Early adopters of the Oculus Rift, a virtual-reality headset that pioneered the current VR trend in gaming, reported the product was malfunctioning today. When booting up the app Microsoft Windows users were met with the error message "Your Oculus software may be updating. Please wait a minute and try again. If the issue continues, please contact Oculus support."
The issue was first reported on the Oculus forums by user apexmaster, before being experienced by other users attempting to run the software on Windows PCs. The issue was reported as being widespread across the United States and Europe, with suggested solutions of reinstalling video and graphics drivers or trying to boot the Rift VR headset on different systems proving fruitless.
What happened to the Oculus software?
So far neither Oculus nor Facebook, who bought the company after their initial headset was successfully crowdfunded on Kickstarter, have commented on the situation. Users are met with the error message when starting up the software required to use the headset for any virtual reality gaming or other software. Once the message has appeared, it is impossible to restart the app, rendering the headset non-functional.
The company's troubleshooting document suggests downloading the app again, or else restarting the affected computer. Most users have reported this does not fix the problem. Some have noticed that a software update appears but has somehow got stuck in their download queue, which may be the issue.
Is it working again now?
After the issue was reported directly to Oculus from users on social media, and reported on across tech and gaming websites, the company released a statement to confirm they were looking into the issue. They provided a link to the Oculus Runtime Services page, which gives users updates on any current outages or known issues with the software.
After further investigation, Oculus confirmed what many users had hypothesized was the issue: an expired security certificate within the app means that Windows cannot run the software. In a statement on the official forums, they announced that they were attempting to update the certificate (which keeps the Oculus Rift software secure for users), but pushing the update out to the huge number of affected users "has some added complexity," as it blocks their standard software update path.
Oculus have since released a software update which can be directly downloaded by users, which will allow the Rift to successfully boot up. According to an email sent directly to Oculus users, the patch will fix the "Can't Reach Oculus Runtime Service" error. They have also offered Rift owners $15 of Oculus Store credit (or currency equivalent).
