fixed Latest Oculus v63 PTC build crashing DCS when used on Oculus Link

[SrSosio]

Hi. I've been playing DCS in VR for 2 years now without many issues. I'm running a Pico 4 with Virtual Desktop and up until this morning, everything worked as expected.

This morning, Steam VR updated to version 1.25.7 and the headset connects properly to VD, then connects properly to Steam VR, but when I launch DCS, it launches in windowed mode, not VR. I've tried rebooting the computer, MT, single thread version, everything I can think of.

Any hint of what could be happening?

[Woxof]

Sounds like me.  'Cept I've been playing for going on 10 years, and don't use Steam.  But in my case the sim crashes on the "DCS World" startup screen, only when i try to run it in VR mode.  Running without VR I get a normal startup process and the main screen.  I can select a mission and get into an aircraft cockpit with no trouble. 

I've been running in VR mode for over a year with no problems, until today.  I should add that I'm running the stable version.

Log file attached.

 

 

dcs.20230325-183928.log.zip

Edited March 25, 2023 by Woxof

[SrSosio]

Mine don't crash. It just won't load in VR

[wheelie]

12 hours ago, Assamita said:

Hi. I've been playing DCS in VR for 2 years now without many issues. I'm running a Pico 4 with Virtual Desktop and up until this morning, everything worked as expected.

This morning, Steam VR updated to version 1.25.7 and the headset connects properly to VD, then connects properly to Steam VR, but when I launch DCS, it launches in windowed mode, not VR. I've tried rebooting the computer, MT, single thread version, everything I can think of.

Any hint of what could be happening?

First thing is rollback to the previous version of Steam as thats the latest change that has broken your setup buddy.
Or perhaps the dcs.exe that you're launching doesnt have the addition arguments after the dcs.exe

E.g. dcs.exe should normally have --force_enable_VR

e.g. I use openxr and use the following

"D:\Programs\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World OpenBeta\bin-mt\DCS.exe" --force_enable_VR --force_OpenXR
Yours may need the following:  --force_steam_VR

 

Edited March 25, 2023 by wheelie

[SrSosio]

10 hours ago, wheelie said:

First thing is rollback to the previous version of Steam as thats the latest change that has broken your setup buddy.
Or perhaps the dcs.exe that you're launching doesnt have the addition arguments after the dcs.exe

E.g. dcs.exe should normally have --force_enable_VR

e.g. I use openxr and use the following

"D:\Programs\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World OpenBeta\bin-mt\DCS.exe" --force_enable_VR --force_OpenXR
Yours may need the following:  --force_steam_VR

 

 

That did the trick, at least for the MT version, as it links directly to the DCS.exe file ("D:\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World OpenBeta\bin-mt\DCS.exe" --force_enable_VR --force_steam_VR)

I still need to test if it will work with the single thread version, because that one is pointing to the updater: "D:\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World OpenBeta\bin\DCS_updater.exe"

[wheelie]

@AssamitaYou should point it to the DCS.exe buddy rather than the updater for the single thread version. You only really need to use the updater when a new release is available.

[slughead]

I've just had the latest Oculus PTC v63 downloaded to my Oculus Pro and DCS crashes just at the point when it is about to launch into VR. DCS runs fine when I revert to v62.

Is anyone else seeing this?

The DCS.log doesn't reveal anything. It's just cut short with no obvious error.

If this is caused by some API change on the Oculus end DCS will need to jump on this quickly before the next general release of the Oculus software.

dcs.log

Edited March 9 by slughead

[mimamema]

I can confirm this,  this has just happened to me, I was having problems running DCS and after following @slugheadadvice of downgrading to V62  that shorted the problem. The only thing I could add is that the Oculus version in conflict with DCS VR is V63 which is only available in the Public Test Channel. null

[Arrow11Crash]

Yes, happens to me as well. Was last working well on 14 Feb 24 and there was a PTC update on the 15th (from the point of view of an Australian time zone).

Reverting from PTC fixes the problem. Same issue, the log stops at the point where it lists the options. After a deep clean/repair of DCS, removal of mods, deletion of fxo/metashaders, I initially "fixed" this problem by changing the name of my DCS folder in Saved Games to something else (on the advice of Bigity on the dcs-help-room thread on ED's discord, thanks mate), and in adding things back in one at a time I found that options.lua was the source of the problem.

On editing settings one at a time it was apparent that enabling the "Use VR headset" option results in a crash to desktop around the end of when the 15th anniversary DCS splash screen disappears. 

It will probably need to be raised on the Oculus forums, but it's notoriously hard to make something stick on those forums (you just get mindless AI bot responses from Meta) so we should probably all report it there.

[Lange_666]

Time to block the update of the non PTC version because when this bug enters the release version, we're screwed.

[Flappie]

@slughead Can you please attach the latest zip file from your Logs folder? I'd like to send it to devs so they can study it and fix the problem.

