Maybe a re-installation of Windows is needed…

Posted on 12-16-2018 by Benie

So, the problem plaguing my headset is back, and then it’s not. Let me explain.
Yesterday, I was almost certain it was fixed. My gut feeling was telling me I was celebrating too soon, especially what happened that afternoon.
My parents came home sometime after I reinstalled the WMR software, and my father’s yelling at me to come to his room, as he’s having an issue with his PS4 controllers. They were blinking on and off, indicating to me that they were mysteriously not paired to the PS4. He claims he made no changes, and suddenly they stopped working.
Helped him with the problem and got his controllers to work again, but… how strange this is to happen, after getting my issue fixed.
Could my father’s PS4 be causing my issue? …Nah. It’s never happened before, so why should it happen now?

Checked MR Portal, still working. Played VR for the rest of the day, and shut down my computer.
Today, I turned it on, checked MR Portal feeling that “what if” father’s controllers are interfering. ‘Check your display cable, Error code: 1-4’ greeted me.
WHAT THE FUCK?! I thought I had it fixed! ..Clearly not. So now, I feel I can safely link the thread I made in the WMR Reddit board (here). Now, I have proof a reinstall of the software didn’t work, and proof the October Update is to blame.
I also noticed this message about ‘a restart is required’. Saw this message before, and remembered doing a restart and Windows not picking anything up.
Tried it again, and again Windows wasn’t picking anything up. After, I tried MR Portal, and.. it’s working again!? The hell did the update do to my computer?!?!
–
This made me nearly completely rewrite the thread, even mentioning about this other error that’s coming from the GPU.
Tried to look up the second (above) error, and saw it wasn’t at all related to the issue at hand. Known bug with the latest drivers, that I’ll have to wait for a fix.
As for the ‘a restart is required’ issue, this has dated back since the Creator’s Update. But the fix said to go somewhere in the Troubleshoot menu, that doesn’t exist.

So, could this be more of a Windows issue, than a Windows Mixed Reality issue? And if so, the only ‘fix’ I can think of, is a clean reinstall of Windows 10 (more like a reinstall of 7, then upgrade to 10). Plus, I don’t even know where the product key for 10 is.

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The day my VR equipment turned into a $200 paperweight

Posted on 12-13-2018 by Benie

Me: I want to play VR.
Mixed Reality Portal: Check your display cable!
Me: *sighs, gets up and takes the cable out and puts it back in* There. *sits back down*
Mixed Reality Portal: Check your display cable!
Me:

Yeah Microsoft, what the FUCK did you DO!? ..Oh, that’s right, yesterday Windows Update got quite busy. First time it was a small update. Since I had nothing to do, I decided to allow a restart. Decided to check again.. big mistake– big update this time.
Turned out it was this ‘October Update’… in mid-December.
Today I tried to get into VR (as you saw from what I said above). Usually, taking out and putting the cable back in fixes the problem, but not this time. This time it was getting me this strange ‘Error: 1-4’.

Clearly, the October Update has just borked my WMR equipment. Tried to look it up, no one else having this issue. So I thought that it’s possible my graphics card drivers need to be updated. Got the latest, that was released just today. How very interesting, almost like this is a fix for my issue. Yet it wasn’t listed anywhere in the changelog.
Made a mistake with clean install. Instead of it uninstalling the old drivers and installing the new in its place, I only uninstalled the old.. ugh. I’ve been used to Nvidia for way too long.
Tried to restart, noticed Windows also wanted to do so, and I had noticed this last night, but since it was nearly 5:30 in the morning, I didn’t want to wait for it to get done. But this time I allowed it, maybe hoping this would had saved me the hell I’m going through.
–
Came back, installing the drivers. MR Portal comes up, still showing an issue to the cable. But I noticed the error code was gone. Suddenly, it realizes the cable is in and shows ‘Ready’. Thank GOD that’s fixed!
After restarting, I’m no longer seeing the ‘check your display cable’ message when launching MR Portal. I want to take this with a grain of salt of the thought they finally fixed that highly annoying issue.

Also, my brain is reminding me this ‘October Update’ was supposed to fix a lot of issues with WMR. I just hope one of them is optimization with low end builds. I also wonder what took it so long to get to me.
The same can be said for the next Gamefly game coming to my house, but I digress.

