How to fix the USB issue of Samsung Phone continuously disconnecting from PC (useful for GearVR devs)

Today I want to talk about a really annoying issue regarding some smartphones. It is slightly off topic, since it’s not directly a VR topic (and this is a VR blog), but since I use my Samsung Note 4 to do mobile VR… we can say that this is absolutely a VR-related post… can’t we?

The issue is the following: you connect your Samsung phone (in my case a Samsung Note 4, but the issue happens also with the S7 and other models) to a PC and everything works fine. Then you try maybe to move some data (e.g. backup your phone photos to your hard drive… or you try to deploy your APK for an awesome VR game) and suddenly the phone disconnects from the PC. One second later, it reconnects. And then it goes this way, with a connect-disconnect schizophrenia that makes you become completely mad. Even because there’s no exact reason because this happens: sometimes it stays connected more, other times less… but anyway you can’t use it in peace. And for me, during continuous deploy of big APKs of VR applications, this bug has meant an enormous waste of time.

Oculus, USB 3.1 and blue screen of death loop (thread exception not handled)

In these days I’ve completely formatted my VR PC. The reason? A damn blue screen of death loop.

My friend Max was playing with Robo Recall and having a lot of fun. Then suddenly he started having some audio issues, so after a while I decided to restart my PC. Well, blue screen of death. F*ck.

Oh, f*ck (Image from Oculus forums)

How to use Riftcat VRIdge with Kinects: ImmotionRoom Iridge server

A lot of time ago I described you how cool is VRIdge, the solution that makes you play SteamVR games using a cheap Cardboard or GearVR headset. I love VRidge, not only because it allows people to lower the entry point for playing VR experiences (a Cardboard is surely cheaper than a Vive), but also because it is made by very kind people (I’ve interacted with them and I can assure you that these Polish guys&girls are really fantastic).

Some times ago I wrote a tutorial on how to use VRIdge with Kinect and it got its success. Reason is that of course Cardboads can’t offer the positional tracking owned by Vive, so VRIdge users can supply it with other sensors, like Kinects for instance. Tutorial highlighted some issues in this process, since it required some dev skills (one of the required program doesn’t work on standalone, but needs to be run inside Eclipse!) and it used very rough programs. Since we at Immotionar work with Kinect and VR from almost three years, me and Gianni asked ourselves: why can’t we fix this issue? And we did it.

Me, doing funny things with a 3-kinects setup

Now you can use VRIdge with Kinect using ImmotionRoom solution, in particular using its Iridge server. What are advantages of this solution?

How to play Cardboard apps with Gear VR

A little article to talk to you about a small trick that may be useful in your virtual reality innovator’s life. You have a Gear VR and you have a Cardboard (no, I’m not making something like Pikotaro…) and suddenly you start wondering: why can’t I use my Gear VR as a Cardboard? Gear VR is super-comfortable, super resistant and has an awesome design… so why should I use a crappy card headset to live Cardboard experiences? You’re right… why?

The answer is: you have not. Since a Cardboard is just a hmd with two lenses, Gear VR is like a deluxe Cardboard. But there is a big problem: once you put your phone inside the headset, Oculus runtime detects that you have connected a Samsung Gear VR and launches Oculus Home and all other Oculus stuff. There’s no way to escape from that: with my Gear VR Innovator Editor there was still the possibility to put the phone so that the hmd plug didn’t enter completely inside the phone USB-C port, so that Oculus runtime wasn’t triggered (but you had high chances of your phone detaching from the headset and falling to the ground), but with new Gear VR versions this is not possible anymore. So how to do that?

VRidge + SteamVR: VR Server has stopped working

I’m working with some Riftcat VRidge-related stuff: you already know that I like VRidge and I’ve also written a tutorial on how to make it work with Kinect.

But since Yesterday I wasn’t able to make it work with SteamVR in any way: when SteamVR launched, I got a “VRserver.exe has stopped working” window and everything came to a catastrophic end. I tried some of the standard solutions as:

• Restarting the computer;
• Re-installing VRidge;
• Trying VRidge beta versions (now I’m in its super-secret team)
• Deleting SteamVR config files
• Changing streaming/tracking options

but with no luck.