Oculus Rift users all over the world are experiencing problems with using their headsets at the moment. The reason comes down to a simple security certificate.
As of this morning, Oculus Rift users have been experiencing problems in using their devices, with many receiving error messages saying ‘Can’t Reach Oculus Runtime Service’.
Reports quickly began to pile up on Twitter, Facebook and Steam, with Oculus Rift user groups and forums for VR videogames such as Echo Arena seeing large threads develop with an increasing number of users reporting the same issue.
Users and developers managed to narrow down the problem to a particular .dll file called OculusAppFramework.dll. The dll file contains an expired security certificate, which results in the error.
Security certificates are notifications to the PC operating system that confirms that the software is safe and from an approved source, announcing that it is official, approved software and not malware attempting to spoof real software. The expired security certificate means that the software is automatically blocked as the PC cannot confirm if the software is safe.
Game developer Adam Boyne reported on Twitter that the error has prevented his team from operating a demo at an event, disappointing attendees and causing frustration for the developers, who tried in vain to fix the error for over an hour.
Some users on the Oculus forums have reported that disabling the option for ‘Automatically set System date and time’ on Windows and manually setting the date and time back two to three days and then restarting the Oculus runtime service allows users to access and play their Oculus Rift titles. Though users are warned that this can cause other problems with Windows, such as issues with Windows Automatic Updates.
So far, Oculus have not responded to the reported issues, nor has an official fix been released. VRFocus will keep you informed on any further developments regarding this problem.
via Mint VR