—
EDIT (the 14th): Guess what? Yep, the issue’s back after I turned on my computer the day after. Same message, same error code. Here I thought I had it after updating the GPU drivers. Turns out that wasn’t it.
Made a post on the WMR Reddit forum (for a reason I will explain in just a few moments, I’m not linking it). Let’s just say I was extremely not happy, and was on the verge of tossing this $200 paperweight out the window and get an Oculus. My anger made me 110% put the blame on the October Update.
Before I made the thread however, noticed someone having a slightly similar issue, who got help and was told the HDMI cable could be possibly going bad on them. But at the end, they got a new headset. Sadly, this isn’t an option for me.
–
One interesting thing about this, are the troubleshooting steps. One was looking in
Device Manager and looking for ‘Monitors’ and ‘Mixed Reality devices’. The person said they didn’t see the headset in Monitors… but on mine, I saw it.
So, Windows is definitely seeing my headset. If this means there’s nothing wrong with it nor the cables, than that rules those out.
I also noticed they claimed, they reinstalled the WMR software without having to reinstall Windows. And I remembered briefly reading something about that. Seeing this is something I have yet tried, I attempted to look it up and found this. Unplugged the cables from the back of the tower, and repeated the process as Windows seemed to not recognize it. Hit Uninstall, and it claimed there were a few files it couldn’t remove. The post also said to unpair my controllers, so I did.
Plugged in the cables, and the post claimed something would come up and start the setup/installation process… but nothing happened– no window popped up. Randomly tried the MR Portal, and wishing the post said “click on this to start it”, because that was what was needed.
As it’s starting up the setting up, whammo. Issue is back, same error. Posted in the thread I made that I tried reinstalling the software and didn’t help.
…And now, for the reason I refuse to post the link (over embarrassment).
Tried restarting my computer (feeling this isn’t going to help)…. but this time, it did! It went past the error, and ran me through re-paring the controllers. Holy fuck, this is promising. But all I could feel is the issue is just going to happen again after a restart.
After setting up the boundary, everything was ready. It was looking really promising, but I tried my best to keep my surprise at bay and quickly did a restart.
Came back, and.. oh wow. Did I actually kill two issues with one reinstall?! It definitely seems so! 😀
Redid the boundary as I didn’t like how messy I made it the first time. This time it’s much better. After doing the initial VR tutorial and getting to the Cliff House, I noticed it looked slightly different. New demos to play (such as a Superhot demo), yet there’s still no ‘Launch SteamVR’ button. Though I could actually set this up (much like the Desktop app).
Got in VRChat and didn’t have many issues.
–
Shut off my computer for the night, and brought it back this afternoon (the 15th). I was fearing that the issue would return… I was greeted with it saying ‘Ready’. Holy fuck, I got it!! It’s FIXED!! It’s a miracle! Who knew, a simple reinstall would fix months of an annoying issue.
And that, is why I’m not going to link the thread. Saying a reinstall didn’t help, when it actually did. Yeah, embarrassment.

…”It’s FIXED”, Benie cried out. Yet he didn’t realize the next time he turned his computer on, the issue would happen again.

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A Black Friday when you feel red all over

Posted on 11-25-2018 by Benie

Well, I can’t be the only one, can I? Probably lots of people who wish they had money this weekend (especially with Cyber Monday approaching).
Though it’s quite painful to me. Since September, my finances have been a slow moving train wreck. And it was only fueled by bad management on my part, plus these yearly
bills that come out about this time (my domain & Pandora One).

