White horizontal stripe across screen while using link

[Panzer_mk2]

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?

[benji94]

Another question....if you are experiencing the white horizontal stripe and you are mirroring to your monitor simultaneously does the stripe also appear on your monitor?  I don't think I ever checked when it was occurring on mine. 

Thanks. 

[Ryudar]

I just had this occur at about the same time as the white stripe:

16/03 22:40:36.788 {!ERROR!} [Kernel:Error] OVR Error:
Code: -6100 -- ovrError_XRStreamingGeneralIssue
Description: Frame 15574 dropped due to encoder backup
OVRTime: 13381.664292
Time: 2023-03-16 22:40:36 [788:810:0]

[MetaQuestSupport]

Hey there, @Ryudar! We definitely understand your concerns with this white stripe across your display while using link, we'd be glad to help! Please reach out to us through the Meta Store Support website and we'll do everything we can to get this resolved for you! 

[benji94]

Ok.  So now see if every time you get the white stripe you get the same error message.  Its going to be important to be exact as possible on the time.  If the 'dropped due to encoder backup' message occurs every time the white stripe occurs it would be consistent with what I've been discovering as a possible cause.  I'm exploring the possibility that under certain conditions (yet to be determined) the white stripe occurs when the GPU encoder cannot keep up with the headset.  This theory could explain why a change in settings for some made the issue go away and why a number of users first encountered the issue when they upgraded to an RTX 30XX card.  There was a problem with the GPU's encoder on some of these cards when first released but it looks like the issue was resolved with subsequent Nvidia driver updates.  

By the way, an easy way to get a copy of the Oculus logs is to run the "OculusLogGatherer" which can be found at C:>Program Files>Oculus>Support>Oculus-diagnostics.  It will create a ZIP file onto your desktop.  Just unzip it and review.

[benji94]

Oh good grief!!!!

[AdrianRode]

Found this topic while looking for solutions. 

I have never had this problem with Prepar3D, now when I switched to Microsoft Flight Simulator (after replacing my old GTX 1080 to RTX 3080 12GB) I ocasionally have white horizontal stripe. It's very very annoying especially when you fly online and are on final approach, so it's not possible to restart VR session - however restarting usually doesn't solve this problem. I bought RTX especially for MSFS+Quest2, but I'm disappointed having this issue. It's an immersion killer for me.

• Quest 2,
• Windows 11 Pro,
• RTX 3080,
• always up-to-date NVIDIA drivers,
• doesn't matter if I'm on public test channel or not,
• Encode Bitrate (ODT): 250,
• Link sharpening: Enabled.

[Brage1564]

RTX 3070 here.. this issue has only recently started for me after the V49 update and here are some of my insights with this issue

• Does not happen in games like Pavlov VR, Google Earth VR... lol just those 2 actually and only if I start these games first. if I start another game the stripe pops up. close the game. start Pavlov or Google earth the issue gets transferred there.
• All other games the issues takes exactly 3-5 mins since the game is launched to pop up
• Bigscreen Steam the white bar comes instantly
• Bigscreen PC Oculus app. the issue only pops if I try to change the default environment 
• In some games when this white bar pops its first like a buzzing transparent white. then over seconds it either turns fully white or purple and sometimes it even disappears.. so you'd think but it is actually still in its bar form down there only this time weirdly has a very shaky 1.5 Zoom only to the white stripe section and its no longer white. it is fully transparent. just zoomed in a bit. and trust me with these issues. I get so satisfied when at least this happens sometimes.
• All Geforce drivers up to date. 
• Tried and tested with what everyone has to say about Encoder settings does nothing for me.
• Tried Public and regular versions of the Oculus App. still no diff. all started after V49.
• PLZ HELP ME THIS IS DRIVING ME INSANE

[Artins]

I have written this in this thread before, you can use the following as a momentary fix.

At least on my system, sending the Quest 2 into sleep mode by briefly pressing and releasing the power button fixes the whitebar temporarely after waking it up again.  

Since for me the problem is extremely sporadic (happens only once every 1.5-3 hours) it's not too big of an issue.  