[Arrow11Crash]

@Flappie it doesn’t generate a zip, mate - DCS crashes immediately without reporting an exception or error in the log, the log file itself is truncated. I’ll see if I can find one of my truncated ones from earlier today and post it here.

[slughead]

@Flappie no zip files produced. Let me know if there is anything else I can do to help.

[Flappie]

OK, that confirms it then, thank you both. I've already sent your dcs.log to devs. If devs ask for more stuff, I'll get back to you.

[SkateZilla]

13 hours ago, slughead said:

I've just had the latest Oculus PTC v62 downloaded to my Oculus Pro and DCS crashes just at the point when it is about to launch into VR. DCS runs fine when I revert to the non-PTC version of v62.

Is anyone else seeing this?

The DCS.log doesn't reveal anything. It's just cut short with no obvious error.

If this is caused by some API change on the Oculus end DCS will need to jump on this quickly before the next release (v64?) of the Oculus software.

dcs.log 16.45 kB · 6 downloads

Just to test,

Launch DCS in VR, when it crashes, end process on DCS and Close out Oculus, launch, close it again, then launch it and then DCS.

I have this issue w/ every VP App right now, 

Except it's crashing AMD's driver, but only does it when I launch a VR App,

[slughead]

@SkateZillaI can't work out what you are trying to demonstrate or what you expect the outcome to be as you've not stated what you expect it to be. For sure, I expect Meta's change to affect many applications. For example, they recently made a change that broke SteamVR which was subsequently fixed in a SteamVR beta build.

[SkateZilla]

2 minutes ago, slughead said:

@SkateZillaI can't work out what you are trying to demonstrate or what you expect the outcome to be as you've not stated what you expect it to be. For sure, I expect Meta's change to affect many applications. For example, they recently made a change that broke SteamVR which was subsequently fixed in a SteamVR beta build.

 

This is the situation step by step that I'm doing:.

-Launch Oculus VR, Wait for Home to load in headset.
-Launch DCS, As soon as Home in Headset fades out w/ chime, I get a AMD Driver Crash Prompt.
-DCS screen remains in headset, but frozen. and 1 frame every 5 seconds the position of said image would update.
-C.A.D., End Process on DCS (well I use my app obviously).
-Close out Oculus Home, as even after DCS Process is terminated, the image remains stuck in the headset.
-Launch Oculus again, wait for headset to kill the DCS Image and reload home.
-Launch DCS in VR and it loads w/o issue.

Now if i close DCS, I have to repeat the process.
this also occurs with every other VR app I use.

[slughead]

Ok.

I don't get a GPU driver crash prompt.

I don't see DCS screen in the headset - the new PTC has changed this. It now shows all your recently run apps and displays a swirling circle on the ones that are loading.

DCS does not remain in the task manager - it is killed automatically or by itself so there is no hung process to terminate that I could see.

It would seem that the behaviour for you is a bit different to mine. Maybe because you are using AMD and I am using NVidia.

I'll test again later today to see if I can get anymore information out of the system/process.

[SkateZilla]

I'll test again in a day or so, travelling for work.

[DrBob]

I have this issue as well with quest 3. Opted out from ptc. Back to v62 and its working again. Canceled automatic updates

[slughead]

Update: rolling back just the Oculus app solves the problem (i.e. opting out of PTC on the app and not the headset). Using the PTC, the Oculus app was updated to v63 whilst the headset remained v62.

I have raised the issue on the atmeta support forum: PTC v62: Oculus app updated to v63 headset update ... - Meta Community Forums - 1152703 (atmeta.com)

Edited February 16 by slughead

[slughead]

@BIGNEWY I think this is still worth DCS looking at in case Meta has decided to make a permanent change. Considering that they forced Steam to change their VR code in the last couple of weeks, I expect they will also expect ED to follow suit as well.

[Om]

Hi. I was playing with my teammate, it was ok, no updates or so, just his DCS stopped work with VR someday. 

Man is newbie, just bought Apache and in a couple of weeks this happens. Nothing was changed - just DCS died.

We tried MT with vr force parameter, and ever MT with Oculus and SteamVr - no result.

We didn't try reinstall the game (it will be pain for him to config it again), tried steam files verification - ok, Quest update - ok.

The game is Steam version.

In 2D flat mode it's ok

dcs.log is attached

Any clues how to fix this? 

dcs.log

Edited February 19 by Om

[BIGNEWY]

Oculus VR users and the last PTC update (V63) is producing a conflict with DCS. The workaround is to go back to v62. 

we are looking into what meta has changed

thank you 

[Om]

23 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

Oculus VR users and the last PTC update (V63) is producing a conflict with DCS. The workaround is to go back to v62. 

we are looking into what meta has changed

thank you 

As far as I know there is no way to rollback update on Oculus devices