Oculus Go: Failed Entitlement Check

[RobbyC57D]

As the title says. Recently I get this message, "Failed Entitlement Check" when I launch the app Virtual Desktop Streamer.  I have owned the app for years.  

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the App

Factory reset the The Oculus

Even Launched the app from the phone app 

All with the same results. 

I have also noticed that the app store will not load on the Oculus. It looks like it tries to start but then shuts down right away. 

I realize this is a very old device but any help is appreciated. 

Thanks

[sayobel]

As a developer, a company that publishes an app and then disables functionality of that app on an older device, then dumps all the reasonable user questions and concerns back on you, knowing that they've created a circumstance where you, the developer, can do nothing about it, is not a company to be trusted to do business with. I don't know what perspective you're coming from, but Meta has just demonstrated a willingness to throw those who develop apps for their platforms to the wolves at their whim. This behavior will permanently undermine their ability to get apps released through their store, which in turn will stop them from getting the hold on the VR market they want. 

From the consumer perspective, no other company in operation that operates its own app store, despite repeated hardware upgrades, has made a backend change that disabled app functionality on older devices. Not supporting outdated hardware is a different category from knowingly making architecture changes that invalidate consumer use licenses. Consumers retain rights to use their licensed software, regardless of planned obsolescence.

[desiv]

"I don't know what perspective you're coming from"

I'm coming from the perspective of a customer of an unsupported older device where a bunch of the apps stopped working.

And as that device is unsupported, I am not surprised.

"Not supporting outdated hardware is a different category from knowingly making architecture changes that invalidate consumer use licenses."

Multiplayer games have backends that go offline because the company has moved on all the time...

Would it be great if the companies just kept that stuff running forever?  Sure.

Do I expect that?  Nope.

Pretty much anything that has tech that needs to phone home to re-authenticate will eventually stop working.

As a dev who works on this, you should definitely understand the difference between the app working and the app not being able to validate a license.  And as such, you should know that it requires infrastructure to handle that.  And maintaining that infrastructure for unsupported products would be great, but not expected.

How long would you expect a company to maintain infrastructure to validate licenses for hardware that is no longer supported for?  

[sayobel]

"As a dev who works on this, you should definitely understand the difference between the app working and the app not being able to validate a license."

What they did was make the Entitlement check that the app requires to successfully start up fail, regardless of the validity of the license, which disables access to the software. The licenses issued by the software developers are still valid, and apps distributed by parties outside of their store infrastructure still work. It's a Meta issue, created by Meta, in apps that are still in active distribution on their platform, that ONLY impacts older hardware. If I want to release any VR headset apps in the future, I will deliberately not use Meta's app store because I know they may, without warning, leave me with millions of customers who want refunds because my software no longer works and there's nothing I can do to restore functionality. The license I issued for my software is still valid and thus legally binding, but Meta is demonstrating an unwillingness to meet that obligation. That's a huge problem. 

"How long would you expect a company to maintain infrastructure to validate licenses for hardware that is no longer supported for?"

For as long as they distribute my app. There's such a huge difference between servers in an MMO and an authorized app store distribution. If Meta went out of business and was not still maintaining licensing servers for current versions of the same products they've disabled this way, it would be a completely different story. That's not what's happening. Someone overlooked a consequence of restructuring and created this issue. It is their responsibility to restore access or simply implement a pass-through response that effectively eliminates the check at app startup, as is the standard for no longer supported hardware. They are still distributing and profiting off the software licenses for these apps that no longer work on Go and GearVR systems. For as long as they are doing that, they need to ensure the apps that meet their API and design requirements work. 

[desiv]

"What they did was make the Entitlement check that the app requires to successfully start up fail, regardless of the validity of the license, which disables access to the software. "

And I guess, for some reason I am not surprised by this.  I expect an entitlement check to fail after a period of time for an unsupported device.  And I expect the app to stop working because it has an entitlement check that will eventually no longer be replied to.  If it can't re-validate the valid license, I expect the app to stop working.

I guess we just have a different expectation of digitally authorized services.

I expect this type of direction...

I'm just cynical that way.. 😉 

[sipko1]

desiv,

From a legal perspective, if you buy something, you own it. When we purchase apps from the Meta store, we don't click a "rent" button, we click a "buy" button. When something is rented, there is a clear time period the goods are rented for. From a legal perspective, renting a car or buying a car are two very different things.

When I purchase something, be it a physical or a virtual product, I expect it to work forever.

The real issue I have here is that Meta didn't warn its customers that it will discontinue the software. It only warned that it will discontinue support for the hardware. Proper steps to inform the customers must be taken before making such big changes. Not only from a legal, but also from a moral perspective.

It is kind of late now. The result of Meta's incompetence is that the community has found a way to work around the entitlement check issue. Sadly, this work around will hurt the developers of the apps and I hate seeing that happen, but there was practically no other way to keep our apps running.

[desiv]

"From a legal perspective, if you buy something, you own it."

Nope.  That might be the way we want it, but that's just not true.

We didn't buy the game.  There is no "game" to buy.  This is all digital.
We bought a right to play the game, and that right has lots of wording wrapped around it.

And this isn't new.  This is the way it's been with digital purchases for ages.

I agree that this wasn't the best way for Meta to do this.  PR and all...

But I seriously doubt there is any wording or legal document granting us owners the ability to force Meta to "fix" the game at this time.  

As I've said, this is the world of digital ownership is different.

It's one of the reasons I'm so into retro and love all my old consoles.  Even tho, even some of those physical games have licensing that says I don't own the game but a license to play it, it can't be disabled.  As long as the hardware works and the media works, that game will work.

That's not the case with newer media.  Like it or not, it is what it is...

[kojack]

For example, some license agreements...

Steam: "The Content and Services are licensed, not sold. Your license confers no title or ownership in the Content and Services".

Epic Game Store: " The Software is licensed, not sold, to you under the License. The License does not grant you any title or ownership in the Software".

"In rare cases, after you have completed a Transaction for Software the Software may be removed from the Epic Games Store (for instance, because the Developer stops supporting an online game) and become unavailable for further download or access from the Epic Games Store"

Playstation: "all games and other software made available for use with your PS5 system are licensed to you, not sold, pursuant to the Software Product License Agreement"

Xbox: "All Digital Goods are licensed, not sold"

"Microsoft may stop distributing any Digital Good, or add to or reduce the capabilities for any Digital Good, at any time. You may lose access to or capabilities of Digital Goods, or have the nature of your access changed"

Nintendo: "（1）The Software is licensed, not transferred to you.（2）The License of the Software is a non-exclusive and may be withdrawn by Nintendo at any time."

[kojack]

Not that I like it of course. It sucks, but sadly that's the digital world these days.

Unless you buy from GOG, who have no DRM and the games don't connect back to GOG. So once you have them, only your PC dying (or a multiplayer server going down) will stop you.

[VeArGo]

I think we are in a transitional state now. The change/extension of consumer protection laws is much slower than the digital transition. There are a lot of efforts in the EU to strenghten consumer rights for digital media as well as extended hardware support and right to repair. Usually, this has also an big impact on US regulations sooner or later since US companies want to sell in Europe.

[sipko1]

Kojack and desiv have made and defended well their point. I admit that it could be legal, but it is definitely immoral. It is not only immoral from a customer point of view, it is bad business for the developers too.

I guess that I will keep buying old games from GOG. This also strengthens my decision to only have old consoles that have an optical drive. They don't run entitlement checks, right?

And hopefully the laws will soon catch up and enforce distributors of digital content to have some long term responsibility for the software they sell. Either way, shame on Meta for not giving us heads up about this issue, so we could prepare for it.