Activating the passthrough camera for a few seconds also makes the white bar go away.

[AdrianRode]

Switching to sleep mode and going back doesn't work for me - white stripe appears in ~30 seconds. Will try with activating passthrough camera.

[benji94]

Yes, a common experience is that it first occurs for many when they have updated to an RTX 30XX gpu.  Another commonality is that it principally occurs with simulation games such a Dirt Rally 2, iRacing, and MSFS.  So what do these games have in common?....they require lots of rendering quickly involving environment textures.  These textures are rendered by the GPU.  Everything I've been finding so far is pointing to a GPU problem.  Specifically a VRAM issue.  It could be anything from running out of VRAM, faulty VRAM, or settings too high for the GPU to handle the requested rendering in VRAM, or overheating VRAM (which is difficult to detect and may not be the same as the GPU temps as reported in something like GPU-Z).  A VRAM issue could also be consistent with why the problem is temporarily cleared when the data stream is being interrupted by switching the headset off and on.  The headset momentarily stops requesting frames so the GPU stop sending them and the GPU catches up and the problem is cleared until after a bit the same conditions in the GPU are repeated.

What I could really use now to nail this further is a review of the Oculus logs to see if there is a common error message or code that is logged when the problem begins to occur.  I suspect that it is related to the "dropped due to encoder backup" message but I can't prove it unless a comparison of logs is done.

After delving deep into this issue for the past month I am confident that I solved the issue for me.  I have an RTX 3090 FE and sure enough the issue first started for me when I got the card about almost two years ago now.  It turns out the 3090s have a problem with VRAM overheating when the GPU is pushed.  When the VRAM hits 110 degrees (Celsius) it begins to throttle back.  GPU-Z only shows the card running at 78 degrees tops but when I located a more detailed monitoring app that specifically reported the temp of the VRAM within the silicone it showed it was running at about 108 degrees.  Since the problem for me occurred very randomly I suspect that at times it hit 110 (probably in circumstances when the room temps where higher and/or when in long racing sessions with lots of cars and/or more detailed tracks) and causing the card to throttle back and ended up with the white horizontal artifact because it could no longer keep up with demand.

I've read that some users have underclocked the 3090 GPU which solved the VRAM overheating issue but what the hell???...all that money for a card that you then have to underclock!!!...kind of defeats the purpose!  So the other alternative is to cool the card better.  I bought a thick thermal pad and a beefy aluminum heat sink and installed them on the area of the back plate where the VRAM chips reside.  Then on top of the heat sink I installed a high flo case fan.  This hast has cooled the VRAM temps substantially and I've had no hint of the white stripe re-occurring.  I have tried maxing out settings in both the Oculus PC app and through the ODT and have not been able to recreate the issue since installing the GPU VRAM has been keeping cool.

If the stripe slowly develops after playing awhile it is a sign that it might just be a VRAM overheating issue that gets worse over time and also only occurs when the GPU becomes overtaxed.  Lowering rendering settings that impact VRAM could also eliminate the issue based on the fact that a number of users have in fact eliminated the issue by setting changes.  Games that rely heavily on VRAM (like Dirt Rally 2 with its detailed landscapes that have to be quickly rendered) are likely to be more susceptible either due to temporary overheating or the GPU runs out of available VRAM and has to page to a disk which can significantly slow rendering.

So the bottom line is that it can be multiple reasons why this is occurring and each user is going to have to look closely at their systems to solve it.  Also, what is increasingly clear to me is that it is NOT a Quest 2 issue directly.  Yes, some have reported that issue occurring after a certain Oculus update but the key fact is that not all users experience it with an update.  Only a certain few who are either playing certain graphics intensive games, have GPUs that are maxed out or overheating in some way, or possibly settings too high for their hardware to handle.

We can nail this down further I think by looking at the Oculus logs both when it occurs and when it doesn't and comparing them to see what, if any, messages are logged when the problem occurs.  Identifying a unique logged message would go a long way of identifying the cause more specifically.  I will post more details on everything I've found so far with source info soon.  Just making sure it is as accurate and well documented as possible.