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New Participant
November 12, 2020
Solved

White horizontal stripe across screen while using link

Headset seems to work fine stand-alone.  I use the headset with IRacing, and often (not always) get a translucent horizontal stripe across the screen after about 15 minutes or so.  It doesn't feel like the headset is overheating.  This doesn't show up on the screen mirror on PC, or if I "mirror" with the debug tool.  Is this likely a failing display or is there somewhere else I should look?

PokebertAnswer
Participant
March 20, 2023

UPDATE: POSSIBLE WORKAROUND/FIX USING REGISTRY EDITOR

As I theorized above, this issue does NOT occur for those who use Air Link. Air Link uses HEVC and uses 1 slice for its encoding, whereas wired Link uses H.264 and 5 slices for encoding. Whenever the white bar issue occurs, it is very likely the final 5th slice experiencing an error in the encoding. If you pay close attention when this occurs, you will likely notice it only occurs in the bottom slice of the screen.

To use this workaround, open Command Prompt and use the following:

  • reg add "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Oculus\RemoteHeadset" /v "numSlices" /t REG_DWORD /d "1" /f

I will be experimenting with this for the next few weeks to make sure  I do not get the white bar issue!

Original Post on REVISITED thread:

I have noticed that this is related to the horizontal encoding slices that are visible only through the Link Cable. A very easy stopgap solution would be to offer a toggle in the OculusDebugTool that allows us to turn OFF these encoding slices. Additionally, the encoding slices do not appear with Air Link and thus the issue has almost never occurred wirelessly according to both personal experience and these threads.

1125 replies

New Participant
September 15, 2021

I have carried out all the required checks, reinstall and reset all the parameters of the oculus, its apps, and what closely and far resembles the use of Quest 2.
Windows is up to date, so is the graphics card.
The bug is materialized by the appearance at the bottom of the display of a clear band taking about 1/5 of the display on the horizontal and on the two optics of the helmet.
This bug seems to affect a large number of "greedy" games. For my part, I saw it on DCS 2.7, MSFS 2020 and Drift 2.0.

Several things have been tried to resolve the problem or provide you with leads; and those by keeping the PC up to date, by indifferently using official oculus connection cables or of different quality.
I am speaking today on behalf of 6 helmet users and testers on different machines.

Here are the most striking elements in our investigation:

- This white, clear and translucent "bar" is comparable to a zone of the display which would have a problem of management of the general luminosity, and of the gamma.
- The fact of looking with the helmet at a solid area and relatively poor in detail gradually and temporarily attenuates this bar.
- This bar appears immediately when the bottom of the display is mostly darker than the top and more detailed (airplane cockpit, car dashboard) and is noticeably attenuated when switching to exterior view.
- The use of third-party software such as the oculus tray tool 0.87.4.0 makes it possible to delay the appearance of the bug by reducing the bitrate to 150.
-This bar does not appear when launching the headset and very rarely on the oculus link interface; however the bug persists when exiting the game and returning to the oculus link interface. You have to go back to the headset standalone mode interface or restart the headset to get rid of it temporarily.

New Participant
September 15, 2021

I have exactly the same problems, I would also add that I have observed that most of the time I connect Quest 2 through the cable, the oculus menu seems to pixelate for a few moments.

Participant
September 15, 2021

Please see my answers below:

 

 

1.  I only play Digital Combat Simulator on VR.  However, the problem persists even after I exit the game and drop to the Oculus Link menu.  The only way to make it go away is to disconnect from Link and reconnect.  Given that the game is closed and the issue persists I would say that the issue is not DCS.

 

2.  I don't use Oculus content.  This is on Oculus Link only.

 

3.  It's visible on the home screen.

 

4.  I'll get the photos the next time I see it both in game and at the link home screen.

 

 

I'm essentially seeing the exact thing that everyone has been telling you about.  I've tried most of the things above as well.  There were a couple that I hadn't tried and I'll be testing those tonight.  I doubt these steps wil resolve the issue as everyone has reported that they didn't.  

 

 

If there is anything I can do to assist with a speedy resolution to this problem please let me know.

Participant
September 15, 2021

A perfect way to take a screenshot of your HMD display (not the PC game, but the HMD, which is important) :

 

* download Sidequest 

* Link your HMD to Sidequest, tutorial on Sidequest homepage

* Click on the up-menu icon "Stream with SrcCpy" (or something like that)

* It will open a news window displaying what you see in your HMD

* open windows' capture tool (taskbar, search "Capture")

* wait for a whiteband to appear, then create a capture of Stream window

 

This is how I posted mine here and here.

Participant
September 15, 2021

Hi,

 

I had a great time trying to take photos and record a video, it's really not easy to navigate the menus with the phone in front of the screens in the headset, so blindly.

