How to fix Vive controllers not working inside SteamVR games

We all love virtual reality, but sometimes it gives us big headaches. And not because of the motion sickness, but because something doesn’t work. And that’s ok, it is still a new technology and it has already made big steps forward (I remember all the computer crashes I had at the Oculus DK 2 times!), but sometimes it is still tricky and problematic. Recently I had a big issue with my VR controllers in SteamVR (both with Oculus and Vive) and so I’m writing this post to try to help you in solving it. If SteamVR apps can’t detect your Vive controllers or you see your Vive/Oculus controllers fixed on a point on the ground in the virtual world without any possibility to move them, go on reading!

I bought my Vive to experiment with 7Invensun eye tracking and I was really enthusiast about trying eye-tracked UX. So I installed the Lighthouse stations, the Link box, and all the Vive stuff, then I launched SteamVR and I was pleased to see that all the icons in my SteamVR status bar were green. And when I put the headset on, I could see the grey intro environment, with all the controllers moving regularly. I had only to configure my room. ONLY. So I launched SteamVR Room Setup, and it continued saying that my controllers were turned off when actually they were turned on. WTF SteamVR.

So, I did the first solution that I advise you all. But don’t reveal it to others, because it is a top secret between we IT guys:

Reboot, reboot everything. This means:

• Close and re-open SteamVR Room setup;
• Close and re-open SteamVR;
• Close and re-open the whole Steam;
• Reboot your PC;
• Unplug all the devices from the USB and plug them again;
• Shut down your Vive headset, controllers and Lighthouses and turn them on again;
• Reboot the universe.

This is the most simple but also most effective advice. In lots of cases, it solves all the issues you can have with your Vive.

But sometimes, this is strangely not enough (as in my case).

So, another thing that you can try is verifying if the issue is due to some problems of the USB port that you chose: try disconnecting the Vive box from the current USB that it is connected to and try plugging it into other USB ports (try different setups, like front/back ports, USB 2/USB 3 ports, etc…). If then everything works, you’re fine. Otherwise, go on.

Try your Vive headset on another PC, if you can. This way you can exclude some hardware failure. If the headset does work on the other PC (like in my case), then there is some software problem with SteamVR. Otherwise, contact HTC support to have your Vive fixed (good luck with that).

Someone had this problem only happening in the Room Setup app, while in all the other applications, everything worked like a charm. So, the first thing to do if the various reboots didn’t work is trying opening a SteamVR game and see if there the controllers work (you can see and move them). If the answer is yes, well, you can survive even without launching Room Setup. To perform a fast and rough room configuration, you can go into SteamVR settings and then choose the Developer Tab and look for the “Room and monitoring” section, where you can select a preset room configuration inside the drop-down menu and then hit the “Quick Calibration” button. Before doing that, please put your headset on the ground, in the center of your play area, so that the resulting Chaperone borders will give you a good experience. If games work this way, you can avoid getting crazy to have your VR controllers detected inside Room Setup and play happily your VR games, even if your Chaperone borders won’t reflect your real room configuration. There are anyway other tools that can help in configuring it properly.

In my case, the controllers weren’t detected in any app, not even in Unity when developing for VR. This reminded me that I had a similar issue when playing some SteamVR experiences with my Oculus Rift. For instance, in MeetingRoom.io and in Welcome To The Lightfields, I could see my Touch Controllers in VR inside the floor and I had no way to move them. That’s why I’ve never been able to play such an awesome experience like Welcome To The Lightfields. This confirmed that I had some problems with SteamVR installation and was not a matter of hardware. If you have this problem with the Rift… you had better know that someone solved the issue by opening the app through the latest launched experiences menu in Oculus Home 2.0 and not through Steam. Of course, this didn’t work for me.

