit the forums two years ago.
I was pretty sure the issue had something to do with a recent update, since this just happened with both of my headsets in the past wek. The first headset quit quit on Feb 23,2026, and the second headset quit on Feb 26,2026.
When the first headset quit, I tried switching chargers with no success. The input port on the headset seemed a little looser than the second one so I purchased expensive new cables with a a wattage display, and I could see that the charge rate would drop to zero within seconds. The second headset was still working normally at that time, and I could see the display showing high wattage numbers. Again I tried moving to the other charger, and even trying a couple different aftermarket chargers. Nothing really helped although with persistence, and multiple tries, I was able to get the first headset charged with blind luck switching, flipping cable connections, (which shouldn't make a bit of difference with USB-C connectors), but I was trying anything and everything, and at some point I actually got it to start charging, and left it on overnight and it made it to 100%. It only did that once, and it has not charged over 76% since then. Then - three days later the other headset started doing the same thing.
I again hit YouTube, and the forums looking for something I might have missed, and came across this page. There were several mentions of a heat sensor, and/or a voltage/amperage limit when the headset got to warm.
Being totally frustrated by lack of success with any of the suggested solutions, I decided to cool the headset below normal, and put it in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. I was surprised, and couldn't believe it actually worked. I plugged in the headset with the new cables, and the wattage went right up, and the headset completed the charge from 74% to 100% in less than an hour. Of course I knew I didn't want to do that on any kind of regular basis, but some moderator decided to compare my action to "Drying a cat in a microwave". Apparently she has one of those refrigerators that was built 50 years ago, with no defrost function. And I'm wondering if she knows from personal experience that microwaving your cat - wet or drive is not a good idea.
Anyway - I'm hoping my problem is solved now. When we finish playing for the day, I tell Alexa to remind me in three hours to charge the Quests. I'm hoping this works.
My new quest arrived last night, and I already started a return with the store I purchased it from. I have 30 days to find out if letting the Headset cool for three hours before charging is the solution.
NOTE: The headset has never felt the slightest bit warm after 90 minutes of use, but if there's some overly sensitive switch that's cutting off the charging process, I can live with waiting a few hours to start charging. k
I still think it's something Meta has done, since both headsets had the issue with three days of each other,.

Rociel

Participant

They constantly break things without proper notice and switching versions might help. If you are not on PTC (public test channel) you might want to try to sign up for it to get a different version. I believe you do need a PC to sign up for it however. Try it with one headset and see if that helps, if you can.

Fair warning that removing the headset from PTC later will factory-reset it. Also PTC sometimes comes with it's own exclusive bugs (it's how I know that removing PTC mean factory reset - one time I had a bug so bad PTC was unusable).

Get Help

Sign up

Login with SSO

Login to the community

Login with SSO