Skip to main content
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

Inspiring
September 20, 2021

On v32, I get this problem when I use encode resolution width higher than 3664. But on v33, I can use 3960 without problem. Hmmm...

New Participant
September 24, 2021

Well, after trying just about every variation of settings in the oculus debug tool, every usb port, hub, various drivers, link cable upside down or right side up, nothing works.

 

Im done with the oculus headset - back to the trusty vive.

 

I can only be thankful I was using the father in laws havent given any of my money to support this.  I do feel for others though and hope that Oculus/facebook gets around to fixing this soon. 9 months for a reported issue without a fix is absolutely insane.

Participant
September 24, 2021

I bought Skyrim VR recently, started yesterday, and it was worse than any other game to date. Instant double white line, persisting, impossible to clear for more than 10 seconds. It was simply unplayable.

Had to uninstall until a fix is released.

New Participant
September 24, 2021

I have been having this issue too and I believe I have some information you guys might find interesting and/or useful. Firstly I am using the Quest 2 with the Official Link cable. (believe me I agree its overpriced but lets not get into that) I have 2 pcs, 1 being a laptop/desktop graphics card combo I've used for 4-5 years now, and more recently a Big Rig that we've been putting together for the last 2 years. The Laptop is an Alienware 17 laptop hooked into the Alienware graphics amplifier with an Nvidia GTX 1080 desktop card in it. In all the VR games I used the quest 2 with over the last few months I NEVER got the white bar. A specific game I will mention is VRChat. Now this new pc as I said is a big rig, I will list the specs below at the end of this message but for now I will mention it has a 3090, a ryzen 9 and the MSI X570 board. There is one usb C port on the case but we are missing the adapter piece that connects it to the motherboard but that will be arriving in a few days so in the meantime it is connected directly to the VR ready USBC port on the motherboard. I tested multiple VR games after getting this white bar in VRC, including but not limited to Distance, Thumper and Redout. I did NOT get any white bars in any of those games in either oculus or Steam VR mode after an hour or so of play with each test. This seems to be isolated with VRC and/or Steam VR (I never knew for certain that it was actually using Steam VR to play those other titles even though I specifically selected it) As I said I never experienced this issue on my laptop and I have been doing nearly daily play sessions for multiple hours a day with that old laptop and nothing. I hope this information is helpful and I hope we can find a solution because judging by the length of this one thread and the time between the original post and now, oculus will not likely be getting to this any time soon. As promised here are the specs for the new pc:

Motherboard: MSI X570 Gaming Pro Carbon Wifi
Processor: Ryzen 9 5950X
GPU: EVGA Geforce RTX 3090
Ram: TridentX RGB DDR4 3600 32 2x
Power Supply: EVGA 1000w G5 Supernova

September 24, 2021

I have uninstalled Steam VR and launch Steam games through the Oculus app and it still happens. 

New Participant
September 24, 2021

Then maybe it's just a hardware thing? I went through and did driver updates on literally everything and nothing had updates, the only other idea I have is to mess with the oculus debug tool but I don't think that will do much. It's definitely some sort of rendering issue with the bottom section, I've noticed that the Quest 2s screen has different resolutions for rendering based on how far away from the center it is, In stand alone mode on Gun Club 2, VRC, and Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes I can see distinct lines that section off the lenses and render at lower resolutions. the lower most section is where it is and doing a test that line is exactly where that lower resolution split is. So it has to be something that is messing with rendering that specific section.

Participant
September 25, 2021

The thread is starting to get very lenghty with a lot of users report on different setups, experiments with uninstalling SteamVR, uninstalling softwares (msi after burner, mouse keyboard softwares, etc), changing usb port, different gpus, checking everything's good on power output, tinkering with encode width, bitrate, disabling asw, testing different usb cables (even the official one), checking whether it's happening in steam games or Oculus launcher or even Oculus home without launching anything.

 

Right now it's safe to admit that all these setups and tests are so wide and different that it cannot be caused by an interference from an external source, but rather a problem in the Oculus encode/decode pipeline.

Participant
September 25, 2021

I haven't had a lot of game time lately but as soon as I can get some pictures I plan to contact support again and request an immediate escalation.  As ben.mnd said above this has been going on far too long.  If Oculus/Facebook doesn't acknowledge the problem soon then I personally will be moving away from Oculus and I'm sure a lot of other people will too.  I don't want to as other than this issue it's a good headset and I don't want to spend any more money right now.  I will if I have to though and if I do I will never buy an Oculus product again.  Oculus, I suggest you take this seriously or you could find that many customers are moving away from your products.

jeremepowers
Participant
September 29, 2021

.

Participant
September 29, 2021

Got the same issue now.. Dirt rally 2.0 with ha RTX 3080 Ti GPU..  This sucks 😞 

Participant
September 29, 2021

Same for me here, extremely frustating.... RTX 3070 with 10600kf ssd and 32 gb ram 

Inspiring
September 30, 2021

I got v34 PTC now. Of course, not solved. 😂

Participant
October 2, 2021

Can someone try and force asynchronous spacewarp to be on and see if there is an improvement? 
I did this and been playing for about 2 hours now with no issues. 

Participant
October 3, 2021

Hi,

I've tried this morning, no improvment in my case.

The problem first manifested itself after longer than usual, I thought it might have an influence, but as with all the tweaks and all the tips that I could read here or elswhere, no improvement the issue is just random.

I've tried to force ASW disabled, and then to force it to 45fps ASW enabled, no change, still the white stripe accross the bottom of the screen...

I've turned it back to Auto as it's the default setting.

Participant
October 3, 2021

Try an encode resolution of 3664.  I changed that and I haven't seen the issue for a couple of weeks.  Far from conclusive and if it works it's just a workaround.  Oculus, please keep investigating the issue if you are even monitoring these boards.  I have my suspicions you check them once every few months.