Darker section in the center of my field of view.

[Gracey Face]

It's been over a year since I last used my index. Over all of that time it has been sat on a shelf wrapped up to protect it from the environment. I set it up today and there are now darker areas in the center of my view on both eyes, but it is worse on the right than the left.

Is this just my screens packing up? Any way to fix it in software?

Oh and in case it matters, the darker areas are in the shape of a somewhat rounded off vertical rectangle. Like looking through the center of a 0 in that football font.

[Gracey Face]

Hmm, from a quick look around on google, this is just a thing that happens to indexes if you don't use them constantly...

lmfao.

Though to be fair I have never turned my TV off for a year so who knows, maybe this happens to every screen..?

[Raterix]

This is absolutely not a problem with Indexes if you don't use them, I ran the same Google Search.

You have negative forum reputation and have been known to be aggressively hateful towards VR.

You have also been harmful to users on Back 4 Blood discussions.

No support will be provided to you by me.

[Gracey Face]

Originally posted by Raterix:

This is absolutely not a problem with Indexes if you don't use them, I ran the same Google Search.

You have negative forum reputation and have been known to be aggressively hateful towards VR.

You have also been harmful to users on Back 4 Blood discussions.

No support will be provided to you by me.

Why waste both of our time posting this?

[Gracey Face]

Just for anyone who stumbles on this thread with the same problem, some of the people in the posts my searching turned up said the problem reduced in severity as you used the headset more. They speculated that it was dust inside the headset settling on the inside of the lenses being shaken off with use.

I havent used the headset much since I posted this OP but I can corroborate that it gets less severe if you use the headset. I can barely even see it at this point.

[T-Error]

I have the same issue after I didn't use it for a year. Just wanted to confirm that Gracey Face is not lying. I don't think it's dust. This seems to come from light that entered the lenses. I have another Index headset that was sitting inside the box the whole time and this one doesn't have the darker areas. @Valve You should really warn users and recommend putting it back in the box if you don't use it or include a cover for the lenses.

[Gracey Face]

Originally posted by T-Error:

I have the same issue after I didn't use it for a year. Just wanted to confirm that Gracey Face is not lying. I don't think it's dust. This seems to come from light that entered the lenses. I have another Index headset that was sitting inside the box the whole time and this one doesn't have the darker areas. @Valve You should really warn users and recommend putting it back in the box if you don't use it or include a cover for the lenses.

My headset was sitting inside of a box the entire time too, while also wrapped in a towel.

While it might be light related in some instances I think in others it is just age.

[T-Error]

I hope it's not the lenses that degrade in some form, I'm currently trying to fix it with a IPS panel fix video that I let run for hours in a loop in DeoVR. I'll report later if that fixes it. I had this issue years ago and had the impression it fixed it to some degree but I'm not 100% sure because I haven't used my headset much since then. It was already sitting unused for a year again because of the lack of good VR games. The awesome mods from Praydog made me connect it again. I hope I can revive this headset as the other one has horrible column stripes that even the column correction can't get rid of.

[T-Error]

After 12 hours of just letting the video run(black and white flashing) it's even worse now! Man Valve hardware truly is miserable. It took 5 replacement headsets (RMA) until I got one that was working fine and it broke from not using it. This is just hilarious!

[T-Error]

OK I found out something really interesting just now. If I set the column correction all the way down to to -10 per eye it nearly isn't visible anymore and if I set it up to +10 it's absolutely visible. Maybe it is software related after all. If anyone could try this out and confirm this it would be nice.
BTW this is the reddit post related to the problem: https://www.reddit.com/r/ValveIndex/comments/irlvq6/dark_square_visible_in_both_eyes/

[T-Error]

Also changing to 90Hz from 120Hz while the column correction sliders are both set to -10 eliminates the column stripes on movement nearly completely. I suspected that the column correction was broken for a long time as I always had to adjust the sliders to different values every time I used the headset. @Valve please look at this topic again!

[Gracey Face]

Originally posted by T-Error:

OK I found out something really interesting just now. If I set the column correction all the way down to to -10 per eye it nearly isn't visible anymore and if I set it up to +10 it's absolutely visible. Maybe it is software related after all. If anyone could try this out and confirm this it would be nice.
BTW this is the reddit post related to the problem: https://www.reddit.com/r/ValveIndex/comments/irlvq6/dark_square_visible_in_both_eyes/

Heh, that's one of the threads I went back in time to create in order to aggressively hate on VR according to Rasterix.

Anyway I can't test it at the moment but next time I am playing on VR I'll see if changing my framerates and correction make it more visible. The dark/dim spots have gotten to the point where I can't see them anymore but I normally use the index at 80fps so if it is framerate dependant that might be why.

[T-Error]

The framerate reduction only reduces the horrible stripey image of the Index when you set the column correction to -10. The stripes are the worst thing of the Index IMO as it absolutely breaks the immersion. What fixes the visible areas is the column correction. I'm glad my Index is at least usable again even though it's still a bit stripey and the darker area is still visible a tiny bit. 90 instead of 120 frames are quite headache inducing to me though. I think I have to get a Bigscreen Beyond if Valve doesn't finally show project Deckard in the near future. I hope they get rid of those horrible IPS panels on their next headset and use OLEDs.

[weirdestchef]

I’m having an issue where theres this dark circle in my left lense? Not very noticeable. But any idea what it is or how to fix it? Thanks.

[Gracey Face]

Originally posted by weirdestchef:

I’m having an issue where theres this dark circle in my left lense? Not very noticeable. But any idea what it is or how to fix it? Thanks.

Mine just went away with use. No idea what caused it but like I said I had seen people suggesting that it was dust settled on the inside of the lenses due to not being used for a while that will gradually get shaken off with use. That fits with my experience, though I have no idea if it is actually what is happening.

[Turambar]

Originally posted by Gracey Face:

Originally posted by weirdestchef:

I’m having an issue where theres this dark circle in my left lense? Not very noticeable. But any idea what it is or how to fix it? Thanks.

Mine just went away with use. No idea what caused it but like I said I had seen people suggesting that it was dust settled on the inside of the lenses due to not being used for a while that will gradually get shaken off with use. That fits with my experience, though I have no idea if it is actually what is happening.

I am glad that your problem is being solved little by little but after looking the insides of the headset I can tell that there is no way any dust can enter the lens. Is a closed enviorment.