But what hurts the worst (and sent me into a mood beyond ‘salty’), was Mel getting a Vive during the event, and saying it’s “so much better” than WMR. I could not think straight when I saw the news. I wanted to be happy for him, but I also wanted to say “I hope you choke on it!!”
Everytime I try to calm myself down by saying “he worked hard for it, he deserves it”.. it changes my anger into a deep depression, knowing I could had fucking saved up and actually gotten the hardware I require (instead of always talking about it). And this refuels my anger again… and the cycle repeats indefinitely, getting more and more pissed off at myself for not preparing for this.
I could hear nothing but laughter directed at me, and saying I’m going to be stuck with this hardware until the day I die. Also hearing how I fucked up, and could had saved.
–
It took another friend to finally calm myself down to a point I could think about my situation. I reminded myself of why I didn’t save up after I had upgraded back in
2011 (when I was still skittish about working inside of a computer). It was simply because, it felt I didn’t need to. Every game I played, seemed to run alright. The FX 4350, was pretty beefy back then. The only upgrade I made, was to get 16GB of DDR3 RAM (when I was playing WoW).
Though, seeing more and more games requiring (at minimum) a quad core processor, should had been a warning sign to start saving up. But I didn’t. For once, my computer is pretty stable. And I feared if I upgraded, I would be right back to where I was going through GPUs like candy (because of the graphic glitches).
The 750Ti (bless its soul), became the answer to those glitches. That’s why I was a bit hesitant (years later) to upgrade to this RX 580. But thankfully it proved to be a solid graphics card (as well as a solid upgrade), in order to get me into ‘entry level VR’.
–
As for the CPU that’s been the thorn in my finger since 2016, there is no way I could had predicted that the Ryzen V1 series chipsets were coming out in Q3 2017. If I had KNOWN, I would had saved at least $600-$700 and been ready for it!
I even tried to, but bills got in the way.

This is why next year (after I get the shit done with moving this website to
GoDaddy), things are going to be different. As soon as I get my monthly check, I’m going to take (at least) $50 out and throw it in a safe deposit box. This way, I won’t end up spending it by mistake.
I have to be passive-aggressive with myself (aka make sacrifices), if I want to claim this long-awaited upgrade as my own. It’s time to STOP talking about saving up, to doing.

And even at that (when I do eventually upgrade), it’s still possibly going to be Black Friday 2019 when I have enough to either buy an Oculus or a Vive. I haven’t decided on which, but given how people I know are telling me that they’re being given the finger by Oculus when having an issue with their headsets, I might just go with a Vive.
It is afterall, highly supported by Steam.
Then later on, maybe I’ll get leg trackers. That way people will be able to see what I look like when I’m sitting in my chair.
–
But… we’ll see. I can’t predict what will happen in 2019. My health could fail and that would end any chances of saving.

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A world of frustration and pain.. “I do NOT need this right now!”

Posted on 11-12-2018 by Benie

Creepery’s being treated like shit, and this domain’s hosting company taking the money out for hosting.. without my fucking permission, are the topics of this evening’s discussion.
It’s the Lunalong. I’m trying to enjoy myself.. and THIS shit is going on!

So let’s get this drama train rolling, shall we? Let’s start with Creepery… and why I’ve ‘given up’ on him.
On the first of November, Creepery was preparing to do a ‘scare-off’ in his server (yes Halloween was over, but I’m not the one that runs the server). I was part of this ‘scare team’, where we could finally express ourselves (and not have the avatar blocked by fun haters)… that was until the evening, when he mentioned it was canceled. When questioned why, he said that Rusty told him to close his world, and that “nobody likes him”. Yet at the same time, he said that himself and Rusty were working together to make a new world.
–
I know that Creepery’s the way he is (which is why Rusty was able to easily manipulate him)… but to work with your enemy?! WTF!? Ingame I tried to get him to understand. He does, but knows this is the only way he can have a community (apparently). And.. I cannot support him. Not this time. And this has bothered me so, so much. I tried to tell him that we NEED to tell the admins and get Rusty banned from VRChat, but he says that the Warhammer 40k are watching his every move.
King Chris, one of the now former scare team members, was downright furious at this news. He wanted to kill Rusty. I was able to calm him down, and talk to him in a private world about this.

This.. is when things started taking a dark turn. This ‘Chris’ is not OK in the head, and knows people (that he claims) who could do far worse things than the Warhammer 40k. And he started talking to his ‘buddies’ about it; cackling like a madman. I was extremely uncomfortable with this (and still am as I write this). As much as I want to protect Creepery, I feel this is too much. So, I assume he was going to take care of this on his own (while I could focus on the upcoming impalongs).
Now, I’m being called a coward for not helping Chris. Because, Creepery has been apparently forced out of.. the Best Boi community? (I thought it died) Mmm… now he’s done with VRChat forever.
Fucking hell… I NEVER wanted to be a part of this!!! YES I’m a fucking coward for not standing up to Creepery, but I just.. bleh. Leave me alone. 😛

