Pre headset only tracking sporadically since yesterday

[トジ (Toji)]

Since yesterday evening I've suddenly been unable to get my Vive Pre to retain tracking while in use. When it does gain tracking it typically will show the grey grid room for a few seconds then blink out to solid grey, then back to the grid room 5-10 times in the about as many seconds before finally giving up and throwing up an error in the VRMonitor that the HMD can't be tracked. I've found that if you hold it very still once it gains tracking it will usually keep the display up, which kind of suggests a cable problem, but I've found that I can yank and toss and pull the cable as much as I want and the image will stay up as long as the HMD is still.

The Room overview tool shows that the controllers are tracking pretty consistently, so I doubt it's a the base stations.

I've tried all the tricks in my bag: Rebooting, reseating all the cables, changing USB ports, uninstalling the USB devices and reinstalling, revering back to non-beta SteamVR, updaing my graphics drivers from 361.75 to 361.91, but nothing has helped thus far. I can't even point to anything that changed on the PC, unfortunately. I just noticed it when I sat down to do some development last night.

I've grabbed a system report and I'll send it to steamvr@valvesoftware along with a link to this post. I'm also going to bring the system to my office tomorrow and give it a try there. In the meantime suggestions are welcome! Was really hoping to do some debugging tonight. :(

[トジ (Toji)]

Quick update: Just found that the problem seems to be with one of the Lighthouse units. It's the one that's most visible when facing my monitor (my "c" unit, if that matters), so naturally it's the one that I tended to point the headset at when I'm trying to gain tracking. I found, though, that if I face it towards the other unit ("b") I track perfectly, and I only seem to lose tracking again when that unit is occluded. I swapped their positions in the room to ensure it wasn't a jittery wall mount but the bad unit is still behaving badly regardless of which corner it's in. Swapping "b" and "c" settings didn't make a difference either. Gonna go dig out the sync cable and see if that helps.

EDIT: Nope. Sync cable doesn't help. Guess the box has just gone bad?

[Adam Robo]

I'm having the exact same problem.

[トジ (Toji)]

Final observation before I'm off to bed. I'm back up and running by swapping out the presumably bad unit for one of the lighthouse units from my DK1. I did try the wireless sync trick mentioned on https://steamcommunity.com/app/358720/discussions/0/405691491113956176/#c405692224230318949 of setting the new unit to "C" and the old one to "B" but couldn't get it to work. Connecting the two with a sync cable did the trick, though.

[SDGNelson]

We seem to be experiencing a similar problem. The controller nearest that specific lighthouse frequently loses tracking, same thing when facing it with the HMD. I tried everything you mentioned in your post and more, but the problem persists.

Hopefully this is something fixable on the software side, as we don't have a DK1 lighthouse to fallback to.

Edit to provide a bit more information: In the room setup tool the working lighthouse perfectly lines up with a controller, but when I bring the controller over to the other lighthouse it's off by quite a bit. When viewing the "broken" lighthouse through the HMD [when it tracks long enough to see it] it's off by about a meter lower than it should be.

[トジ (Toji)]

FYI: After contacting support they're having me RMA the lighthouse unit. I'll be shipping it in to them and they'll send a working one back.

[SDGNelson]

Ah interesting, thanks for letting me know. I'll send them an e-mail and a system report in that case.

For anyone who also experiences this I found that a temporary fix is to just disable the broken lighthouse, while you can't turn 360 degrees the tracking with one lighthouse is better than with a broken and a working one.

[Judson]

I'm having this exact issue. I tried all of the troubleshoot steps you listed and then found your post. One additional step I took was to swap the lighthouse units but the problem followed the one unit.

Serious bummer. I guess I'll contact support.

[トジ (Toji)]

For the record I got the replacement base station today and it's solved the problem entirely. That makes the total turnaround time 11 days since I first contacted support. At least two of those days were my fault, though, since it took me that long after receiving the RMA label to ship back the broken unit.

[poke50uk]

Originally posted by トジ (Toji):

For the record I got the replacement base station today and it's solved the problem entirely. That makes the total turnaround time 11 days since I first contacted support. At least two of those days were my fault, though, since it took me that long after receiving the RMA label to ship back the broken unit.

Did they get you to pay for replacement/repairs?

Cause my Pre headset was DOA, and they are saying there's no warranty, so they say I have to pay for a replacement/repairs, as well as the massive shipping costs to send it to a 3rd party repair centre >_>

[トジ (Toji)]

I was provided a prepaid label and they shipped me the new unit (just the lighthouse unit, mind you) free of charge.