Vive Focus 3 - "loading" issue

[EddyChan]

Hi guys,

I am having a very disturbing issue with my Vive Focus 3 ... often time while using it, the display went off, a loading screen with a spinner and a VIVE logo (triangle) showed up, it lasted for 5-10 secs usually, sometimes up to minutes, sometimes it was stuck forever even after reboot (ended up I had to factory reset it).

I have done some research about this issue, some suggested that it is due to "lost tracking" from the 4 cams at the concerns, some suggested that it is due to poor lighting in the room, some suggested that it is due to dirty cams.

Wondering did any one come across the same issue? And how did you prevent this from happening?

Thanks much.

[sebastian_holocafe]

I wish I had an answer on this. We get this completely randomly. We've got a four-player LBE setup. Even when there are no other players in the tracking volume, sometimes the device initializes within seconds and sometimes it takes like 10 minutes and several attempts before we get beyond the loading screen. We're actively moving the headset around the room so it can identify visual properties of the environment, but it remains random whether it takes seconds or minutes. I've also noticed two different cases:
 

• black screen with loading spinner
• black screen with loading spinner on top of app icon (e.g. lobby or business streaming)

Would be helpful to know what these different states mean exactly. Maybe that helps tracking down the underlying issue. When I remote desktop onto the computer, I see angular, but not positional movement when I still see the loading state in the headset. To me that implies that the IMU tracking is already being transmitted, but positional is not - so that should have something to do with the map.

[EddyChan]

hi sebastian_holocafe,

Thanks much for replying to me.

I am actually also aware of those 2 cases as you stated. AFAIK, the first one indicates that the IR cams failed to track, hence loss of positional movement (while IMU should be still working fine). The second one is more related to the application level, to our use case, we are using Kiosk mode with a single content (which is our own app), sometimes the loading persists even after rebooting, ended up we had to factory reset it.

From what I've seen so far, yeah, the first loading case (black screen with loading spinner) happens randomly, I am trying my luck here to see if someone has a suggestion how to minimize the chance of occurrence at least.

[Ixixly]

EddyChan, can you confirm which colour the loading logo is? It's useful to know that White Loading Logo is for tracking whilst the blue is related to app loading. For example if you see the App Logo and a blue loading logo then it's something to do with the app hanging or not loading properly whilst white would mean it has lost tracking. If it is white then likely you're having tracking issues, have you tried using the Android App to do a map refinement to help give better tracking?

[EddyChan]

Ixixly, 

Thanks for the info. I am sure it is white. 

We are using VO mode, besides we don't use map as well, since in our case, we are using an outside-in tracking system, the play area is handled by our own logic.

[Ixixly]

I see, then it could come down to your area that you are trying to use the Headsets in. As I understand, without a map that stores specific tracking points to reference the area needs to be very considerate towards tracking, it needs to have decent light levels and lots of unique tracking points. Could you include some photos of the area you're using it in?

[EddyChan]

@Ixixly

Here I included a photo of our play area. I know the design of the walls and floor are a bit plain, but not sure how much does it contribute to the tracking issue.

[dario]

Yes it's a bit plain, enough so that optical inside out tracking may not find enough unique points to track unfortunately. Most LBE installations nowadays will add patterns to plain walls and floors to assist with tracking, see if stickers will do the trick (just enough for the fov of the cameras to have something to track) they can be just a shade off.

[Ixixly]

Oh yeah, way too plain!! You need to get some markings on the walls and floors if you want to get it working properly.