.
And now the other shit stain. Folks, there is no “if”: I am switching website hosters, as soon as January of next year. I’m dropping Arvixe and going back to GoDaddy.
So what happened? Every year, on this month (on the 25th), is when this domain is due. I have specifically said, I want to be the one that sends them the money (by turning auto-renewal OFF).
But… they did, yesterday. Granted, I did receive an email last month stating the payment would be due, and would come out automatically. But I thought they were joking. Again, I got it set to OFF… yet they take it! WHAT THE FUCK!!
Attempting to contact them through their Live Chat, I’m seeing “Unable to initiate chat session”. Both Firefox and Microsoft Edge show the same message. I don’t know if they’ve purposely set it to troll their customers (makes no sense as to why), or they’ve laid off their Indian support staff (and didn’t tell us).
In addition, I can no longer send them a direct email. You now have to file a ticket on their site, which links to their ‘Knowledgebase’. And if it can’t help you… start a live chat.

All means of getting support, have been forcefully tied into live chat (which no longer works). It’s next to impossible to contact them now. I have no fucking idea why all the sudden, they’re ignoring their customers (but not ignoring their money). It’s absolutely baffling.
The only reason I can think of, is they overworked their support team. Because I remember saying in this post, how they were being overworked, and how it was only going to get worse.

So… they leave me with no choice but to switch hosting providers. And I can’t do that until the 5th of next year (this way I know I’ll have the money for it).
–
I will continue to try to get ahold of these guys. Hopefully I can, and I’ll get this matter completely resolved (which may reverse my decision, depending on what happens). But at this time, I really doubt it.

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Would getting an FX 8350 help me…?

Posted on 10-15-2018 by Benie

In the pursuit of making the framerate I get a bit better (in VR, and other games on my computer), I haven’t even started the process of saving money. As said, it won’t happen ’till next year. It takes awhile until my bank’s balance gets to a comfortable level, after making a big purchase (aka the VR set).
Though, I might not have to spend much. as I just so happened to be in the right spot at the right time of someone having a similar issue as me (of struggling to save money).
He too has VR, and mentions how he gets low framerate. Tells me he has a FX 6300. I told him I have a 4350.. he looks at me and says “you poor soul”.
He mentions he’ll be getting an FX 8350. But when someone else asked him “why not just go right for Ryzen?” He says “that’s way too expensive for me, I have no job and no income”. I told him “yeah, thanks to RAM, it’s probably going to cost me $600-$700 for a decent upgrade!”

Since then, I’ve pondered at the thought of ordering an 8350. It would be pretty cheap compared to a Ryzen 5 2600. But, would it even help me (with FPS)? And also, would I also need a new motherboard (just like the 9590) to unlock the full potential of the CPU? ‘Course, a little research on my board would answer that question.
–
And even if it does, knowing I’m going to have to mess with thermal paste….. ick. 😛 Having to clean the paste off my air cooler and the old CPU. Still remembering how ‘well’ of a job I did cleaning off the 9590 …so not looking forward to that (especially if the 8350 doesn’t work to my expectations, and I have to go back to the 4350, and it no longer works because I didn’t clean the paste off properly)… FUCK.
But if I do have to have a new motherboard, that would save me from having to clean the paste off (as I can just keep the 4350 in my old board). Thing is…. the paste would eventually dry out, and it’ll be hard to rub off. 😛

.
EDIT, 10/24/18: It’s been awhile, but I decided to ask the Wurm forum if an FX 8350 would be a good alternative option to moving up for a Ryzen 5 2600.
And the answer, was a “it’ll work” or “you should be fine”. I told them that I don’t expect this to be a solid upgrade… just, hopefully something better than what I have now.
There are also some factors that I didn’t think of before (but now have, and glad I did).
One was, how the new CPU may or may not require Windows to be reinstalled.
The other, is if my current air cooler (the CRYORIG H7) will work well with the new CPU. Still remembering the ‘fun’ I had, undervolting the hell out of that 9590 (and it didn’t help).
I was also suggested in creating some threads in tomshardware.com, which I did. The first one was about a fear about removing thermal paste. The other, is about if my current air cooler would work.

