VR Preview for Quest 3 in 5.4.4 displays a black screen in the headset

Even though I can see the game being rendered in the preview window on my PC, the screen is completely black within the Quest 3 headset. This happened after updating Unreal Engine from 5.4.3 to 5.4.4. If I change the Meta XR project settings to use “Epic Native OpenXR with Oculus vendor extensions” for the XR API, I can see the game in the headset, but my quest controllers are no longer being tracked. It seems as though the “Oculus OVRPlugin + OpenXR backend” option is what is causing this black screen in the headset. I’m using forward rendering, and I tried disabling mobile multi-view (also, never use instanced stereo for mobile btw) but that doesn’t help. I even tried switching to deferred rendering on mobile.

I don’t know if it’s because Unreal Engine updated to 5.4.4 or because my Quest 3 headset updated to version 69, but this is insane. It’s probably because the headset is using newer firmware, now that I think about it… There isn’t an updated Meta XR plugin for 69 yet.

What’s really interesting is I can see in-game debug messages within the headset, so even though the game is completely black in the headset, somehow, the UE debug messages are being rendered just fine. It’s strange because in the preview window on my PC, I can see the game being rendered just fine along with the debug messages overlaying the game. It’s just bizarre that these minor versions of UE & Meta Quest 3 firmware would completely break the development lifecycle for me.

I’m also having this issue, every exact same facet except that I’m having it in 5.4.3, but not 5.2.1 or 5.4.4.
I’m able to view unlit mode just fine. F2 or F3 when in vr preview.
Is it related to GPU light baking or virtual textures? Not sure!

Did you have any luck?

No luck just yet, but hopefully 5.5 will be more promising, and there are a few posted solutions in the forums now for 5.4.4 Build APK for Quest 3 on UE 5.4.4 - #6 by Paul_Eckhardt

he VR Preview for Quest 3 in version 5.4.4 is experiencing a black screen issue in the headset. This problem could hinder user experience and may require troubleshooting steps or updates from the developers to resolve compatibility or software bugs. Users should stay informed about fixes or workarounds.

I was able to get it working today :slight_smile:
I had to disable Stereo Foveation. It was my own mistake, tinkering with Rendering settings and find out the hard way. It works now, but I still get a black screen in the headset after packaging, deploying, and running natively on the headset. My original problem was not being able to use the Oculus OVRPlugin in VR Preview mode at all, causing black screen, but now that is fixed.