Are you a fan of the Oculus Rift? Statistics indicate that if you’re reading this article, you probably are. Unfortunately for fans of the Rift, their favorite VR headset stopped working today. Attempts to use the Oculus Rift in any applications have failed, meaning that these $400+ VR headsets are, as of today, effectively worthless. Oculus is scrambling for a fix to this issue, but this begs two big questions:
What happened
Essentially, the “signature” that allows Oculus software to run expired. Certificates exist for all kinds of things- websites, applications, etc- and they all need to be periodically renewed. In the case of code on Windows, especially code that uses system resources, this code’s certification needs to be up-to-date. If it isn’t, Windows will block the code in question from running.
In this case, that means Oculus Rift headsets no longer function until Oculus fixes them. Or, if you want, you can take this into your own hands.
Redditors have provided ample solutions for the problem until Oculus fixes it. We recommend this solution, as it will be the least likely to harm your system if it goes wrong. You can also try setting back your system clock and restarting, but the reliability of that solution varies.
Oculus’ response
We're still working hard to resolve the issue & are in the process of integrating an updated cert. This has some added complexity, as the expired cert blocks our standard update path. We're working through options & expect to have more details tonight. https://t.co/uM54CuqqIn
— Oculus Rift (@OculusRift) March 8, 2018
Oculus’ response to this mess came in the form of a few posts on Twitter and Reddit some hours after the reports started. At the time of writing, Oculus has yet to push out a patch fixing this issue. It could take days- nobody really knows at this point. Your options are to wait for Oculus to fix it or hack around it yourself.