The second one, makes me feel very sick to my stomach. The last comment says “you’re better off just saving up and go Ryzen. You’ll waste money if you think a quick upgrade would be better.”
If I had fucking $600 on me (and wasn’t bored waiting for months to come up with that amount), sure.
Reality sucks…

.
EDIT2, 11/27/18: If you’ve been following this post, I really appreciate your support. Last night (after my ISP decided to do surprise buttsex (aka maintenance) on my internet connection) I decided asking the WMR Reddit if an 8350 would be a good ‘step up’ for VR (while mentioning how I’ve been getting lots of studdering in VRChat).
None of them said to do so, which completely cancels out this idea. But it doesn’t cancel it out completely…
Two others suggested that I go to Team Blue (Intel) and get a Core i5-2500k, or a
Core i5-3570k from eBay, claiming I would get a much better deal (and still would be a good upgrade).
Going over UserBenchmark.com to compare the FX 4350 to these two chipsets, it shows the 2500k is 69% better than what I have (with the 3570k being 74.5% better), and I must say that these are interesting results.
They also claim that I can find a compatible motherboard for under $100 on eBay.
Still waiting ’till next year though (as I have no money to look rn), then I’ll make a decision.
But as mentioned before, this does keep the ‘step up’ option as a viable alternative, but approached from a different angle. Though I wonder just how long it’ll be until this alternative will also become obsolete.
And when it does, would I stay with Team Blue and go with a Core i7 (even though it’s a quite expensive chipset), or go back to Team Red (AMD) and get a Ryzen 5 or 7 (which is a more cost effective chipset)?

It’s too early to tell of which one I would go with (or even if the alternative would be available in eBay, once I have the money).
Though I will make one more statement. I noticed both i5’s came out 1-2 years before the FX 4350. This means, I can no longer use the “my system is from 2012” excuse. Intel was stomping all over AMD’s face (even back in 2011), until the Ryzen series chipsets finally hit the market.
Getting an i5, seems to be a smart move. But again, I’ll make that final decision once I actually have money.

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Losing interest in WMR (heavy studdering/bad hand tracking)

Posted on 10-10-2018 by Benie

Yesterday evening was the first time I nearly feel asleep in VR, from depression. It wasn’t really the controllers that was the problem, but the trackers on the headset.
Was in VRChat, trying to stack glasses of ice water in the Hangout House world. I cannot stack more than three, where others without WMR.. can stack 5. Attempting to stack, my controllers start to lose tracking. I have to look up higher than I need to (as that’s where the trackers are on the front of the headset), just to get the arms to work right.
It’s so. fucking. frustrating. Even more so, this world is highly unoptimized (yet I’m the only one with issues). I know that upgrading my PC hardware is the only way to make it better, but I can’t do shit ’till next year. I need at least $700-800 (thanks to the price of RAM) to afford something that’ll last me 5+ years.
Plus, there’s still no guarantee my room will support these floor trackers that the Oculus and the Vive have. This, is what depresses me the most. I want guarantees, that no one can give me (as they have no idea what my room looks like).
—
Then there’s this thing from SteamVR, called ‘steamtours.exe’. Since the latest update of SteamVR, I’ve been getting very noticeable drops in framerate. Taking off the headset and attempting to investigate the issue (via Task Manager), I see this file eating up 40%-60% of my CPU.
It can be closed out, and doesn’t affect SteamVR that much. The only thing, is I now have to click the top of one of the thumbsticks of my controllers, to show the games I’ve downloaded.
The problem, is it keeps coming up everytime I run SteamVR. There’s a way to close it for good, but its instructions are unclear. One says to opt out of of the ‘SteamVR Home Beta’, and another mentions of a checkbox. Neither of these I’ve been able to find.
But finally, today, I found it after finding comment #4 of this post. The person explains how to do it while in VR, and it works!!
—
The next thing I want to discuss, is how the headset fits on my head. For one thing, recently I’ve been getting hair on the lenses (that I can feel irritating my eyes). I believe this to be the hair on my head. Maybe it’s a sign I’m showing my age and going bald. lol
Or it could be a sign that I’m in need of a haircut. I’ve been trying to put my hair back everytime I put the headset on. So far, this seems to be working.
But that’s not all. To me, it doesn’t feel it stays snug on the back of my head (especially on my nose), and I feel I have to occasionally readjust it. Course, I can’t be the only one that has to.
—
Now don’t get me wrong, I still love VR. But there’s another factor in play here (which bounces to the first). And that is the number of VR titles.. that are actual games; not VRChat wannabes, VR painting games, simulations, and desktop emulators (and can be played with WMR). I’m actually running out of free games to play.
Where this bounces to the first problem, is minimum system specs that are far beyond my system’s specs. And a new worry, is (what if) I’m finally able to upgrade my computer, and the RX580 is now too old to play VR? Aka, waiting too long to upgrade.. again.

