Base station 1.0 issues

[Esch]

Hi everyone,

I've been having some issues with my base stations, and I'm hoping someone here has any good ideas on how to solve them.

For a few weeks, the tracking on my base stations has been finnicky. I know this isn't a particularly clear description to help with troubleshooting, but it's the best term that comes to mind.

The tracking of my HMD is often disrupted even though there is nothing blocking sight from the base stations, leading to grey screens inside the HMD. Restarting SteamVr or the computer entirely sometimes causes tracking to work again for a little while, and sometimes it doesn't. 

I tried connecting the two base stations via the sync cable, which causes a different set of problems altogether. When connected with a cable, attempting to do a room setup shows that both base stations are in (almost) the same location. In reality, the two base stations are mounted on opposite walls in a room, and the actual location of the second station is marked in red in the attached screenshot. Sometimes both base stations appear in one location, sometimes they appear in the other. regardless of which base station is in "A" and which is in "b" mode. 

The base stations then also act as though they were both in this position. That's to say, tracking is lost when facing away from the displayed position of the base stations, even though in reality this means that the other base station has a clear and unobstructed view of the HMD. 

 

I've tried all the standard fixes, like making sure all the firmware and drivers are up to date, restarting soft- and hardware etc. 

I've looked around online to see if anyone else has these types of problems, but because I'm never actually getting any error messages and the issues are so hard to pin down on any specific set of conditions, I'm kind of at a loss.

Please let me know  if you have any ideas or suggestions. Thanks.

Edited October 20, 2020 by Esch

[HackPerception]

@Esch, This is a pretty weird error. I saw a similar report on Reddit this morning that I can't see an obvious cause for either which mean indicate it's a SteamVR thing.

I'd recommend trying to rule out reflections via the SteamVR logs. The way to confirm if you have a reflection issue would be to create a SteamVR system report, save the file, then open the file in a text editor and use Ctrl+F to search the document for the following term: back-facing. You can also use try viewing the logs in real-time in the webconsole which can sometimes be more intituve since it's real-time: http://localhost:27062/console/index.html

If you see a high number of back-facing hits, it's almost certainly a reflective issue. 

Here's an example output that shows a clear-cut case of reflection-based interference:

Sun Jun 26 2016 23:02:09.676 - lighthouse: LHR-4R8EF209 H: Dropped 322312 back-facing hits, 2069 non-clustered hits during the previous tracking session

[Esch]

Hi VibNeb, Thanks for the suggestion. I've been playing around with with the console a little bit to try and see if there are any specific errors in there that could give me a clue.

Like you suggested, I've kept an eye out for back-facing hits. They do appear every now and then, but their values don't seem dramatically high (see attachment). Based on these values, do you reckon it's a reflectivity issue?  The office I'm using has linoleum flooring, and regularly painted walls. If it does seem like a reflectivity issue, I could try putting down a carpet or something.

I've also attached another error log, which reflects a period of about 90 seconds in which the headset loses and regains tracking a couple of times. There are multiple IMU related messages, like IMU going off-scale, IMU being misaligned and all-out IMU panic! Could these be symptoms of excessive reflection in the room as well?

Regarding the faulty reporting of base station positions, I found a log message simply reporting on this, as seen in the first screenshot as well. There doesn't appear to be an error to go along with this message, just a report that the base stations are allegedly 27cm apart.

Fri Oct 23 2020 16:31:58.763 - [System] Distance between basestations is 0.270217 meters.

 

I hope this helps shed a little more light on the problem, and do please let me know what you can make out from these logs. If you have any suggestions or ideas, I'd be eager to know.

[Esch]

Well, I managed to borrow a buddy's base stations which solved all of my issues.

I guess we can chalk this one up to hardware failure. 

[filed.teeth]

Know this is old, but don't see this tip anywhere else.

I've fixed a couple old ones by taking off the faceplate (four snap clips) and putting the plastic lens back in it's spot on the gyro.

Two gyros inside, both have two holes, one has a cross-looking built in piece, the other one holds a plastic lens. If the lens falls out, you just need to put it back in place.

For the two I've fixed, one just snapped back in, the other I had to dab a bit of superglue on one end to hold it. 

Both are still working, it's been about a year (so I wish I'd noticed your post then lol)

One just quit working completely until I fixed it, but the other gave similar indications to yours, detected, but way out of place.

Bottom line, if it rattles when you move it around, might be a quick cheap fix.

Edited November 2, 2021 by filed.teeth