Vive XR Elite controllers are no longer tracking in Steam VR. (Known good ALVR versions broken)

[JohnTator]

Description

Vive XR Elite controllers are no longer tracked in Steam VR, though hand tracking will move the controllers if enabled. When testing Quest 3, it's controllers track as normal on my ALVR setup. This problem exists on both Linux and Windows.

XR Elite controllers worked perfectly until recently, but now even reverting to known good versions of ALVR (20.7.0) won't work for this headset (Likely triggered by either Steam VR update or Vive Firmware update). Both hands and controller markers are displayed and working in the local environment of the android apk. Head tracking is functioning normally. Using the Vive Streaming hub still functions correctly on Windows (Not an option on Linux). Steam VR shows the controllers as greyed out, with the simulated hand controllers in the newer versions lighting up as tracked. No errors in ALVR output.

General Troubleshooting

• [X] I carefully followed the instructions in the README and successfully completed the setup wizard
• [X] I read the ALVR GitHub Wiki

Environment

Hardware

CPU: i9-9900KF

GPU: GeForce RTX 3080 Ti

GPU Driver Version: Nvidia 550.107.02

Audio: Pipewire

Installation

ALVR Version: Tested 20.11.0, 20.10.0, 20.9.0, 20.8.0, 20.7.0, Likely all versions.

ALVR Settings File: No settings modified.

SteamVR Version: 2.7.4 (also tried previous version option in betas)

Install Type:

• [X] Packaged (exe, deb, rpm, etc)
• [X] Portable (zip)
• [ ] Source

OS Name and Version: Windows 11, Linux Mint 22 (Ubuntu 24.04)

[zmerp]

If a specific version of ALVR just stopped working and you updated the firmware recently, then wait for a firmware fix

[JohnTator]

If a specific version of ALVR just stopped working and you updated the firmware recently, then wait for a firmware fix

Considering how small ALVR is, I wouldn't bet on the hardware manufacturer being aware or concerned about whether their device continues to work with this software. As long as the hardware works on officially supported streamers, they likely won't see it as something that needs to be fixed at all. All I can really hope for is that ALVR devs can figure out why it stopped working and patch it on their end. It should be possible, since other PCVR streamers do indeed still work with the device.

[zmerp]

We will investigate. Last time I tried ALVR on a Focus 3 it was working fine

[Lollerix]

I'm having the same problem, my controllers are not tracking in steam VR yet i can see the boundaries if i stretch my hands thorough them. Is there any way I could help in diagnose the problem?

[xytovl]

I suppose this is related to invalid data in xrLocateHandJointsEXT: https://forum.htc.com/topic/20015-vive-xr-elite-software-10999702-%E2%80%93-release-notes/

[zmerp]

I have tested earlier and controllers work well on the Focus 3. I cannot reproduce

[JohnTator]

edited title to remove Focus 3 since this appears to be isolated to the XR Elite's firmware as mentioned above.

[zmerp]

Ok, so it seems this is unactionable

[ValkaTR]

another xr elite user here. the issue is exactly as described by original poster

[malibloo]

Vive Focus Vision user here with the same controllers as XRE users. Same issue here. Tried to use ALVR because VIVE Hub was having issues, couldn't even test if this was working better.

[zmerp]

Oh, thanks for the report. We'll have to tweak the code for the vive. Not sure when i can test this, as i don't have that headset.

[TsaiTung-Chen]

Same problem here on VIVE XR Elite.

I've noticed that if I disable the hand tracking from the VIVE XRE settings, the controller moves while I rotate it as shown in the figure below.

There could be something related to the controller changed in a hand tracking update on VIVE XRE.