.
And that’s all I can think of. I feel there will eventually become a point where I’ll use my VR set less and less (due to boredom). Did manage to find that train game that Dan
played (called Rolling Line), and it supports WMR (so that’s awesome). What’s stopping me is the minimum specs require an Intel I5 or greater (aka, what I was just talking about, with the whole minimum specs thing).
What’s interesting, is it claims on the store page, it can be played without VR. How is that possible?

Posted in Computing, Personal | Comments Off on Losing interest in WMR (heavy studdering/bad hand tracking)

October 3rd, 2018: Where were YOU when your phone spoke to you?

Posted on 10-03-2018 by Benie

Today, at 2:18pm EDT (happened at 2:19pm for me), there was a rare test that happened on all cell phones (even on mine).
The message was;

EMERGENCY ALERTS
Presidential Alert
THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless
Emergency Alert System. No
action is needed.

(This also came with the familiar alert tone that you typically hear on a TV, or a radio)

The test was conducted by FEMA (not the President himself), as a new way to (just incase) warn of a large-scale threat heading to America (such as a chemical attack, a nuke, or even a zombie invasion). It also has typical weather alerts that affect life and property (like a Tornado Warning).
And of course, Twitter (and other social media platform users) are tearing it apart and turning it into memes.

Posted in Personal, Politics | Comments Off on October 3rd, 2018: Where were YOU when your phone spoke to you?

Could my room’s light actually be the problem?

Posted on 10-03-2018 by Benie

From today, I will no longer be calling the one I’ve been talking to as my acquaintance, but as a friend named ‘Mel’.
With that out of the way, it seems I’m sadly not done with the issues I’ve been facing. Even from what I was told to do… that fucking “we lost your boundary” message is coming up.
This time, it won’t go away. So clearly, this isn’t the reason why my boundary is being removed.
Of course..
Image result for I am not happy Incredibles
“I’m not happy, Windows Mixed Reality. NOT. HAPPY.”
$200 you took out of my account, so I can experience VR for the first time in my life. And although I am happy you finally gave me said experience, losing the boundary that I had to go through hell to set up, to make sure I would make it as perfect as I can, before you start BITCHING at me that you’ve lost tracking…
You are very quickly becoming a means that I could just simply pack you back into your storage box, and ship you right back to Amazon.
Do you want this to happen, or are we going finally work together as one? And if we are, then perhaps you can stop not finding said boundary, and actually handle what light I have.
But no, you continue to say “we can’t find your boundary”. Why? Is my room not good enough for you? Or are you seriously on some kind of fabled quest to annoy me?
Or is it something else…?

And it’s possible it just might be my ceiling fan light (including other factors), according to this post. Mel has recommended me to get this; a pair of Daylight LED bulbs to replace the current bulb in my ceiling fan. He uses something similar, and it should help get the headset all the light it requires.
And as to why the headset is so unbelievably sensitive, isn’t to piss me off, but to make the head tracking be as smooth as possible. Else, it would have highly unwanted effects on my eyes. And as much as my anger refuses to believe this (as I’ve never dealt with something like this in my life)… I just.. I have nothing to say. Except… this better be the last fucking thing I’m having to waste money on to fix an issue related to VR. Mel feels this should be last.
Now that I have my regular monthly money, I bought it (after finding out from two people who claim the bulb works for ceiling fans). Sadly it won’t come ’till next Tuesday (even though the page claims they have plenty in stock).

