Today has not been a great day for Oculus. For most of the past 12+ hours, users have been unable to use the Oculus Rift. As you can imagine, after investing in VR, owners use their headsets regularly and those developing on the platform could well have had demonstrations scheduled today. When launching the Oculus desktop software, users received an error message indicating the software couldn’t connect with the Oculus Runtime Service. The reason was due to a certificate error.
As an Oculus Rift owner, tonight I received an email confirming there was a patch now available to fix the issue, but required a manual install. To compensate users for the outage, they’re adding $15 (or currency equivalent) to impacted people. This will take up to 7 days to be added to all accounts.
When it comes to repairing the software, the process really is quite simple. Just click the link below or in the email and download a 4MB installer, run it and when applied you’re asked to repair the Oculus Software. This process downloads an additional 55.0MB, but then the software is repaired and functions as normal.
Here’s the full statement by Oculus.
We’ve just released an Oculus software update that fixes an issue where Rift may fail to start up. If you’re receiving the error “Can’t Reach Oculus Runtime Service,” you’ll need to manually update your Oculus software before you can use your Rift.
To patch your Oculus software, you’ll need to download ‘OculusPatchMarch2018.exe’ at https://www.oculus.com/rift-patch/. Run the executable, and select “Repair”. When the update is finished, launch the Oculus desktop app to continue the update process. Once the update is complete, you’ll be able to use your Rift.
A step-by-step walkthrough is available here: https://support.oculus.com/217157135500529/
A manual update is only necessary if you’re unable to start the Oculus desktop app – if you aren’t seeing an error, the system will update itself to the new version automatically.
We’re very sorry for the disruption today. We’re providing a $15 Oculus Store credit (or currency equivalent) to people impacted by this issue. If you used Rift on or after February 1st, 2018 this credit will be added to your account automatically within the next 7 days. See this page for info about Oculus Store credits.
Sorry again for any inconvenience this may have caused, and thanks for choosing Rift.
– The Oculus Team
