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Vive HMD/Base station stop transmitting


Viperbane

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Posted

Hi team,

 

First of all, commiserations on creating something that have the same difficulty as printer setup had in the late 1980's. 

 

Also, you should _REALLY_ _REALLY_ put the biggest banner on your front page advising that HTC Vive does not work if there are any other bluetooth devices in the same city as you want to use th device in. It took me a good 24 hours to figure out I couldn't use my wireless keyboard and mouse anymore. Also, my TV remote can only control my TV now in the extremest and narrowest of angles (I literally have to get down on the floor and "shoot" at my TV like a sniper to get it to work).

 

Despite all of this, taking some 72 - 96 hours to set this up before I could get my first ever hour of game play, I did in the end get it to work (All my years of IT support has made me quite stubborn and I usually get devices to work in the end).

 

However - Since my woefully underpowered computer couldn't quite cut it, I forked out on an upgrade from my AMD FX-8350 to an AMD Ryzen 7 2700X and my GPU GTX970 to a GTX 1080.

 

Guess what?

 

Now Vive doesn't work beyond 5 seconds.

 

Hear me out - I've worked with IT support my entire life, so assume that I've done everything - Yes, even the OS has been completly clean installed - Everything has been uninstalled and reinstalled again. Except for Vive Setup which will not go beyond "Checking Version..." screen and then dies (nothing in the logs about why it terminates). HDMI Cables have been rotated and swapped and shifted and turned back to front. HDMI cables have no problems to send data to my 4K monitor.

 

So, here I am. Everything seem to be working, but it stops after about 5 seconds. I can see SteamVR Home and even move (as much as you can in 5 seconds) - then the message pops up that the HMD is connected but not tracking, followed almost instantly by both Lighthouses going grey in the SteamVR mini window. The physical LEDs on the lighthouses lights up just like they should do - Clear Green main LED, 9 red dots and it is happily humming away, but will not reconnect and track the HMD. After a few more seconds, the HMD also greys out in the SteamVR mini window and none of them will come back without either rebooting the Vive through the software (the Lighthouses do not wake up at all). If I however quit the application and restart it HMD and lighthouses all come back to life - for 5 seconds.

 

I can see in the settings window at the bottom left that data is being transmitted initially at around 7.9 to 8.5 "values" (Whatever that means) and the after the 5 seconds are up it just drops to around 1.1 to 1.3.

 

Having tried to play around with what that measurement is doing, I have found out that if I take the lighthouses out of the room physically and move them some 100ft away and only turn on SteamVR with the HMD, then I can get the values to reach roughly 8.9 and it lasts maybe some 20 - 25 seconds before it warns that the HMD is connected but not tracking.

 

I have now probably spent some 140 - 150 hours trying every trick I know of to get it working, but it will not go beyond those 5 seconds. Everything has been uninstalled - everything has been unplugged - every cable have been checked over with magnifying glass for defects, none have been found.

 

The only change - I upgraded my computer with a new motherboard, RAM, CPU and GPU.

 

What do I do now?

Posted

Small update:

 

As I went back to try and solve the problem I tried the only thing I had yet to do, I moved the lighthouses closer to the center and now that I have the lighthouse roughly 1 meter away (3ft) it can track again. It has been "stable" for just over a minute now.

 

It appears as if my lighthouses have gone nearsighted - They still lose tracking every now and then, but now instead of going "dead" until complete reboot, they are able to restart themselves and the HMD comes back to life.

 

However this still renders the device about as useful as a paperweight for digital documents. I've completely lost any ability to use Room features and I can not move too far or I will likely go outside the available tracking space.

Posted

Update:

 

While moving the lighthouses within 2-3 feet from where I wear the HMD did increase from the 5 seconds to maybe some 40 seconds, they still lose tracking and the SteamVR advises that HMD is not visible for the lighthouses.

 

There are no reflective surfaces anywhere to cause any issues.

 

I am unable to come up with a solution as to what the issue can be - it seem related to the lighthouses not being able to see the HMD unless very close up to it and even so, it loses tracking.

Posted

 

 

Thank you for the thorough description of issue and troubleshooting steps. My first instinct, based on your description is that there is an unresolved interference issue in that room. If the tracking went out on the base stations all together, moving them closer would not help. If there are other sources of IR light or IR reflection, moving them closer would help.

Do you have an Xbox kinect, heat lamps or a stereo in the room which is controlled remotely or any other possible device that could emit/receive IR signals?

If you wouldn't mind, PM me with some photographs of your play space so I can get an idea of what we're dealing with.

Thank you,

-John C

Posted

For clarification in case someone finds this thread in the future having the same problems.

 

I have sent 5 images through to Synthesis, 2 from the angle that the Lighthouses would be able to see and the other three showing overview of seating area, HMD facing direction and TV facing the seat.

 

As for IR - There are none other than the remote control for the TV, no other technology is turned on or plugged in. Small wall mounted TV in back of the room is not plugged in to mains or antenna.

Posted

 

Just popping in to say that the SteamVR system report is your best source of leads on advanced issues.

 

You can verify if it's a reflective issue by generating a SteamVR system log and then ctrl-F'ing "back-facing" to find output logs that relate to reflections. Here's an example below: 

  

Tue Dec 18 2018 22:40:44.590 - lighthouse: LHR-4A99138F H: Dropped 312329 back-facing hits, 41 non-clustered

 i

You've got to remember that it's environmental IR reflections, not visible light so it's not super easy to rule out "reflections" visually (although I see lots of visually reflective surfaces in your photos such as your PC case). 

 

Your photos don't really shed light as to the configuration your mounting your stations as they're just chilling out under your TV. 

 

As synthesis mentioned, it could be IR interference or EMI. Bluetooth interference wouldn't cause this - at best, it would prevent the controllers from talking to the HMD - the HMD would still track. 