Ok, so.. let’s just assume Mel is right, and the headset truly is getting too much -or- too little light entering its sensors. And going over that thread, especially this…
“It seems to need a new setup every time the light changes. I set it up in the morning and by afternoon I have to reset it. Then again at night.”
This correlates exactly to all the times I had to redo the boundary. How I’ve said that “I can’t keep it going for longer than a day”. This seems to be the closest response I’ve ever found, to actually finding a solution to my issue; knowing someone has the same issue as me.
The fact I can visibly see natural light bleeding through the sides of my window when it’s daytime, is proving it more and more that this is the issue.
So, getting the bulb + putting towels in the windows, should help eliminate this issue for good. At least, in theory. I need to block as much extra light (that the bulb isn’t producing), as humanly possible. Even something as natural as a cloud blocking the sun, is possibly fucking with the headset’s sensors.

Until when I finally get the bulb, I might as well get used to the fact I’ll have to constantly clear the environmental data (to clear out the old boundary) and do a new one (every time it fails to detect it).
It could easily be worse, you know?

.
EDIT: I nearly broke my back (muscles are sore, but I’ll live), but I tried what I could to seal up as much natural light coming from the windows as I could. And my room feels quite darker than it was, nearly proving that light is the reason it’s losing the boundary.
For the window that my AC is in, I used an old bedsheet to block the light coming from the top of it.
And for the one near my computer table, I used the curtains and used tape to seal out the bleeding light on the sides.
I’m still going to need that bulb. I wish it would come sooner.

Posted in Computing, Personal | Comments Off on Could my room’s light actually be the problem?

The answer to the boundary ‘deleting’, has been in my headset all this time…

Posted on 10-02-2018 by Benie

One of my biggest issues with WMR, has been the boundary ‘deleting’ itself for no reason. This issue nearly made me want to throw the headset against a wall… I’m not kidding. I can’t keep the damn thing up for longer than a day! There’s NO EXCUSE for this to be happening!! The headset has plenty of light! ..At least, I hope it is.
But finally, there’s a breakthrough. After discussing for two hours with the acquaintance, the answer was literally right through the lenses of my headset.
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When losing the boundary, never once have I thought of putting the headset on. For it shows to do so, then to look left, right, and then down. Eventually, it will re-locate my boundary. Though I have had times when this message came up suddenly, doing the left right and down thing, and then it claims it can’t find the boundary (and gives me the options to re-trace it). But I hope by doing it as soon as the boundary is ‘Off’, I won’t see that message again.
And as for the ‘check display cable’ message… at this time, there doesn’t seem to be a true fix for it (other than unplugging the HDMI cable and putting it back in).

Though I’m absolutely thrilled the issue wasn’t because the headset hates my
room (and/or my guts), I can’t help but feel that the MR Portal could had told me this. There was no message of “Oops, we lost your boundary! Please put your headset on to calibrate it.”
They really need to add this. It should be common sense to include that. But I forget, this is Micro$oft.. they have no common sense.

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Amazon Prime ‘free trial’ after already using it

Posted on 09-29-2018 by Benie

Needing a USB extension cable for my clip-on mic (that someone suggested to get as an alternative to all the issues I’ve been having with it), my first stop was to look at Amazon.
They do indeed have what I’m looking for.
Shipping, they want $5.99 and it’ll be here on October 5th.. or, you can get ‘fast free shipping’ with an Amazon Prime “free trial”.. which is the topic of tonight’s blog post.
I’m sure this topic has been under scrutiny by multiple people, and Amazon has done nothing to address these concerns.
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But just to make this clear, I have nothing against Amazon Prime or anyone that uses
it. Feel free to keep doing so.
My concern is this ‘free trial’ pushing, especially when you already used it. Amazon (surely) has the technology to check your account and see if you qualify for this free shipping. And if you don’t, then change the ‘free trial’ to ‘only $99’ (or whatever how much they’re charging nowadays). But they’ve decided that misleading/annoying customers who have no need for Prime, is much more enjoyable. Because fuck transparency.
What’s worse, how they trick you with the illusion of “wow, shipping is FREE if you choose me!” free trial when you pick the “get it this day with fast free shipping!” option.. only for them to charge $99 to your account.

I realize that one man cannot control what a mega company like Amazon does. That’s why I request backup in this quest. Not just for myself, but for anyone who has no need of Prime. People that only buy stuff from Amazon whenever they need to.
Customers should always come first, money second.

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