Unreal VR Crashes on startup when no Headset is connected

Development Platform & Builds XR Development
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1

Hi,

I develop in VR with Unreal. Everything worked fine before yesterday. I did a Graphics Driver Update and some updates for Windows 11 and also updated Unreal to the newest Version for 5.1 and 5.2. Since then when I try to start a VR Project of any kind (also tried the VR Template) Unreal begins to load and when it hits 35% it stops and then crashed without any error message. The last entries in the log are

[2023.06.06-10.41.16:207][  0]LogHMD: OpenXRHMDModule::InitInstance using DefaultLoader.
[2023.06.06-10.41.16:216][  0]LogHMD: Optional extension XR_KHR_vulkan_swapchain_format_list is not available
[2023.06.06-10.41.16:216][  0]LogHMD: Optional extension XR_VARJO_quad_views is not available
[2023.06.06-10.41.16:216][  0]LogHMD: Optional extension XR_EPIC_view_configuration_fov is not available

When I start any other project without VR the Editor starts without any problems.
When I now hook up my VR Device to my computer so that SteamVR recognizes it and then start my VR Unreal Project the Editor starts without any Problems. I have no idea why this is happening and it is pretty tiring to always start the VR Device before starting the Unreal Project. Has anybody an idea what I can do?

I already tried different Graphics Drivers that worked before but nothing changed.
My System:
Windows 11 Pro
Version: 10.0.22621
Processor: i7-12700KF
RAM: 32GB
Graphics Card: AMD Radeon 6900 XT with Version 23.5.2

Edit: When I was connected once with Steam VR and then don’t close SteamVR the Engine always starts even when the Vr Device is not connected anymore. When I only start SteamVR it doesn’t work. It seems it needs to have a VR Device connected once.

Thank you,
Maurice

2

So the Problem seems to be SteamVR. When I uninstall SteamVR the VR Project starts without any Problems. After I installed it again it crashes on the 35% without any error message. But I don’t understand why that happens because we only use SteamVR to start our application. Our Project only uses the OpenXR Plugin.

3

Problem occurs for:

  • Steam VR 1.25.8 as OpenXR Runtime
  • Windows 11 Pro Version: 10.0.22621

Solution:

  • Update Steam VR to Steam VR Beta 1.26.2.

Might be related to the Patch Note Re-enabled instance creation even if there is no active hmd available. because with connected hmd it worked.