Every Oculus Rift around the world stopped working this morning - Users appear to be experiencing the exact same issue

https://archive.fo/H2YMG

Oculus Rift virtual reality headsets around the world are experiencing an outage this morning, including devices here at Polygon. Users are not sure what is causing the issue, and so far neither Facebook nor Oculus itself has provided a solution.

One place where users experiencing the issue are gathering is on the Oculus forums. Last night user apexmaster booted up his computer, tried to open the Oculus app and was greeted by an error indicating that the software could not reach the “Oculus Runtime Service.”

That same error is cropping up on computers all around the world, including several devices here at Polygon. Once it has appeared, there’s no way to restart the Oculus app, which renders the Rift headset unusable.

I was able to get the Oculus application to open up just a little while ago, but an update of the software itself (version 1.24) appeared to be hung in the download queue. Troubleshooting steps listed by the Oculus website included restarting the software, which would not clear the issue for me. The next step given was to reboot my computer. After reboot, I received the same error message as listed above. There’s no clear way forward at this time.

At least one developer, Adam Boyne, was mid-demo at an event when his Oculus stopped working. He said that he spent an hour trying to get his unit to start back up, but was similarly flummoxed.

One user, digging through the Oculus files on his machine, seems to think that the issue could be a lapsed security certificate that expired today. Security certificates are issued by third-party agencies and allow for software and websites to authenticate with each other in order to prevent malicious hacking and fraud. Without a valid security certificate, some operating systems will prevent certain programs from running.

Polygon has reached out to Oculus for more information.
 
Russian Knuckles is at it again.
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The internet of things is rapidly becoming an unmanageable system with way too much complexity. Every occulus rift on the planet not working because of a lapsed security script is funny. Now imagine every power plant not working because of a network run time error. We like to think great technological complexity makes our lives easier, but so many things could actually work just fine using vacuum tubes and punch cards, with the only tradeoff being the company would have to hire a few extra engineers and have them work on site rather then hiring one engineer to stare at 50 different computer screens from a central location and do fuck all as the system software does his job for him.

We are literally a few generations away from this.

 
That's quite a nice piece of hardware, it would be a shame if something happened to it...
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All joking aside, I consider this a warning shot. This time, it's just a glorified toy, but as @mindlessobserver has pointed out, the moment this happens with something actually important could spell disaster. If it's actually just something as benign as a security certificate expiring, it's not a reason to be relieved, it's a reason to realize how flimsy this whole kind of setup is.
 
it's an error message because they didn't log into facebook before using their oculus

Is there actually some good reason why a vr headset needs to be connected to a source network in order to run? Or is it like shutting down your single player video game because it loses connection to Ubisoft's servers and it's compete bullshit?
no. they do it because they want to steal your information and sell it
 
Is there actually some good reason why a vr headset needs to be connected to a source network in order to run? Or is it like shutting down your single player video game because it loses connection to Ubisoft's servers and it's compete bullshit?

I had no idea it had to be. But then again I don't own an Oculus Rift. Seems unnecessary to me that it needs to connect to run.

Imagine not being certified to play pretend. Also this is a real good example of why always-online hardware is a bad practice .

We're only an error away from disaster. Sadly, there are people that will defend everything about the Oculus. Always online is always bad.
 
This doesn't effect me so honestly I don't care. Perhaps part of me laughs when toys break that I don't think are good.

But, I do want to point something out and not be a-loggy. In regards to serious things going wrong, yes that's a threat yes that can be scary, but this is something I try to express to people all the time, learn the old way. It's a crime schools don't teach hand writing, etc.

If my auto pay on my phone dies out, I know how to write a check. I know how to mail it etc. Now if it's a coolant system on a nuclear plant... fugg but, stuff like this happens, you aren't a crazed prepper for keeping some candles around if power is lost etc.

It's important we keep systems well oiled and smooth, but when it's a bunch of man children upset their toys break just take a chill pill point and laugh.
 
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