HP WMR headset turns off on certain videos

groundzeroday

After not using SLR for a couple of weeks, either a recent SLR update or Windows Update has broken functionality.
When attempting to watch videos in H265 format, the headset will blink off and blink a blank screen repeatedly, while desktop input seems to freeze/get laggy (while this is happening if I move the mouse, it will lag for several seconds sometimes). I have to unplug the headset and plug it back in and restart Windows Mixed Reality.

However, the issue ALSO occurs with some H264 videos now as well. In the past, H264 was <never> an issue, and H265 required installing the correct codecs with Windows Store. Since they have recently killed the free codec download, having it previously installed should let you continue using it, but I am not sure if this is contributing to the error. Previously H265 videos were working absolutely fine.

After giving up for the night due to constant crashes, I went over to DeoVR to watch some videos off my hard drive - surprisingly I was getting the VP9 error there <midway> through some videos that otherwise worked fine previously. It makes me think there is just some system issue/conflict going on, likely caused due to either an SLR or Windows Update (as I did notice a Windows Update in the last two weeks). It could also be a SteamVR issue now that I think of it, as that updates regularly also, but in the past SteamVR updates never caused any issues in any way.

Something clearly is causing the issue, but not sure what exactly - before two weeks ago, I had no issues playing any video in H264 or H265 format (limited only by download speed so certain resolutions were laggy). Now this makes SLR almost unusable, because the crashing occurs on SOME videos, and ALL videos in some cases, regardless what format the video is being viewed in.

Can gladly provide any crash reports/logs/etc. if requested. Specs provided below as a reference:

CPU: 3950x
Mobo: ASRock X570 Creator
Ram: 2x32 G.Skill Trident Z Neo 3600
GPU: Sapphire Radeon Vega64
Drive: OS drive - Aorus NVME
Headset: HP WMR VR
Windows: Windows 10 Education
Windows Version: 10.0.19042 Build 19042

Unfortunately if the issue doesn't resolve over the next weeks I will have to kill my service.
Please let me know if I can provide any information, or test anything specific to resolve this.
Thank you for your time!

Rakly3

groundzeroday
TheWristocrats

There's a known issue with WMR and one of the latest updates. I'm not saying this is the case for you, but just to make sure, can you uninstall WMR, reboot, run windows update. Reinstall WMR?

Another thing you can check is play the video in the app Movies & TV if it has similar issues. Can be called differently depending on your localisation settings. It usually comes with Win10 by default and would already be on your system.
If you uninstalled it, please reinstall it, the VR app has dependencies from it.

Let us know if this changed anything. Thanks!

TheWristocrats

I'm having exactly the same problem on my Lenovo WMR. Was also working fine only a few weeks ago. H265 completely crashes the app after a few seconds into a video with same symptoms as groundzeroday.

I was eventually quick enough to set it back to H264 but the video gets pixelated in the middle of the screen every 10-20 seconds (also a new issue). Turning on Unity player resolved the video being pixelated but quality seems not as good and video responsiveness is laggy to player controls.

Tried reinstalling the HEVC Video Extensions but that hasn't helped.

Also not sure if it's a windows update, SLR or Steam update that has caused the issue. Any suggestions? Happy to send through logs also if it helps.

groundzeroday

Rakly3 Thanks for the response Rakly3, I will test this and get back to you.
I figured it was an issue on WIndows end due to one of the recent updates, but will report back some findings.

EDIT: After following the suggested steps above, H265 will still cause the headset to freak out. Ironically I can hear the sound of the video but the headset will flip between the backlight turning off entirely and a black screen. At this moment I noticed something interesting: If i killed SLR it would return to SteamVR Home, but the screen was still black. After re-setting up my WMR after reinstalling it, this time it added the visual "boundaries" so if my controller extends too far it shows an imaginary wall. Despite the headset showing nothing but black, it did respond to this and show the boundary wall - anything launched from SteamVR at this point shows nothing but a black screen. If I quit SteamVR and relaunch it, it relaunches as normal.

It did seem like I had no issues with H264 this time - previously THAT was also causing the issue on some videos.
For now I'll chalk this up to an WMR/SteamVR bug, but since H264 seems to work properly, I can live with this in the meantime.

Again, thank you for your help Rakly3, and I am glad to test/try any other suggestions, although at this point it seems like you guys have a grasp on what the issue is. Much appreciated!

Rakly3

groundzeroday Might be the backlight being turned off. Like in sleep mode. But I'm just guessing here, I'll leave this to the devs to figure out 🙂

Rakly3

TheWristocrats
groundzeroday
n3kw8

Can people experiencing this issue

check if their graphics card is being used to decode. (ctrl+shift+esc > Tab Performance) both lower and higher resolutions
try playing the videos in the Microsoft app Movies & TV (NOT Windows Media Player!)
disable secondary monitors or lower the resolution/framerate of your monitor
try other VR drivers IF possible, like SteamVR, OculusVR
try a different graphic card if at all possible
is there a process running in the background called COM Surrogate using a lot of resources after closing VR apps? (ctrl+shift+esc) Force terminate it
do you have any media related apps running in the background that could interfere
assuming k-Lite codec pack is installed, click the start button and type codec, this should bring up the codec tweak tool. Try Fixes and Reset options.

Thanks!
And also thanks for all the testing & info you guys and gals are providing us!

TheWristocrats

@Rakly3 I had a bit more of a play around and it seems to be resolution related rather than being a h265 issue (at least in my case). I found I can actually play h265 on lower resolutions, it is only when I bump it up to above 2160 that I start having problems. The same applies to h264. When I go to a higher resolution, I get a blank screen, a bit of sound, flash of an image or two and then nothing. I am forced to kill the app in task manager along with steamvr and windows mixed reality portal.

I noticed when this happens, my ram usage shoots through the roof, I can't say for certain but I think it was the Desktop Window Manager service that was chewing it all up, I'll have to check again.

I'll do a bit more digging and hopefully be able to give a bit more information but at least in my situation, I found that this issue was consistent in SLR App, DeoVR and even when using Play'a as well (i.e. higher resolutions cause the same problem every time).

So looks like your devs are off the hook and it might be a Microsoft update that has caused this issue 🙂 Let me know if there is anything you want me to try.

FYI Specs are:
Windows 10 Pro - Build 19042
Ryzen 3700x
Samsung 860 EVO SSD
16Gb 3600 MHz G.Skill Trident Z
AMD Radeon R9 280x (main card died few months ago 🙁 this card was still running everything fine though until recently)
x570 Aorus Pro Wifi
Lenovo Mixed Reality headset