I was able to make a video fairly representative of the problem, sorry if it is a bit long but it is not easy to achieve ...

https://youtu.be/pF2-0OVx-3c

https://youtu.be/_Evytv5g4do

 

  • Are you using just Oculus content or do you have any 3rd party platforms installed? => I have several 3rd party platform installed, but only Oculus Link ans Steam are running, all other platforms don't start automatically with Windows.
  • Does this happen on just Oculus content? => In my case, only with Dirt Rallye 2.0.
  • Is it visible on the Home screen as well as in games or apps? => Once it appeared during the game, I can quit the game, quit steam, the problem remains in the Oculus Link menu, but immediately disappears when returning to the native menu of quest 2. Another way to make the problem disappear (for a few minutes), deactivate Oculus Link and reactivate it, without leaving the game.
MetaStoreHelp
Community Manager
September 15, 2021

Hey there. We really appreciate this information and want to thank you for going through the effort of presenting it. We want to let you know to keep an eye out on your email as we are working hard to figure this issue out! 

If you're the author of a thread, remember to mark a reply as the Accepted Solution to help others find answers!
Up and Coming
September 15, 2021

Oh, I just bet you're working as hard on this as you're working on apologies for mistreating customers. I'm sure all will be well now. Maybe you'll discover time travel so you can fix this before November last year.

New Participant
September 15, 2021

Well done capturing video, can confirm accurate to what I get as well. For me it has happened in both Flight Sim 2020 and Assetto Corsa.

September 15, 2021

Great video. Same as me. 

New Participant
September 16, 2021

Some more details on my experience so far with this issue....

 

I've had my Quest 2 for about two months, primarily used via the official fibre link cable into a PCI-E card that has USB-C. I first got the white bar issue in Flight Sim 2020 about two weeks ago, restart of the Quest cleared it up. Since then is has happened twice more in Assetto Corsa. Every time it has started after approx 10 min of gameplay, it never happens straight away. Also noticed that it clears up as soon as you exit back to the launcher, but if you then go back into the game it is there immediately. Could only get it to go away properly with a full restart of the Quest.

 

I tried capturing it on video with the Nvidia software but the video captured didn't have the issue. 

 

Happy to troubleshoot further.

New Participant
September 18, 2021

Hi Guys,

I had the same issue with Assetto Corsa, pink or white bar after few minutes of gameplay with an Intel 11900 and an RTX 3080. It was driving me crazy for days.

For me the solution was to change the USB port where the link cable is plugged from a 3.1 port to a 3.0 port and the problem gone away. It also goes away if I add a powered USB 3.0 hub between the 3.1 port and the link cable.

(With my previous Intel 4790 and GTX 1080 Ti rig I didn't have any issues)

New Participant
September 18, 2021

That gives me some hope - your old rig is quite similar to my old pc, and I did not have the issue. 


The USB ports on the new PC I built are all USB 3.2 (Z590 Aorus Ultra motherboard) - I will try the powered USB 3.0 hub today to see if this makes a difference!  

 

Edit: Tried using a powered USB 3 Hub - no difference - still get the white bars either immediately or within 1-5 minutes. 😞

New Participant
September 19, 2021

Thank you for your reply.

For me the issue is gone for 3 days now, before it happened after a few minutes of gameplay in Assetto Corsa. I don't think it is an universal solution, but it seems to work for me. Maybe it has to do something with my motherboard ASUS TUF GAMING B560-PLUS-WiFi. I have various types of USB ports in it, and I had an USB hub lying around so it was easy to test for me.

If the problem comes back I will keep you updated. We are all sailing in the same boat.

New Participant
September 19, 2021

That's the motherboard I have, and I do experience this issue from time to time. So I don't think it's related. Personally, I would suggest to stop giving tips which haven't been proved, that will only make things worse really. It's probably a coincidence, and of you take a look at this thread, you'll see plenty of people saying they have solved the issue doing many different things... Who's right here? Still waiting to see someone suggesting breaking up with your girlfriend because they did it and the white stripe was gone after it...

New Participant
September 19, 2021

As I see Oculus is "working on this" for nearly a year now. I don't really understand your problem. For me this helped, before I had this issue every five minutes, now It is gone for days. So I shouldn't share my experience?

I also tried various things suggested in different places none of them made a difference, this did. I am working with computers for 20 years now, sometimes it is hard to explain what makes a difference in one environment to an other. This is clearly a software issue, but the issue isn't happening to everyone with the same configurations, so why do you expect that the solution would be the same for all?

Participant
September 19, 2021

Thanks for sharing what seems to have worked for you, at least momentarily.
I hope for you that it will last, but I'm afraid it will come back one day or another since it's not a solution that works for everyone.

Following your message yesterday, I spent one more morning doing tests, it always worth a try, but unfortunately that didn't change anything in my case.
I tried all the rear panel USB ports of my motherboard (MSI MPG B550 Gaming Carbon Wifi), and also all USB ports of the front panel of ma case (Corsair 5000D Airflow).

Below pictures of what was tested.