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alphasystems
New Participant
October 14, 2022

Downgrading firmware for device management use

We are developing VR device management system that can monitor VR viewers' screens.
However we are experiencing problems with our mirroring feature that worked in v43 
with the v44 firmware (inquired about in another post) and would like to 
temporarily downgrade firmware to v43 to demonstrate the system to our customers.
 
We know that it is possible to manually update/downgrade the firmware using the procedure listed below, although it is unofficial.
However, the only way to obtain the Quest/Quest2 firmware is through unauthorized files 
distributed by volunteers, and our corporate policy prevents its use.
Would you please consider providing a way to downgrade the firmware?
 
We believe that device management will be in demand in the future for group use,
but it is sensitive to firmware and commercial support is important.
However, Oculus for Business is no longer supported, and the current terms require
us to agree to firmware automatic upgrades. This makes it difficult for us to progress our business.

    3 replies

    PenguiinOS
    New Participant
    November 8, 2022

    v44 Also broke screen capturing in other applications, I'm also interested in being able to downgrade.

      Basti564
      New Participant
      November 11, 2022

      The Quest's firmware cannot be downgraded, as the device checks if a firmware is lower while flashing it onto it. You might be able to downgrade the firmware by desoldering the ufs chip and flashing v43 on it, but that requires a high skill level and will most likely fail, because the bootloader is anti roll back enabled and checks if a specific index is lower on the downgraded build. This could possibly be solved by providing a way to unlock the bootloader on retail Quest quests, but I don't see that happening in the foreseeable future.

       

      The media projection got disabled because it allowed to record the users without user interaction and for unlimited time in the background without indicator. I reported it as a bug to meta a few months ago and as you said they patched out the popup/api in v44, having it available is a huge privacy issue imho.

        alphasystemsAuthor
        New Participant
        November 14, 2022

        Thank you for your kind reply, we are in the process of contacting Zendesk support and will take your comment into consideration.

         

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