Store and Horizon Feed images not loading

[metaphysician]

hey there - updated to v59 and it looks like the Store images and the Horizon Feed images are not loading. i do get the layout and the titles but no images and no video images (i think the sound is playing though). i might have thought this was a bandwidth problem but everything renders fine on the web browser. i can even go to the Quest store. i tested bandwidth and it's about 62Mbps down and up, so not super fast but not horrible - certainly enough to load images i would think. also i can play any installed apps perfectly fine and their images do show.

any advice appreciated! i have restarted several times with no results. as i recall everything worked fine when i first received it in October because i downloaded some purchases and i browsed the store a bit. i think it's the update that seems to have caused the latest issues. wish i could roll back...

[Ujimiim]

I have the exact same issue!!! Since a few weeks, my shop and horizon feed stopped loading, even though my connection is fine and the browser or YouTube / Netflix work perfectly !

I would like to avoid factory resetting !

The only way I managed to solve the issue was by connecting to my phone (5G) as a hotspot. Strangely it works when I do that. 

[ChimiChango8]

tl;dr [SOLUTION]  It might be your DNS settings.  Go into your router's settings and change the default Static DNS to Google's recommended public DNS (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4)

[ISSUE IN DETAIL] My Meta Quest 3 started doing this to me this morning.  Last night my Quest 3 was working perfectly and I woke up to it not loading any Meta services.

I also found that the Meta Quest app on my Android phone was not loading properly either. 

My Wi-Fi was working as all other devices like my laptop, desktop, iPad and apps on my phone were working properly, just not anything related to Meta.  

Further investigating, I found that the Meta Quest store on the phone app loaded fine if I disconnected from my Wi-Fi and used the mobile network.  

This indicated that my home network was not resolving Meta apps and services, and was not an issue with the Quest 3.

Resolving internet addresses is reserved for the Domain Name Server (DNS).  I figured my Internet Service Provider (ISP) switched DNS which does happen on occasion.  The router defaults to whatever DNS the ISP provides. This can be bypassed by going into your router settings and changing the Static DNS settings.

Instead of using the default DNS settings, you can change those settings to a public DNS, like Google's. 

Google's public DNS addresses are:
8.8.8.8
8.8.4.4

Once I changed the Static DNS to those, my Meta Quest 3 was able to resolve all Meta related services.  

[metaphysician]

hi there - i replied on the Reddit post where you answered but i didn't do it here. i did not want to take the main DNS servers from my ISP out of the picture, but i did add a static DNS with 8.8.8.8. the other IP address you gave doesn't resolve to Google, it resolves to a Level-3 router, so i didn't use that one.

so the results are a slight improvement - i can tell it tries to load images, but significantly it can't or doesn't want to cache them on the device. so if i wait around long enough the images do load for the store items, but if i reload the store after going away for a bit and doing other things, it has to load all the images again from scratch.

also Horizon feed and users feed has almost never worked on the Quest 3, but admittedly i didn't start testing them until after the update.

what i'm looking into now is possibly allowing server access to a Meta DNS server on the router and see if that changes anything. but so far nothing has worked as a viable solution.

[ChimiChango8]

Hi there,

I'll also respond here to memorialize a possible solution for posterity.  

When I replaced my default DNS with Google's public DNS, Meta's services functioned but much like yours.  It was a finicky solution.  Frustrating and fed up, I just threw my Quest 3 on my networks DMZ, which has worked without a hitch. But throwing a device on a DMZ should be done with caution since it's potentially a security risk.

I did find another forum post where a Meta support person posted addresses that should be whitelisted.  These are resolved addresses and not actual IP addresses nor DNS addresses.

Those addresses that should be whitelisted are:

• akamaihd.net
• fbcdn.net
• facebook.com
• oculus.com

The post can be found here:
https://communityforums.atmeta.com/t5/Get-Help/Internet-sites-to-be-accessible-for-Oculus-internet-D...

