Oculus Rifts are down and it’s all Oculus’ fault

Across the world Oculus Rift owners are completely incapable of entering virtual reality due to a problem with the Oculus Runtime that makes the headset work. Users attempting to access their headsets over the past 24 hours have been greeted with an error message that stops the headset from even turning on properly.

The issue reads:

“Can’t reach Oculus runtime service: Your Oculus software may be updating. Please wait a minute and try again. If the issue continues, contact Oculus support.”

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/9F6hz3tcfI

— Oculus (@oculus) March 8, 2018

As you might imagine, many thousands of owners have and they aren’t happy. It seems that the certificate for the runtime has run out, but updating it is proving difficult, with Oculus now scrambling to fix the problem. Typically this doesn’t happen, because companies countersign a certificate before it expires, making it possible to continue to use the certificate even if it’s out of date. Somehow, Oculus programmers didn’t do that.

In comparison, the HTC Vive’s runtime is absolutely countersigned and has no such problems.

At the time of writing all Oculus Rift headsets are still bricked and there hasn’t been an update from Oculus for a number of hours. While it is purportedly working on a fix — and you can bet they are rushing to get it done — it’s hardly encouraging for Oculus owners to know that one lapse from programmers can leave their still expensive hardware completely useless.