The lead up:

It was working a couple months ago. The headset was just sitting on a stand with the cable loosely looped back and forth in like usual so I’m hoping it’s not a cable issue.

I decided to play around with it today and the Meta Quest software updated automatically and after that I was getting weird disconnect messages, a black screen, and static. Now I am getting no signs of life from the headset in terms of LEDs or other lights; only chimes that something is being connected and disconnected to my computer.

I previously had issues getting my Rift S headset to work likely due to some kind of power related issue on my old PC. A couple months ago it would work fine with no issues.

Most posts seem related to “Port Reset Failed” errors.

My troubleshooting steps so far have been:

  • I swapped around the DisplayPort and USB connection (USB 3.2 and with a PCI-E USB expansion card) and reinserted the connector on the headset

  • I went into Device Manager and uninstalled “Unknown USB Device (Device Descriptor Request Failed)” and “Rift USB Hub” before plugging the USB cord back in.

  • I plugged the USB cord in and waited before plugging in the DisplayPort cable.

  • I tried reinstalling the drivers using the oculus-driver.exe found in ./Oculus/Support/ and the Oculus software all together.

  • Downgrading the drivers using instructions from the Oculus subreddit doesn’t appear possible because it requires the Rift S to be recognized during the Oculus setup process.

  • Straightening out the cable and feeling for any irregularities.

  • Rebooting multiple times during all of this.

  • Verified the ports on my computer are working.

  • Disconnecting the headset end while the other side is connected to my computer

Steps that might help but I would like to avoid:

  • Verifying the headset works using a different PC. As mentioned at the top my old PC had it’s own set of issues with the Rift and I don’t have friends to reach out to borrow a PC.

  • Purchasing a new cable. They are proprietary and cost more than the headset by itself and aren’t sold by Meta.

  • Reaching out to Meta support. They seem to recommend the same steps of reseating the cable, reseating the headset, rebooting the PC, and uninstalling things in Device Manager. In a few posts they seem pretty dismissive and refer to the Rift S as old. There’s a lot of unresolved posts on the Meta community forums.

  • Reinstalling Windows. It sounds like this rarely works and it would be a hassle.

If it does come down to spending $100 on the cable I might just consider getting a new headset that doesn’t have anything to do with Meta. If you can think of one that it isn’t crazy expensive let me know. The Meta Quest 3 looks neat and decently priced but I am real tired of dealing with Meta and how they handled the Rift S.