Posted

Apologies, the lighthouses were dismounted since my last attempt at trying to fix this when I stacked cardboard boxes around my seat so that I could have then within 2ft of the HMD, which is where they started working for about 30 seconds longer. I've not reconnected them to their old positions as it has been ruled out that they are not able to see the HMD from there anylonger. 

 

It seems as if both the Lighthouses has become "blind"/"nearsighted" since I upgraded my PC.

 

For the sake of generating a new log I will reassemble the old layout and try to find reflective surfaces. They are at least something I can fix up.

 

Also, if my PC case looks reflective, that would be a bit strange since it is a black matte coating on it. 

 

I will get to work getting everything back now and then post my findings here as soon as I can.

Posted

So it would seem that I got a lot of back-facing hits.

 

Any suggestions what I need to do now to resolve the issue?

 

Search "back-facing" (25 hits in 1 file)
\Desktop\SteamVR-2019-03-01-PM_08_36_54.txt (25 hits)

Line 358: Fri Mar 01 2019 18:09:44.564 - lighthouse: LHR-CB158B63 H: Dropped 5365 back-facing hits, 46 non-clustered hits during the previous tracking sessionLine 381: Fri Mar 01 2019 18:10:17.870 - lighthouse: LHR-CB158B63 H: Dropped 5094 back-facing hits, 46 non-clustered hits during the previous tracking sessionLine 401: Fri Mar 01 2019 18:10:45.438 - lighthouse: LHR-CB158B63 H: Dropped 1754 back-facing hits, 9 non-clustered hits during the previous tracking sessionLine 418: Fri Mar 01 2019 18:10:59.076 - lighthouse: LHR-CB158B63 H: Dropped 7 back-facing hits during the previous tracking sessionLine 436: Fri Mar 01 2019 18:11:20.875 - lighthouse: LHR-CB158B63 H: Dropped 618 back-facing hits, 4 non-clustered hits during the previous tracking sessionLine 507: Fri Mar 01 2019 18:12:26.589 - lighthouse: LHR-CB158B63 H: Dropped 8451 back-facing hits during the previous tracking sessionLine 524: Fri Mar 01 2019 18:12:38.135 - lighthouse: LHR-CB158B63 H: Dropped 167 back-facing hits during the previous tracking sessionLine 757: Fri Mar 01 2019 18:15:09.259 - lighthouse: LHR-CB158B63 H: Dropped 90 back-facing hits during the previous tracking sessionLine 3403: Fri Mar 01 2019 17:50:13.008 - lighthouse: LHR-CB158B63 H: Dropped 19321 back-facing hits, 145 non-clustered hits during the previous tracking sessionLine 3445: Fri Mar 01 2019 17:50:55.039 - lighthouse: LHR-CB158B63 H: Dropped 425 back-facing hits, 10 non-clustered hits during the previous tracking sessionLine 3454: Fri Mar 01 2019 17:51:04.659 - lighthouse: LHR-CB158B63 H: Dropped 7 back-facing hits during the previous tracking sessionLine 3489: Fri Mar 01 2019 17:51:44.567 - lighthouse: LHR-CB158B63 H: Dropped 46 back-facing hits during the previous tracking sessionLine 3511: Fri Mar 01 2019 17:52:23.115 - lighthouse: LHR-CB158B63 H: Dropped 1356 back-facing hits, 66 non-clustered hits during the previous tracking sessionLine 3574: Fri Mar 01 2019 17:52:49.631 - lighthouse: LHR-CB158B63 H: Dropped 2226 back-facing hits during the previous tracking sessionLine 3819: Fri Mar 01 2019 17:59:02.124 - lighthouse: LHR-CB158B63 H: Dropped 66 back-facing hits during the previous tracking sessionLine 4063: Fri Mar 01 2019 18:03:57.391 - lighthouse: LHR-CB158B63 H: Dropped 7483 back-facing hits, 858 non-clustered hits during the previous tracking sessionLine 4099: Fri Mar 01 2019 18:04:43.164 - lighthouse: LHR-CB158B63 H: Dropped 78 rejected updates, 2338 back-facing hits, 384 non-clustered hits during the previous tracking sessionLine 4109: Fri Mar 01 2019 18:04:53.185 - lighthouse: LHR-CB158B63 H: Dropped 32 back-facing hits during the previous tracking sessionLine 4131: Fri Mar 01 2019 18:05:10.606 - lighthouse: LHR-CB158B63 H: Dropped 208 back-facing hits, 4 non-clustered hits during the previous tracking sessionLine 4153: Fri Mar 01 2019 18:05:40.958 - lighthouse: LHR-CB158B63 H: Dropped 396 back-facing hits, 36 non-clustered hits during the previous tracking sessionLine 4175: Fri Mar 01 2019 18:06:11.574 - lighthouse: LHR-CB158B63 H: Dropped 46 back-facing hits, 45 non-clustered hits during the previous tracking sessionLine 4185: Fri Mar 01 2019 18:06:21.498 - lighthouse: LHR-CB158B63 H: Dropped 56 back-facing hits during the previous tracking sessionLine 4215: Fri Mar 01 2019 18:07:40.221 - lighthouse: LHR-CB158B63 H: Dropped 8046 back-facing hits, 97 non-clustered hits during the previous tracking sessionLine 4237: Fri Mar 01 2019 18:07:57.872 - lighthouse: LHR-CB158B63 H: Dropped 326 back-facing hits, 10 non-clustered hits during the previous tracking sessionLine 4250: Fri Mar 01 2019 18:08:19.780 - lighthouse: LHR-CB158B63 H: Dropped 31 back-facing hits, 6 non-clustered hits during the previous tracking session

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