Anyway, hoping that I could get my Vive controllers to work with the majority of apps, as it happens with my Rift, I did some more tests with them:

• I tried updating the firmware: go in SteamVR menu -> Devices -> Firmware update. The system will guide you in updating the firmware if any new firmware is available;

  

• I tried updating my USB drivers on the PC;
• I tried forcing the re-installation of Vive devices drivers: Go to SteamVR settings -> Developer tab -> “Remove all SteamVR USB Devices”. At this point, unplug the USB cable of the headset from the PC and then plug it again;
• I tried resetting the controllers. Copy-paste from official Steam Documentation:

1. Hold down the trigger, menu button, trackpad button, AND grip buttons on the controller (everything except the system button)
2. While holding the buttons, plug your controller into your computer with a micro USB cable (you may need an extra hand to do this)
3. Wait for five seconds, then release the buttons
4. Ignore the new storage device that appears and unplug the micro USB cord to reset

Of course, no luck. So I contacted Steam assistance and they suggested me to try the latest beta of Steam and SteamVR. You can try this trick as well, opting in and out from beta programs to see if something changes:

• To enter Steam beta, open Steam and in the upper left corner open the menu Steam -> Settings -> Account and then select that you want to participate to the Steam Beta Update;

  

• To enter SteamVR Beta, open Steam and Select Library -> Tools. In the list that will open from there, find SteamVR. Select it with the left click of your mouse. Then click with the right button on it and let a contextual menu come up. Choose Properties. In the dialog window, choose the “Beta” tab and then select the SteamVR Beta Update from the drop-down menu;

  

After all these betas installing, try again if things work.

In my case, of course not. So I went to the next step: uninstall all the SteamVR plugins that may interfere with the normal functioning. I’m talking about programs that add special functionalities to SteamVR, like the ability to do different things with the controllers (like using the controllers’ movements to simulate room-scale movements) or the ability to use mobile headsets and so on. I so uninstalled WalkinVR and Riftcat VRidge. With no luck.

The next step is uninstalling SteamVR: follow the procedure described above until you open the contextual menu (select Library -> Tools. In the list that will open from there, find SteamVR. Select it with the left click of your mouse. Then click with the right button on it and let a contextual menu come up) and then in the menu select Uninstall and then Delete. After that, open your file browser and delete the file steamvr.vrsettings that is in <STEAM_DIR>\config (so usually in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\config). After that, return to Steam and double click on the SteamVR entry to trigger a new installation. Try to use your VR headset again. I hope it works this time.

To me, it didn’t function, so it came the time of hard choices. Valve states that some programs may cause conflicts with Steam functionalities and you had better remove them. This means that you have to uninstall some programs that are useful for you and you have to do this without knowing if this will solve the issues or not. So, choose your poison wisely.  Some of them are:

• Kinect driver and runtime
• Leap Motion driver and runtime
• 3DRuddder driver and runtime
• CCleaner
• ASUS AI Suite 3
• ASUS HyStream
• Razer Synapse
• Asus AI Suite
• Avast antivirus
• JDS Labs ODAC USB Audio device
• Older Apple Cinema displays with devices attached through USB
• TP-LINK 300Mbps Wireless N PCI Express Adapter TL-WN881ND

you can try uninstalling such programs, if you have them, and then try again seeing if your controllers work again.

Honestly, I absolutely didn’t want to uninstall all the software on my PC just because it “may interfere” with Steam, so I went for the final solution: KILL STEAM. You can find how to do it with or without removing all your games here.

I removed Steam and reinstalled it. Then I installed SteamVR inside the brand new Steam and everything worked again! Notice that if I take all my previous Steamapps folder and copy it inside the brand new Steam installation, my controllers don’t work anymore. So, basically, I haven’t been able to back up my games and I had to trash everything. Not the best solution ever, I know, but at least now I can use my VR controllers again.

https://gfycat.com/LazyConstantAlaskanmalamute

And that’s it with my sad experience about the VR controllers not working. If you are experiencing my same issues, I hope that this long post has helped you :). If this is not the case, try contacting the SteamVR assistance: I thought that they didn’t care about my issues, while instead they were very kind and answered all my messages. And thanks to them I’ve been able to experience Welcome To The Lightfields for the first time!

Have a nice day and if you have other suggestions for controllers not working, try writing them here in the comments to help the other readers!

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(Header image by HTC)