[MetaQuestSupport]

Hello everyone! We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to all of you for working together and pooling your knowledge to find a solution to this problem. If anyone is still experiencing any issues after trying the steps, please feel free to reach out to us through a private message. To send us a PM, simply click on our name to visit our profile page or click here. Then, click on "Send a Message" to send us a private message. Please remember that you must be logged in to the community to send us a private message. We are looking forward to hearing from you.

[metaphysician]

i think there is a serious problem with this latest firmware update. the reason why i'm saying this is that when i open the web browser on the Quest 3 headset and go to the Oculus Quest store (or any other website), everything loads up fine. it's just the services on the Quest itself that are problematic in terms of access. if it was a matter of IP or DNS filtering that would technically affect everything.

now i have NOT yet used the Quest 3 in any other network configuration since it has not left my house. but i find it exceedingly difficult to believe that certain services would get blocked by the router while others (like the web browser) would remain untouched. it feels very much like a firmware update issue since as i recall everything worked fine before. i will double check this on my Quest 1, but if this isn't resolved with an update soon, i'm highly inclined to ask for directions on installing the older firmware and not upgrading when prompted. as i recall it was much more usable when i first turned it on and configured it. 

[ChimiChango8]

A DNS can have trouble resolving specific addresses.  If Meta services are split across different IPs (which they should be), then the DNS can have trouble resolving subsets of Meta services.  Some might work and some might not work.  A browser would have minimal interaction with Meta as it does not have to funnel webpages through Meta in order to display them.  Also, Meta's store would exist on its own IP address separate of Meta's services.  

I threw my Meta Quest 3 on my router's DMZ and it has worked without a hitch since.  So beyond updating the DNS to help with some of the issues, you could try port forwarding Meta's applications so that the data from those applications is routed correctly to your Quest.  You just have to figure out what ports you need to forward.  That goes for anybody else reading this; port forwarding might fix issues you could be having with how Meta's applications are communicating with your Quest.  

I just find that my Quest is rather finicky in a variety of ways, and reading people's issues, I'd say this is just the way these devices behave.  Firmware update could very well resolve a lot of these issues.  

[metaphysician]

in terms of the router's DMZ i don't have one configured. it gives me an option to create one on a specific computer IP but then there's no way to set what gets routed exactly. the admin panel just states that it'll route anything not explicitly listed in the Virtual Servers to the DMZ Host. i tried it on the Quest's IP address and rebooted the Quest - no dice.

in terms of port forwarding i have no idea how to figure out what ports are exactly needed to open. i searched for ports on this forum and saw a post with a few ports listed for Echo Arena but it was 6-7 years old and before the Quest 1 existed (which, by the way does not have these issues of not loading the store images). plus Echo Arena is now shut down. so it's quite obviously not a common situation to have to reconfigure port forwarding for just the general OS features or i would think there'd be more posts and information on this.

as for the domains to whitelist, the firewall is at default settings, blocking incoming and allowing outgoing traffic from devices on the LAN, so i'd think whitelisting would not be needed since there's not any outgoing blocking.

i'm basically just getting fed up with this state and would rather just roll back to an earlier firmware or nuke the OS and do a hard reset than have to figure out and play whack-a-mole with my router settings. or even just return this Quest and start over with a non-updated unit. if you find out what ports need to be opened let me know.

i'm going to do a hard reset and see if that shakes up things. probably won't change the firmware though. i'll update later.

[metaphysician]

did the hard reset which worked, wiped out all my apps and still no loading of store images. so that failed, plus Meta won't even let you downgrade the firmware. great...

i don't want to set the router's DNS for the entire network to Google or Level-3 IPs. oh and on the Meta app on the cell phone the Horizon feed is broken too, on wireless AND on 5G T-mobile. store access does work, though. seriously, you Meta folks need to get your act together and fix these issues...it's ridiculous how broken this is when V57 was doing fine.