Quest Link / Air Link suddenly stopped working today – session never starts
Device: Meta Quest 3
OS: Windows 11
GPU: NVIDIA RTX 5080
Connection: Air Link and USB Link (same behavior)
Quest Link (both Air Link and USB Link) was working normally for months and was working earlier today.
After ending a session and starting another one, Link stopped working completely.
The headset is detected, the session initializes, but it freezes on the grey/purple Link screen and never reaches VR Home. Eventually the session drops or returns to the headset home.
This is not a USB issue, not a network issue, and not a headset pairing issue.
Important facts
- Same hardware and setup working for ~4 months
- Worked earlier today
- No hardware change
- No Windows reinstall
- No BIOS change
- No GPU change
What I already tried
- Reinstalled Meta Quest Link multiple times
- Factory reset the Quest 3
- Removed all Oculus / Meta registry entries
- Clean GPU driver reinstall with DDU
- Downgraded NVIDIA driver
- Tested both Air Link and USB Link
- Repair installation
- Restarted all Meta/Oculus services
- Reconfigured the headset from scratch
None of the above resolved the issue.
Observed behavior
- PC app detects the headset
- Session enters VR mode
- Streaming loop starts
- Grey / purple Link screen appears
- No image is ever presented
- Session freezes or terminates
This indicates the session is created, but the compositor never presents a valid frame.
Relevant log behavior
From Service.log and LinkClient.log (same timestamps):
- VR session initializes
- Streaming starts
- Frames may briefly decode
- Compositor or transport fails shortly after
- Errors such as:
- Failed to read display driver information
- Graphics adapter state UNKNOWN
- Elevated Shared Memory failed to initialize
- Error -1002
- Registry/config access failures after reinstall
This points to a runtime or compositor state failure, not user configuration.
Key point
This did not degrade gradually. It stopped working suddenly today after previously working normally.
That strongly suggests a silent Meta runtime update or a runtime state corruption that reinstall does not fully reset.
Request to Meta
- Please confirm whether there was a Quest Link / runtime update today
- Clarify how to perform a true clean runtime reset (not just reinstall)
- Confirm if there is a known issue with Link compositor initialization
- Provide a way to roll back the Quest Link runtime
At the moment, Quest Link is completely unusable despite supported hardware and exhaustive troubleshooting.
I can provide full Service and LinkClient logs with timestamps if needed.