Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

SoylentNews is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop. Only 12 submissions in the queue.

Awkward! All of Oculus's Rift Headsets Have Stopped Working Due to an Expired Certificate

posted by janrinok on Friday March 09 2018, @01:24AM   Printer-friendly
from the IoT-just-got-better-dept. dept.

aristarchus writes:

As reported by TechCrunch:

Someone at Oculus screwed up pretty badly today [Wednesday]: An expired certificate appears to have soft-bricked all of the company's Rift VR headsets, with users still unable to fire up software on the devices and no word of an incoming fix from the company yet.

Issues were first reported several hours ago on Reddit, where a post on the topic has already garnered hundreds of comments. The problem seems to have resulted from Oculus failing to update an expired certificate with the update, which is now leaving users with an error message saying that the system "Can't reach Oculus Runtime Service."

If it must phone home, it is not yours. Words to live, and die, by.

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Awkward! All of Oculus's Rift Headsets Have Stopped Working Due to an Expired Certificate | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 51 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by tonyPick on Friday March 09 2018, @06:56AM (3 children)

    by tonyPick (1237) on Friday March 09 2018, @06:56AM (#649877) Homepage Journal

    Much as I hate them, this isn't a "phone home"/always connected style flaw.

    The certificate expiration just means that the driver won't load past a certain date/time since the signing certificate used by the driver has expired. This happens when the time rolls forward, connected or not.

    This was referenced from Ars, showing the step they missed:
    https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb931395.aspx [microsoft.com]

    The countersignature method of time stamping implemented below allows for signatures to be verified even after the signing certificate has expired or been revoked. The time stamp allows the verifier to reliably know the time that the signature was affixed and thereby trust the signature if it was valid at that time. The time stamper should have a reliable and protected time source.

    (Of course, self expiring drivers where nobody is left/willing/able to re-issue the driver with a new cert would be as bad as phone home IMO, but the two issues aren't necessarily related)

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Insightful=1, Informative=1, Total=2
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  
    Total Score:   4  

  • (Score: 2) by acid andy on Friday March 09 2018, @11:48AM (1 child)

    by acid andy (1683) on Friday March 09 2018, @11:48AM (#649914) Homepage Journal

    Interesting. Is there a workaround for the end user? Can you add an exception, set the system date back or self-sign the driver somehow?

    --
    If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by tonyPick on Friday March 09 2018, @03:14PM

      by tonyPick (1237) on Friday March 09 2018, @03:14PM (#649997) Homepage Journal

      You can't self sign the driver, but according to the Ars story

      Some users have reported that changing a computer's date to an earlier one makes the Oculus usable.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 09 2018, @05:17PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 09 2018, @05:17PM (#650073)

    you're missing the point. the point is if you act like a slave, you will be treated like a slave. you buy slaveware like a groveling piglet and you will get treated like bacon.