UPDATE: Early Thursday morning, Oculus rolled out an update that should fix the problem. The PCMag Oculus Rift is back up and running.

Hey all - thank for your patience. We now have an Oculus software update in place that fixes the issue where Rift may fail to start up. For more info and instructions, please go here: https://t.co/gYz2G4Fon7

Thank you once again for your patience. — Oculus Rift (@OculusRift) March 8, 2018

To make up for the error, the company will offer Oculus store credit for affected customers, according to company co-founder Nate Mitchell, who said more details will come.

Original Story:

Oculus Rift headsets went dead on Wednesday due to a software error that appears to be hitting products around the globe.

Customers in Oculus support forums say their VR headset are experiencing a "Runtime Service" error when the product tries to start. The error message says the Oculus software is updating, but the VR headset will stall, even if you patiently wait or reboot your PC.

"I'm in Norway, tried 3 different computers, all are the same…" wrote one customer.

"Yup also not working for me. They broke everything. Smooth move Oculus," wrote another.

PCMag encountered the same error trying to run an Oculus Rift in New York.

Customers suspected it has something to do with a security certificate that validates the product's software, which apparently expired today. Oculus later confirmed, but ironically, that expired security certificate also prevented it from rolling out a fix right away.

"We're still working hard to resolve the issue & are in the process of integrating an updated cert," the company tweeted. "This has some added complexity, as the expired cert blocks our standard update path. We're working through options & expect to have more details tonight."

In the meantime, Reddit users are coming up with temporary fixes, one of which involves changing the date on your PC prior to March 7. However, PCMag tried this and it didn't work for us.

Oculus owners can stay abreast of the situation on this forum page.

Further Reading